OPETH Frontman: 'Musically, I Don't Compromise For Anyone'

Rob Laing of U.K.'s Guitarist magazine recently conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt of Swedish progressive metallers OPETH. A acouple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Guitarist: Difficult question but 20 years in, what are your proudest achievements so far?

Åkerfeldt: That is a difficult question. I don't ever feel particularly proud in the sense of, "Look at me. I did this and that." I'm happy with every new album.

Guitarist: And it's all without compromise…

Åkerfeldt: Yes, definitely. Musically, I don't compromise for anyone. If you ask me to do it a certain way, you can just fuck off, if you know what I mean. Once the music and the lyrics are done, I can be a bit of a whore. If that's what the label wants me to do — I'll do their interviews, I'll do whatever they tell me to do in order to promote the record and work. But when it comes to the music, it's sacred to me. I can be like the Antichrist when it comes to people interfering with the music. Not the band — that's not a problem at all — but if a record label executive came up to me and said, "That riff is not good," I would probably headbutt him. "Shut the fuck up and sell the record."

Guitarist: You've mentioned recently that there's a possibility of you making a solo acoustic album – is this still on your mind?

Åkerfeldt: Yes, it is. I'm actually working on a song for it now. I'm working on one OPETH song and a solo song. But I did a vocal line and it was horrible! I'll have to do something better. The thing with this so-called solo album is it might not be released but it's something I want to do for me — to produce an album from scratch in my home studio without any help."

Guitarist: OPETH are getting bigger all the time. Are the pressures of the business greater on you now personally?

Åkerfeldt: Yes, there's a lot of pressure. Once the album is done, it's relentless. I immediately go into four weeks of press trips and another two weeks of "phoners." Then the tour and interviews every day on the tour. And a lot of people want to speak to me because I write most of the music and I write the lyrics; I'm the frontman. So I understand, but it's fucking tedious. So, for me personally, there's massive pressure on me at all times. But I'm trying to get the other guys involved — especially in the interviews part, helping me out and I think it's important for them because I tend to be such a control freak about the music and it's important for them to have an opinion. I want them to do more interviews. They don't necessarily want to, but I want to do less! When OPETH is in the magazine, I don't just want it to be me on the cover, I want it to be the band.

Read the entire interview from Guitarist magazine.