OPETH's MIKAEL ÅKERFELDT: 'I Don't Really See Myself As A Singer Or A Guitar Player For That Matter'

In a new interview with Finland's Chaoszine, OPETH guitarist/vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt spoke about his evolution as a singer. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I don't really see myself as a singer — or a guitar player for that matter. I see myself as a — I am a musician. I like to come to write music. I think that's fun. The singer thing, it's, like, nobody else wanted to do it [in the early days of OPETH]. I guess it has to be me. And I don't compare myself to my peers or my idols, especially my idols. I don't go, like, 'Hey, Ronnie Dio, what's your trick? Mine's this and that. I'm gonna teach you something.' Those guys up there. I'm just like a bum who got lucky, if you know what I mean.

"With our own albums, I wanna listen to the record and not really hear that it's me, so to speak," he explained. "So I like to distance myself from the person singing on the record. And with death metal vocals, that's quite easy, because, of course, I don't sound like that when I'm talking to you now. And with the clean vocals, I'm just kind of trying to get as close to my idols as I can. But everybody's given this particular voice. I don't have any training. I don't know what the hell I'm doing most of the time. The last album that we recorded, I think I tried to sing more clean vocals with a bit more grovelly type of thing."

Mikael added: "I don't think about vocals. It's an instrument like any other. Sometimes it demands a full-on type of singing, sometimes a really laid-back type of singing. Lucky for me, I can produce the sounds that I want to hear. So I'm fairly wide as a singer in that sense. I'm not great, but I can sing softly, I can sing midrange a bit stronger and I can do death metal screams. So in that sense, I'm kind of covering a lot of bases from the music that I wanna do. But I'm not a master in either style, if you know what I mean. It's just kind of… I can achieve the results I want. And also it's hard for me to, like I said, see myself as a singer. With that said, nobody else can take my place, if you know what I mean, after all these years. In this band, I am the singer; it's just how it is. And even for me it's hard sometimes to get that through my head."

Asked if he feels that the clean singing and death metal vocals go like hand in hand, so if he becomes better with the clean singing, it also helps with the screaming, he responded: "Good question. Not necessarily, I think. It's a different type of technique, I guess. Clean singing to me, first and foremost, you wanna try and be in pitch, kind of. Then, if you look at other singers, there's people who sing perfect pitch, but they don't really have a great, a nice voice to listen to, if you know what I mean. For me, I mostly hear the negative aspects of my clean voice, which, what I said before, I don't really like to hear me, meaning the ugly aspects of my own voice, so to speak. So, I try to develop a style that doesn't really sound like me. And over the years, that's the vocal style that's been developed the most while, in a way, the death metal vocals have suffered a little bit for that. But playing live, of course, playing lots of old songs, you do both. Death metal vocals, for me, feel more consistent than the other vocals. But then again, I don't know. It's all perception. What do people think out there in the crowd? 'Oh, he was shit that day,' or 'great that day.' And I thought I was shit both days, if you know what I mean. [Laughs]"

OPETH's new album, "The Last Will And Testament", will arrive on October 11 via Reigning Phoenix Music/Moderbolaget.

OPETH's fourteenth album was written by Åkerfeldt, with lyrics conferred with Klara Rönnqvist Fors (THE HEARD, ex-CRUCIFIED BARBARA). "The Last Will And Testament" was co-produced by Åkerfeldt and Stefan Boman (GHOST, THE HELLACOPTERS),engineered by Boman, Joe Jones (KILLING JOKE, ROBERT PLANT) and OPETH, with Boman, Åkerfeldt and the rest of OPETH mixing at Atlantis and Hammerthorpe Studios in Stockholm. The strings on "The Last Will And Testament" were arranged by Åkerfeldt and returning prog friend Dave Stewart (EGG, KHAN) and conducted by Stewart at Angel Studios in London. Not one to miss a beat, visual artist Travis Smith returns to the fold, crafting his 11th cover, a haunting "photograph" reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's infamous "Overlook Hotel" photograph. Miles Showell (ABBA, QUEEN) also revisits mastering and vinyl lacquer cutting at Abbey Road Studios in London.

Åkerfeldt rolls out the red carpet for storied flautist and JETHRO TULL mainman Ian Anderson. Not only do Anderson's signature notes fly on "§4" and "§7", he narrates on "§1", "§2", "§4", and "§7". Joining Anderson, EUROPE's Joey Tempest lends a backing vocal hand on "§2", while Åkerfeldt's youngest daughter, Mirjam Åkerfeldt, is the disembodied voice in "§1".

"The Last Will And Testament" is a concept album set in the post-World War I era, unfolding the story of a wealthy, conservative patriarch whose last will and testament reveals shocking family secrets. The narrative weaves through the patriarch's confessions, the reactions of his twin children, and the mysterious presence of a polio-ridden girl who the family have taken care of. The album begins with the reading of the father's will in his mansion. Among those in attendance is a young girl, who, despite being an orphan and polio-ridden, has been raised by the family. Her presence at the will reading raises suspicions and questions among the twins.

"The Last Will And Testament" is the darkest and heaviest record OPETH has made in decades, and it is also the band's most fearlessly progressive. A concept album recounting the reading of one recently deceased man's will to an audience of his surviving family members, it brims with haunting melodrama, shocking revelations and some of the wildest and most unpredictable music that Åkerfeldt has ever written.

The follow-up to 2019's widely acclaimed "In Cauda Venenum", "The Last Will And Testament" is set in the shadowy, sepia-stained 1920s. It slowly reveals its secrets like some classic thriller from the distant, cobwebbed past, with each successive song shining more light on the stated machinations of our dead (but definitely not harmless) protagonist. The emotional chaos of the story is perfectly matched by OPETH's vivid but claustrophobic soundtrack, which artfully winds its way towards a crestfallen but sumptuous finale. Masters of their own idiosyncratic musical domain, OPETH have never sounded more unique.

"The Last Will And Testament" is destined to be a milestone in OPETH's illustrious recorded history. The band's first out-and-out concept record, it features guest cameos from JETHRO TULL legend Ian Anderson and Joey Tempest, frontman with Swedish rock gods EUROPE. Only one of the album's eight songs has a title: closing ballad "A Story Never Told". The rest are simply labeled as numbered chapters in this slowly unfolding saga of deceit, recrimination and betrayal. Enigmatic, unsettling and immersive, "The Last Will And Testament" is a turbulent, prog metal tale like no other.

Making his recorded debut alongside OPETH's long-established lineup of Mikael Åkerfeldt, guitarist Fredrik Åkesson, bassist Martin Mendez and keyboard maestro Joakim Svalberg on "The Last Will And Testament" is new drummer Waltteri Väyrynen, who joined the band in 2022.

OPETH will embark on a North American tour this fall. The trek, which will kick off on October 11 in Milwaukee, includes stops in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, New Orleans, Austin, Denver and more.