OPETH Frontman Talks About Collaboration With MIKE PORTNOY, STEVEN WILSON

OPETH frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt has confirmed reports that he is planning on collaborating with PORCUPINE TREE's Steven Wilson and DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Portnoy on an as-yet-unnamed new project. "We've been talking the three of us," Mikael said in a recent interview with Tony of KASC The Blaze 1260 AM (web site) (the campus radio station at Arizona State University). "It started with me and Steve. Once we first met, which was like six years ago or something, we've been talking about doing something, like writing together. And since he worked with [OPETH as a producer] for a couple of albums, we got that whole collaboration thing put on hold because we were already working together. With him in the studio, it was a very creative relationship that we had, but we've never really written music together, so that's still… I'm 100 percent [sure] that that's going to happen. And Portnoy... PORCUPINE TREE toured with DREAM THEATER and he wanted to be involved. I used to be a massive DREAM THEATER fan — I'm still a fan of them and he's a really nice guy, good drummer, so that's cool. And we're looking at some other people, maybe to involve some guests. I think we're gonna start slow — it's not gonna be something blown out of proportion, it's just gonna be for the sake of our love of music. I think we're gonna do a song that Steve wrote for the 'In Absentia' album that didn't make it, which is a massively fantastic song. That's what we're gonna record first, I think, unless the band comes around and they record it as a PORCUPINE TREE song, but I'd love to record that song with him and then just write some stuff. And I don't know what it's gonna be like. It's just talk right now. [But] I'm sure it's going to happen."

KASC The Blaze 1260 AM's entire interview with OPETH frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt can be downloaded in MP3 format at this location (14 MB).

In a recent interview with Drummer's Digest, Portnoy has the following to say about the above-mentioned project: "I've been a fan of [OPETH's] for years, and we've become friends the last couple of years. He and I and Steven Wilson have talked about doing something together. Hopefully some time soon we'll be able to coordinate our schedules and make it happen. I think me and Steven want to make it heavy, and I think Mikael wants to, uh, not be heavy. Because me and Steven want to do stuff that we can't do with PORCUPINE TREE and DREAM THEATER, and get to some really heavy stuff. And I think that Mikael wants to get away from the heavy stuff because he does that all the time with OPETH, so who knows. Maybe we'll meet somewhere in the middle. I think it'll be great. I mean, I've had great experiences collaborating with other people, especially people who are the kind of leaders of their bands. That was kind of what TRANSATLANTIC was about, since Neal Morse and Roine Stolt are kind of the leaders of their bands, you know. It was a great creative environment, and I think a similar chemistry would happen with Steven and Mikael."

(Thanks: Tony / KASC The Blaze 1260 AM)