FC: Are you satisfied with the 20th anniversary tour?
M: Extremely satisfied! All of the shows was sold out. I think the Royal Albert Hall had a few minimum seats left but it was advertised as sold out, and I certainly didn’t see any gaps in there. It was packed! Really, that just made this little trek extra memorable. We wanted to celebrate 20 years, the original plan was to have some minor party in a cellar pub or something. But those plans escalated somewhat and next thing we know, we’re going on stage at the Albert Hall.
FC: Besides playing Blackwater Park, how did you choose the songs?
M: Basically we wanted to make chronological set for the 2nd one. And we picked some of the more obscure songs that we hadn’t played in a long time as well as some of the songs we know are popular, like “The moor”. It’s a song that we’ve played here and there but I personally have never been quite happy with out execution, so it’s been shelved over and over again. Now we picked it up and made a real nice new version of it I think. “Advent” felt like it got a rejuvenation with this line up, but “Forest of October” sounded virtually the same as I could remember it sounded in 1992.
FC: Many fans wanted “Black Rose immortal”…how close was it?
M: Close. I listened to the song a couple of times and just felt there were too many loose ends, too many parts I didn’t really like anymore, and it would have felt awkward playing something like that. It had been decided we’re going to play that song actually, but with the above reasons plus the fact that I don’t think a lot of people would have recognized it, or even liked it if we’d played it. We changed our minds. I think it’s a little bit of a gimmick that song. It’s “popular” because it’s our longest track, not because it’s all that great. But, I never say never. I think this line up had a tendency to breathe new life into old shit like that. We’ve done it on several occasions, so maybe it would work for this piece as well. However, “Advent” represented the “Morningrise” record better, and we all loved playing it.
FC: Were there any plans of getting ex-members to play at the anniversary-gigs?
M: Not really. There are reasons some of the past guys aren’t in the band anymore, some of which are quite delicate and it’s not a case of us calling eachother up saying “Hey buddy, haven’t talked to ya in 10 years, fancy playing an old song with us?”. I am on good terms with everyone from the past personally, but I don’t hang out with anyone other than Peter on occasion and have a very sporadic contact with Anders and Lopez. Peter had back problems on the night of the Stockholm show and couldn’t come. We didn’t really talk to any of the other guys and they didn’t call us, but we did put them all up on the guest list in case they’d drop by incognito. Some might have been there but I don’t really know.
FC: You got some critic at Cirkus for the ending…people thought that you were coming out again and waited for some 15 minutes before the lights were turned on. Comments?
M: Haha, I don’t really know. We went to the dressing room and heard everyone cheering. We’re on the verge of coming out again, but someone didn’t want to do it which is fair enough. We’d played close to 3 hours already, encores felt a bit over the top. Normally we always do an encore, but our normal set is just short of 2 hours, so there’s a difference. We didn’t even have a planned song for it as we’re set from the get go that we’d play the set without any extra songs.
FC: When can we expect the DVD to be released?
M: I have no idea. I’m going to the UK to edit the footage in a few days, and we’re already working on some of the artwork. Yet I don’t know when we’ll have it released. I’ve seen a rough cut of the first set and obviously it looks amazing. Anything would look amazing in the Royal Albert hall of course.
FC: How would you describe Opeth development over the past 20 years?
M: I think we’ve stuck to our original guns in a way. I still think you can trace todays Opeth sound right back to the first record and recognize it is the same band. Yet I’d have to say I have personally developed more of an interest in experimentation and is demanding that everyone has a open mind to what we do. That in turn requires a constant intake of new influences and development. Luckily, everyone in the band are absolute music geeks and we listen to music, discuss music, diss music, praise music more than any other band on the planet I believe. We learn from eachother. Opeth started as a band with a couple of guys with similar musical interests and ended, so to speak, with a bunch of guys with completely different musical interests, yet the fusion of our musical ideas and personalities makes it kinda swing sometimes. I mean Per is virtually a blues/rock musician, Axe started as a marching drummer, Mendez went from black metal to tango, Fredrik has been a shredder for 20 years and I’m just a bum.
FC: I´ve heard something about a soloalbum from you. If so, what can we expect and when?
M: Those rumours however true they might be are exaggerated. I said that I “wanted” to do a solo album at some point. I have absolutely no pressure on my shoulders for this and noone should expect anything anytime soon. I’m working on a few projects right now but it’s hard for me to make priorities cause I am super interested in them all. The solo thing is one of them, yes.
FC: How´s the songwriting proceeding for the new album? And when do you think it will be out?
M: It’s going “good”. I’ve written a long piece and one short piece neither of which are ready. The long one sounds good, but I think I will edit a lot of the good stuff out and just leave the amazing stuff in there. It’s getting increasingly more difficult to impress myself and my mind is just in a blur right now. I don’t know what I want it to be. The stuff that’s “keeper” stuff is however quite magnificent if I may say so myself, haha!
FC: How do you manage to keep up the high quality in your songwriting? What are your current influences?
M: By kicking my own ass and deleting, deleting. You kinda know right away whether you love something or not. You might try to fool yourself for some time. Pretending it’s “good enough”. However, “good enough” does not cut it for me. I love music too much to have it being lukewarm. It needs to be steaming hot for me. Can’t say everyone will agree, but I won’t have the Opeth logo on something that is not super-duper foxy!
FC: A Legend just died, Ronnie James Dio. What did he mean to you? Any comments?
M: He died yesterday, and I’m gutted! What can I say? It sucks! He’s been there all my life, ever since I was a child. He’s someone I feel I know much better than I really do. I met him once and it just made me love him more. I’m extremely infatuated with music and some of the people that made me realize that this is my “calling”. As for singers, RJD belonged to that school of rock that is not around anymore. They are a dying breed and I fucking hate it. I cling to them like a leech. Dio was probably one of the most important rock musicians in my life and I am extremely sad. I had to call up all my friends with similar relations to him and just get it out. I still can’t believe it, I will never accept it fully. I’ll pretend he’s still alive, and even though I know he’s gone, there’s no harm in pretending he’s still there doing whatever he’s doing.
FC: You recently closed your much appreciated MySpace-profile and all other incoming channels. Many fans feel concerned...Do we have to be worried?
M: Well, there are no reasons to worry regarding my commitment to the band or to our fans. It just got a bit out of hand and too much work for me. I felt I was spending too much time in front of the computer, taking time away from what i really should be doing which is work on music. There was a few people who just logged on to take the piss and insult me, and they are everywhere, but that's not the reason why I closed it down. It was just too much of a distraction for me. A part of me also want to rebel in small way against how web-based music has become lately. I mean, I have yet to accept the CD as a musical format, I'm still with my vinyls. Downloading and using the internet as your only platform to promote yourself is a necessary evil to me. I'm a progressive musician but very regressive when it comes to how it should be handled. Mainly because it is such an integral part of my life. I want it to be around and with the way things are going I think music as a form of expression will be watered down to shit, eurovision, tv docus and some stupid cellphone signal "hit". People are waving the "metal is bigger than that" card I guess, but metal has also been watered down and become to comfortable. I can't have it and I want to play as little part contributing to the downfall of music as possible. Even though I too am "smart" enough to realize how great of a promotion tool the internet really is. We have a few websites and they display the info needed, like shows and everything, but overall I've lost some interest in promoting the band through that forum. I just want to make sure we deliver the good in terms of the quality of our music and the packaging.
The Fan club thanks Mikael for taking the time to answer the questions and we´re wishing him and the band a great summer!
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