Opeth, well... Of course nobody would ever say no to Opeth. Especially when you’re a huge fan of the Swedish band, like I am. Below you can find the transcription of a part of the very pleasant conversation I had with Opeth’s Peter Lindgren.
First of all, of course, I would like to thank you for making time for us, and allowing our readers to get to know more about Opeth. I saw you perform last Sunday (Metal Fest, Tilburg), and I must say it was outstanding, except for, maybe, the beginning.
It was a bit of a mess. We didn’t even have a line check, so when we got up we didn’t even know what we would sound like.
I noticed you didn’t have a set list.
No, we never have a set list. Basically it’s always the same. We have five or six songs we play every gig. “Godhead’s Lament”, “A Fair Judgement”, “Deliverance”, “Advent”, “Drapery Falls” and of course “Demon of the Fall”. Today there will be another three songs. Sometimes, when Mikael’s voice is not up to standard we play something different.
Are you going to play any mellow songs as well today?
We didn’t do “Credence” in Tilburg, so we’re going to do so today
What are Opeth’s main influences, music wise? How does this show in your music?
We gather more and more influences along the years, you know. We started out as being fans of eighties heavy metal. Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, then seventies bands like Black Sabbath, Judas Priest again. But also Led Zeppelin and Metallica, those kinds of bands. After a while there was black Metal. Morbid Angel had a major influence on us. After that we found out about the seventies progressive rock, bands like Camel, you know. Now it’s just like, everything that’s good!
What makes Opeth Opeth?
I think our influences probably play a major role here. When we founded the band, we decided that we wanted to make long songs with a lot of things going on. And it was probably progressive rock bands that thought us we could mix all kinds of things. We try to mix in all our influences, that’s one thing. Mikael is a great song writer, that is another thing. And I also think we’ve got a good band feeling, which I think shines through both when we record as well as when we’re on stage in a live situation.
What is it in “The Night and The Silent Water” that you don’t like?
I didn’t know it was Mikael’s least favourite song too. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad song. I sort of like everything we’ve done. At least we’re proud of everything we’ve done. I think ‘Morningrise’ is my least favourite Opeth album, that’s probably mostly due to the production of the album and everything. I chose a song from my least favourite album. I think it’s a bit dull. We play more than fifty percent of the songs live at least once. There’s between 25 and 50 % maybe that we’ve never played. This could be due to different reasons. It could be because we think the song is not so good. Or it could be that the new album is out so we couldn’t do all the songs, or whatever.
What’s up with Opeth and Ivanhoe? The names of his cats, the back of the new shirt (Look your last upon the sun).
It’s probably for fun. In Sweden, on of the days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, Ivanhoe is being broadcast. Mikael is obsessed with knowing the actors’ names, and their characters’ names. It’s just a silly thing really, but we thought it sounded good.
The band was named after the city of the moon in a Wilbur Smith novel. Which one? What is it about?
It’s called “The Sunbird”. I think Opeth actually spells without the H. None of the original Opeth members are still in the band. The guy who founded the band in the beginning was called David. It was his name; he read the book and liked the name. So we thought when he left the band we’d ask if we could keep the name. Because we got used to it and we liked it. For us, however, it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe we should start changing the story about the origin of the name.
I don’t agree, if you compare it to a marriage where someone has forgotten the rings. It’s not fun at the time…
But you have a good story at the end.
Indeed!
(Both laughing)
What can we expect from ‘Damnation’? One of your favourite Opeth albums…
People won’t be so surprised when they hear the album. Some things have been stripped down. There are no screaming vocals and no super heavy guitars, you know. It’s still a dark album. There are more ballad-like songs, even though they aren’t ballads, they are more mellow songs. The songs are shorter. They are still dark and heavy, but more in a Led Zeppelin kind of way. It’s more like having a balance between the songs. And there are mellotrons on the album as well. It’s going to be interesting to see what the reviews will be like. I think most of the fans will like it, but we wonder what the regular metal fans some won’t like it, others will. I think we’ll have a split. I don’t really care, but it’s going to be interesting.
And what about the next record? The eighth legendary Opeth album, what will it be like?
Damnation is not going to be a new direction for us. We’re not going to go soft or anything. We have so much touring ahead of us, when we’re done with that we need a break from each other. It won’t happen till mid next year t the earliest, you know. So we don’t know what the new album is going to be like. We’re not going to abandon metal even if Damnation turns out to be a success. We just wanted to do it, but we wanted to do it for a long time. The label didn’t like the idea so much. But they had to accept the idea that we wanted to do two albums. We lose a lot of money on it actually. But we are not going to abandon the death metal. Trust me!
Why two separate albums and not make it one double?
Because they are so diverse. We had to abandon the idea to put them out at the same time. But we also want to do a Damnation tour as well. We’re going to bring in the mellotron player and have carpets on stage etcetera. So we can do another tour after this one. If it has been out for five years, nobody will want to come and see us. Another reason is that in the seventies bands like Kiss used to release a new album every six months; we’ve never been able to do that, until now.
Well. You’ve sort of been up to schedule, haven’t you?
Orchid was recorded in 1994, released in 1995. But it’s not as bad as Tool, for example, they release an album every decade or something.
Which are the most relevant emotions in your music?
I think Melancholy, probably. It’s like the music I listen too in my music collection. When I look at my record collection, melancholy it’s all dark melancholy stuff.
So you must like the Cure than?
Yes, I do, I like everything up to ‘Wish’, really. And I even like the ‘Bloodflowers’ album, I’ve been a fan for such a long time, it’s hard to let go. The Cure and even Depeche Mode are better than Iron Maiden nowadays, I think.
I also listen to David Bowie quite a lot.
Well, so do I!
Which of the 7 is your favourite album and why?
I’ve got three favourite albums, if I can choose three. Well, music wise, ‘Blackwater Park’ and ‘Damnation’ are probably our best, in a way. They are very different, even though 'Deliverance' is a really good album too. But, my favourite album is ‘My Arms Your Hearse’, because we had so many problems at the time. Our bass player left. We booked the studio, but we didn’t have any songs, and no rehearsal room. Martin was new in the band, he didn’t really know what we were up to, so that was a problem. There was a time when we thought maybe we should go home now and rethink about the band. We even thought about quitting the band when the old drummer left too. Considering these problems it is still one of my favourite albums. It also has a bunch of live songs in it, we still play them frequently.
In fact, I invented a new word because of you guys! It’s “opethian”: Every time you listen to the songs you hear something new, and they never bore you. In fact, they get better and better.
If you like an album a lot the first time you hear it, you might get bored with it. Every time you listen to the songs, you discover something new. Yes, we like it when you keep discovering new stuff when you hear an album over and over again.
You guys don’t like rehearsing. What is the difference between rehearsing and performing?
A major difference is that rehearsing. We’ll let me start with this. In the beginning we used to rehearse a lot. We’re on stage so much we want to do something different too. When I see the guys off stage, I want to do something different than play music. I want to drink a beer with them, you know. But, we have to. The sound simply isn’t so great until you’re fully rehearsed.
‘Still Life’ is almost like a concept album. What I would like to know is: Who’s Melinda?
It’s actually a made-up name. I just said to Mike I would like the album to have a female name in the title. He thought it was a good idea, but he chose to have the Melinda name as a concept in the album. Melinda is a mystical figure that you can almost fall in love with, even though you don’t have a clue what she looks like.
What’s the magic between Opeth and Steven Wilson your producer and guest musician?
It’s funny, because we were die hard fans of Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree. When I listen to In Absentia, I think this is probably the best album I have ever heard. He just popped a mail to Mike to say that he really liked ‘Still Life’. Mikael was of course really enthusiastic, met him in London to have a drink, and the cunning plan was to ask him to produce our album. He liked the music, had a major impact on our music. Apparently well, we’re fans, but we ripped him off every now and again. (laughs) We have also influence them, the guitar production is a lot better now. The first song of ‘In Absentia’ has a ‘Blackwater Park’-riff. The thing is we never used a producer before, really. Dan Swanö he was just producing the sounds, the songs were already written. Fredrik Nordstrom just sets the sounds, he wasn’t a producer either. We obviously thought that if we wanted to bring somebody in, we wanted it to be someone we would trust, someone we respected, you know, some one who knows what he’s doing, because otherwise, there is no point, really, to get a producer. Steven is a genius, you know. He has all these ideas we can work with. I never met anyone like him. It’s really interesting to work with him, I learn from him, you know.
You started out as a death metal band. Are there any bands that you like today?
I like Bloodbath, but that’s more of a tribute, really. One of the bands is Morbid Angel, even though I like their old stuff better. They are still a good band. But, to be honest, I’m not really up to date. I don’t look for death-metal bands anymore. If someone brings me something I will listen to it. And I like Vader.
And any other styles of metal?
I think Madder Mortem are really good. They have great ideas. They have the Morbid Angel kind of way. They are probably one of the best – I don’t know if you can call it death metal – but they are one of the best heavy metal bands today. They don’t have the death metal vocals, except for one song where the guitar player is screaming. They are probably one of the best bands around. My favourite metal band at the time is probably Katatonia.
Even though the first two albums had this crappy singer?
Indeed, he was shit and should never be allowed to enter a studio again.
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