“It’s not like we deliberately want to be strange and fuck things up. It’s almost like I’m latching on to how I’ve always been writing music, what I like, and I want to keep that intact. That’s been intact since the first record. I understand the sensitive people who have loved the band but maybe don’t like the new stuff, but I don’t like for them to feel like we’re turning our backs on them either. We’re still doing what we want to do, we’re writing songs with the same process we always have”.Åkerfeldt explains, when the band hits the road they’ll be playing a mix of their heavier past material and the new stuff as well. “So people will get their fix, but when it comes to new music that sounds like the old records, it’s simply not gonna happen,” he says. “We want to move on, y’know? But that’s not necessarily saying we’re never going to do a death metal scream. That might happen, y’know?”
Åkerfeldt likens the band’s directional shift to the backlash against the forthcoming new Pink Floyd album. “People have so many odd opinions about that. Like, referring back to us, it’s like people saying it’s not Opeth anymore, like they have the power to decide when it’s not Opeth anymore because it just simply doesn’t fit their idea of what we are, but I think that’s a bit unfair. I think people should be happy that Pink Floyd are doing a new record, and it’s debatable but they should just shut up and enjoy it! If they like it or not, it is David Gilmour who has been the head of Pink Floyd since the mid-‘80s, and if the music features Rick Wright who passed away, why wouldn’t you want to be able to listen to it? And Nick Mason’s probably gonna play drums as far as I know, and Roger Waters is not gonna be angry! For me I look forward to it, very much.”
A big part of the shift further from death metal is the album’s preponderance towards lush harmony vocals. So where’d that come from? “A lot of metal fans might be sad to hear that I went into old man’s rock territory,” he jokes. “I was listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and I was introduced to David Crosby by Steven Wilson who played me his first solo record, and obviously he was in The Byrds and he’s a master of vocal harmonies. I picked up on that and there was a time when I was writing this record where I figured I wanted to do harmony vocals all the way through. Like, only harmony vocals.”
When our talk turns to guitar-geek territory, Åkerfeldt admits he’s a hardcore gear collector. “I’m ashamed to say I love guitars but I probably have too many and I need to appreciate each and every one of them,” he says. “I love the guitars. I think they are beautiful pieces of art, but I also obviously use them because I want to play them. We are endorsed by PRS so when we tour I only play PRS, and I have shitloads of them. When I collect guitars I usually go for the more vintage stuff and I’m a Fender Stratocaster lover. It’s something from my childhood. I used to draw them. I used to draw guitars in school. I used to build toy Stratocasters so I could mime in the mirror along to Bark at the Moon.”
BY PETER HODGSON
