Time goes really fast. These guys released Watershed two years ago, and now the band is celebrating its twentieth birthday! On this occasion, Opeth went on a special tour with six dates all around the world and a mandatory stop in the old French capital. At the Bataclan, namely, a few hours before the show, the striking and joyful (side of him we didn't know) Mikael Åkerfeldt talked to us, unfortunately too shortly because of a lack of time, about this anniversary and a career rewarded by great success.
Progressia : What state of mind are you in 30 minutes before the show? Do you or the band have some kind of ritual before going on stage?
Mikael Åkerfeldt : We don't really have a ritual per se. Everybody is doing whatever they want, hang out ... some people tend to sleep. I usually warm up my voice like an hour before the show, singing in some toilet, not for the resonance but so I can be alone. (laughs) I also play guitar and warm my fingers up. We sometimes talk and play funny music to be in a good mood. I wouldn't call it rituals. I feel calm for tonight. I was nervous for the first show, not so much about the performance, but because I wanted to see if everything worked: we have so many new members in the crew working with us, new pedalboards, a show with two sets, a pause and a meet and greet.
Did you change the order of the setlist after the first show in Essen?
No, there are only six shows so we are sticking to a first half with the Blackwater Park record, and a second half which is a chronological show, starting with songs from the first record and ending with songs of the last one.
You seem pretty confident, smiling more than the last time we met, two years ago, for the Watershed promo campaign, why?
I can't remember if there was something on my mind ... (laughs) Maybe I had a toothache because I had to go have my tooth fixed in Brussels for a root canal filling. Most of the time, I'm smiling !
What are the different musical or human evolutions that you, your compositions or the band have been through during the last 20 years?
I always thought there has been changes on every album so far, slight or drastic sometimes like what we did with the Damnation album. My Arms Your Hearse was different from what we had done before. When you hear the second set which is the chronological one, I think you can still tell it's the same band. Dan Swanö, one of our earliest producers [Editor's note: producer of Orchid and Morningrise], came to the show in Essen. He was amazed because the sound was the same and he could still recognize the vibe from the earliest songs, which was still there. He really liked the way we kept the same sound despite 15 years of writing new material. A lot of things evolved like the clean vocals and all the influences that we have taken from outside, music that we listened, and line-up changes. Our music has just grown. I must have learned something during these years. (laughs) I was more shy back in the days.
Do you think it is the best way to get successful after a few releases, when the band is more mature so it helps avoiding some kind of explosion that could occur in the early years?
Possibly, but it's hard to tell. I can't really compare it to anything else because that's all I know. It was probably better on a personal level, that we kept our feet on the ground. We were a small underground band and then we made the Blackwater Park album …
Could we say that Katatonia and Opeth are twin bands, since you have similar evolutions?
We have pretty similar tastes, but we also have many differences when it comes to music. There are some parts of their music I would love on my own records and there are other things I don't like at all, like drum beats. I don't like them at all and I keep telling them. (laughs) We get along very well, we just know each other so well on a personal and on a musical level! When I write a song, I kind of know if Jonas [Editor's note : Renkse, Katatonia's vocalist] will like it or not and it's the same for him.
How do you currently see music in general?
That's a difficult question … I don't think we've looked at what's going on now as much as what happened twenty / thirthy years ago. I tend to find older music more interesting for some reason. Maybe it's because I missed it before...I was too young to hear it when it was released. Literaly, when I put on a new record, it just doesn't do much for me. I try to find new bands that I like, though.
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