OPETH Guitarist: 'We're Still Metalheads'

January 31, 2017

Metal Wani's Daniel Jaramillo recently conducted an interview with guitarist Fredrik Åkesson of Swedish progressive metallers OPETH. You can now listen to the chat below.

Asked if the change in OPETH's musical direction between 2008's "Watershed" and 2011's "Heritage" albums was deliberate or it happened in an organic way, Fredrik said: "I think it was a bit of both. I believe Mikael [Åkerfeldt, guitar/vocals], who is the pilot of the band and main songwriter, has always been like that. He felt during the 'Watershed' album that he kind of took the extreme metal thing to its peak, and that the band needed to do something different; otherwise it would stagnate, and maybe it wouldn't be around now anymore, actually."

He continued: "We're still metalheads; we listen to a lot of metal and we love heavy metal, and we love to play the old stuff as well. It's not that we shy away from it in some kind of stupid fancy way. If you go see us live, you definitely get your dose of that chunk of the band's history.

"Being that said, you don't know what's gonna happen in the future either. I always say that when we've done a new album. [Laughs]"

OPETH's twelfth album, "Sorceress", was released at the end of September.

For the band's first effort for Nuclear Blast via OPETH's imprint label Moderbolaget Records, the group returned to Rockfield Studios in Wales, also home to pivotal releases from QUEEN, RUSH and JUDAS PRIEST, where the Swedes had tracked "Pale Communion" in 2014 with Tom Dalgety

Find more on Opeth

Prev More News Next

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).