Opeth is one of those bands that make you feel like you're in on some fantastic secret that the rest of the music world hasn't discovered yet. Although a massive band by metal's standards, it is perhaps a shame that Opeth's status has not translated into the mainstream rock consciousness. While music rags all over are extolling the virtues of 70s progressive rock-influenced bands like Wolfmother, Opeth often get forgotten. It seems that coming from the heavy metal world is a harder stigma to break than one might suspect.
However, in all this talk of 70s progressive influence, it should not be forgotten that Opeth is one hell of a metal band, with an intimidating reputation resulting from the mighty combination of Martin Lopez's powerhouse drumming, Martin Mendez's moody bass, Peter Lindgren's technical guitar work, Mikael Akerfeldt’s amazing vocals and guitar; and now, elegant keyboards care of Per Wiberg.
Keyboards can be a controversial instrument in the heavy metal world. Used tastefully they can add a texture to a band's sound that cannot be simulated with guitar, bass and drums alone; used tastelessly, they add credence to the popular opinion that metal music is out-of-date, cheesy and all-artifice. When modern progressive metal legends Opeth decided to add a permanent keyboard player to their ranks, there were mutterings that perhaps the band was out of its depth. The keyboardist in question was unfazed. I had a chat to Wiberg about keyboards, metal and the upcoming Australian/New Zealand tour.
Being a new member, Wiberg is in the unique position to give an insider's perspective, but is also able to stand back and take note of Opeth's massive accomplishments. But despite being 'the new guy' in the band, Wiberg did not have much trouble adjusting to the world-renowned band.
“Well, to me personally, it's not that much of a difference, actually,” he says. “I knew the guys in the band before I started to tour with them. So, it’s basically more of the same thing. We got along great before I started playing with them and still do. I guess being a member of the band is a little bit more...technical stuff that goes around with it, with contracts and everything. But, I mean I still do the same thing that I did before which is play live with these guys.”
Still, one would suspect that coming to a band as established and loved worldwide as Opeth, there would be some intimidation.
“Not really. I think maybe 'challenging' is a better word,” Wiberg says. “Especially since they haven't had a keyboard player before, in the band. The most challenging thing is to play keyboards over the old songs. If you listen to the albums, they're really layered with guitars and small bits and pieces with keyboards as well, so...I mean, there are only two guys who play the guitar in the band, and when one of them goes into a solo or a melody-thing, you know, there's always stuff to 'cover up'. It's not that hard actually, to play along with the songs. It's...they need a little bit more of a ...Having to be a little bit careful so you don't ruin a good thing, know what I mean?”
Clearly, then, Wiberg's job is to make some tasteful keyboard sounds, filling in the gaps without clogging things up.
“Yeah, exactly. You don't want to go widdly-diddly all over.”
With the knowledge of music and ability to make some gorgeous keyboard sounds, it is interesting to note that Wiberg has no formal training in classical music.
“No, not at all. I don't know how to read music. I have never played any classical stuff. My background is more stuff like classic hard rock, metal and jazz and blues. I just play it by ear because I can't read music.”
The new Opeth keyboard sound itself is actually an amalgam of a whole variety of different analogue, warm-sounds from instruments like the organ, mellotron and grand piano.
“Yeah, I'd say Opeth has always had so many different influences in the music and a lot of those influences come from 60s and 70s music like progressive and psychedelia things. The way I've always played keyboards is, you know, using the classic sounds like Hammond organ, Rhodes piano and the mellotron. The guys in the band, they've always been fans of those kinds of sounds. And I don't think they wanted to have, you know, like these big orchestral stab solos played. I mean, there's plenty of good keyboard players around in metal nowadays, but maybe there's not a lot of guys that play those sounds and the styles that I do. And maybe that's why they asked me.”
Indeed, it is a very different approach to the instrument than some other bands, where it is used to simulate an orchestra or string section.
“Yeah, exactly and often in black metal bands, like Cradle and Dimmu...and that's fine for that kind of music. But you don't want to bring that into Opeth's music.”
He even plays with both hands, something many metal keyboardists rarely do.
“Yeah. I know what you mean. When you play distorted Hammond organ and you play along with guitar riffs and everything, it's a lot heavier if you play with both hands.”
Per was with Opeth on their last Australian tour, the Damnation tour in 2004, which consisted mostly of the softer, acoustic songs in Opeth's catalogue. This will, however, be the first time he has toured Australia as an official part of the band, playing the all-out metal side of Opeth. And he's excited.
“Yeah, I am. I liked it a lot when we came there the last time. Although, it's a pretty tight schedule; you don't have a lot of time to have a look around but you try to do it the best you can, with all this excitement to go to far away and new places.”
One of the things Opeth are known for is having very long compositions. The average length of a song on an Opeth album is in the realm of eight to ten minutes. With Ghost Reveries being their eighth album, choosing a set list that is representative of the band's history, while still pushing forward, must be a hard task.
"Well it's kind of tough some times." Wiberg says. "We try to do a new set list for each tour. But obviously we want to play at least a couple of songs from the latest album. And, from there you try and pick at least one song from every album. Hopefully we'll have some time to rehearse some new old-ones for the Australia/New Zealand tour. I don't know how much time we actually do have for rehearsals but I hope that we can at least do one or two old new ones. On the tour for Ghost Reveries, we've played a lot of songs that they haven't played live before. My Arms, Your Hearse is probably my favourite album in Opeth, you know, and it's always fun to play songs from that album. On this last US tour we did Amen Corner which we hadn't played a lot live before. And that's a really fun song to play. I also like the track Blackwater Park; it's really fun to do live."
With the addition of a permanent keyboard player, one might suspect there was an expectation that the new live show would consist of more keyboard-heavy songs, such as those from the new album.
“Not really,” says Wiberg. “I think...I mean, they shouldn't adjust that much just because I'm in the band. I mean, there's always ways for me to interpret the old songs. Just pick out what songs you want to play and I'll try to follow. But it's always good fun to pick out songs that they haven't played that much before, so we'll see what we can come up with for Australia and New Zealand.”
As Ghost Reveries was written with keyboard parts in mind, Per Wiberg seemed to be the natural choice, having worked with the band as a session musician and guest keyboardist on the Damnation tour.
“No, they were written with keyboards in mind. I mean, Mikael, he's like the main songwriter and he writes most of the stuff anyway. He really wanted to use the keyboards as a...like an important ingredient for this album and not just to toss around a few ideas afterwards. So, he wrote a lot of keyboard stuff and, I mean, he's not really a good keyboard player, you know, he just fiddles around with it, but he's very gifted musically. So if he calls me up and says 'can you do this?' or 'can you play it like this', no worries. It all sounds good anyway. But I think he was interested in writing with a new instrument on-board, so to speak.”
One thing that separates Opeth from other metal bands is that they don’t just make great metal, they make great music. Despite coming from the extreme metal world, Opeth’s music has crossed genre boundaries and found a rich and diverse fan base of music-lovers across the world.
“Well, that's like the biggest compliment you could ever get. I don't think, at least not anymore that...none of us in the band thinks about the music as, like, Opeth, as a pure metal band or black metal or death metal or whatever. I just think that we all [look at it as music we all like to play]. Of course, it's gonna be....I mean, as they started out, as a band with black metal/death metal roots, but so many things have happened along the way, different influences from all over the place. Nowadays I just think to call it 'Opeth'.”
A band as varied and textured as Opeth would logically have members with interesting tastes in music. Per Wiberg is no different and has, despite describing himself as a ‘big metal head’, ears that listen to a wider variety than your average big metal head.
“Well, we're complete music nerds, all of us,” he says. “So there's like a very diverse record collection as well. I listen to a lot of jazz and a lot of punk and hardcore as well. And we've been fortunate enough to tour with some really great bands, like Strapping Young Lad. Clutch is one of my favourite bands, and good friends as well. High on Fire is a fantastic band as well. There's lots of good music.”
He also doesn’t buy the idea that heavy metal is dead or dying.
“I know that when you're on the internet and certainly on maybe our own forum or whatever, there are always people that think that metal music's over now and everything's shit. That nu-metal destroyed metal or whatever. But I think that if it constantly...it wouldn't be fun if it just stood still, you know. It would still be with...the only band that's good would be Iron Maiden or Metallica. It had to change all the time; otherwise it won't pop up any good stuff.”
Opeth has also enjoyed a larger audience than many metal acts because of the crossover success they have had. Not only fans of progressive rock music and metal can be found at Opeth gigs. In fact, they can turn up an array of people into many genres of music. Wiberg attributes this partly to the acoustic-based album Damnation, where Opeth were able to show off their jazz inflected songwriting skills that once again separated them from the chaff of the metal world. Despite being in one of the more respected and lauded bands of the genre, Wiberg is still humble enough to deny that Opeth are the leaders of modern metal.
“No, not really, no,” he says with a laugh. “It's very hard to look at your own band from an outside perspective. I don't know, like, how we are viewed; if we are pioneers of anything or if we're just five bums. Strange stuff. You know, it's very hard to understand what they think of you and make of your music.”
It seems, indeed, that Opeth can hardly get much bigger than they already are. Short of writing a pop hit, there doesn't seem to be many avenues Opeth can go down.
“Yeah, but I guess we have to write a pop hit, then, also,” Wiberg laughs. “It's hard to write pop hits at ten minutes, because you won't get them played on the radio. I mean, if you've decided to be a working musician and touring, of course your ambition is to - not make the band bigger as such, because it sounds pretty strange to make the band bigger, you know - but to expand your audience or whatever, have more people coming to the shows, and see what you can do, really. But once you've decided that you're going to pay the bills with being a musician you are always trying to do better. It's hard to say, because with the kind of music we do, I don't think anyone of us counts on being shown on MTV and having lots of airplay on radio. Everyone is really aware of what kind of band we are; and that's the kind of music we like to play. If more people start to like us, that's fantastic. If not, there's not much we can do."
He's right, of course. Opeth's success has been a slow-burn, with word of mouth interest spreading about the band over many years, helped in part by an intimidating reputation as being of the best live metal bands around. In a world of instant-gratification and artists with only a short-fuse fifteen minutes of fame, Opeth has taken a very different route to success.
“Yeah, it's hard. And we don't look good either. We don't have a lot of that going for us” says Wiberg with a laugh, understanding that music videos and photo shoots are not where extreme metal acts, hirsute and rough looking as they often are, can flourish successfully.
Another factor in Opeth's continued popularity and success comes from its recent signing to Roadrunner Records for the Ghost Reveries album. The large label has enabled Opeth's music to be heard and advertised in more places around the world than could ever be achieved on the smaller labels. However, the decision to sign with Roadrunner was not without controversy, with some crying 'sell outs', when the extreme act moved to the label that has allowed Nickelback's career to gather steam and flourish.
“I mean, there's lots of fans that complained about us signing to Roadrunner,” Wiberg explains. “But to me it says that they don't have a lot of faith in the band, either. Why would a band that's been going for sixteen years all of a sudden change everything because they found a new record label? So, I don't know. It's just a record label: they try to sell our records, you know? And, to me, Roadrunner is one of the very few classic metal labels. I mean, they had so many good bands that I grew up listening to, like Obituary, Mercyfull Fate...all of that. King Diamond. And, I think it's got a little to with what age you are. I mean, if you grew up in the middle of the 90s and started listening to metal music, then maybe you don't recognise Roadrunner as one of the classic metal labels. I don't know.”
Opeth's Ghost ReveriesWhatever uninformed young upstarts might think of Opeth and Roadrunner's relationship, it can hardly be denied that Ghost Reveries is another solid, breathtaking album. In fact, fan reception and reviews alike have been positive; with some saying it is the band's best work to date. This is fantastic for Per, the 'new guy', who can claim all the extra praise as being part and parcel of his work on the album.
“Yeah, I was on the best one!” he jokes. “I think everyone's really overwhelmed with the reviews that the album has got. That's not a thing we take into consideration when you're writing and recording an album. You don't think a lot about how the reviews are gonna be, you just try to satisfy yourself and make the best possible album because you know you're gonna spend almost two years on the road playing these songs, so they better be good. But, I mean, the reviews for this album have been almost ridiculous, you know.”
Ridiculously positive reviews and acclaimed live performances seem the way of the future for Opeth and its new member Per Wiberg. As the band readies itself for the nearing Australian/New Zealand tour, antipodean fans are gathering excitement for their arrival.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be fun to go down to Australia and New Zealand. Looking forward to it a lot,” says Wiberg.
And so are we.
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