By R Prashanth VidyasagarFor anyone who discovered Opeth in the early or mid-2000s, the first listen was a revelation. Songs stretching beyond 10 minutes, layers upon layers of sound, and tracks that could swing from menace to melancholy in the space of a few bars. This was metal unlike most of us had heard before. In Bengaluru, Blackwater Park became something of a cult favourite, passed around college campuses and drawing in listeners who had never considered themselves metal fans. The band headlined Summerstorm here in 2012. Since then, much like its music, Opeth has undergone several transitions — in both its line-up and sound. Ahead of the band’s performance in Bengaluru on October 4, as part of their India tour, we caught up with frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt for an exclusive conversation.Åkerfeldt has long had a reputation for steering the Opeth ship almost single-handedly. He considers that something of a misconception. “People think I’m a tyrant and a dictator. I’m not telling the guys what to do. I’m just telling them what I want to do,” he states. He wrote much of Blackwater Park and Ghost Reveries, and is equally willing to take responsibility for the records that fans have been less enamoured by.The decision to abandon death-metal growls was his, too. By his mid-thirties, Åkerfeldt felt he was faking it. Clean vocals had been part of Opeth’s sound since the first album, while the increasingly progressive songs he was writing seemed to have little room for screaming. Years later, he brought the growls back on the band’s latest album — and this time, the entire band was on board. “Even then, I wasn’t catering to anyone. I was just doing what I wanted to do,” he says.‘Indian fans relate to Atonement as their song’Indian fans, he says, are not particularly different from rock fans anywhere else. But one question from an earlier visit stayed with him. Someone asked if Opeth would play ‘our song’. They were referring to Atonement, from Ghost Reveries, a track written while Åkerfeldt was experimenting with Indian scales. “It’s kind of ripped off from the Beatles’ Indian period,” he says with a laugh. But discovering that Indian listeners had connected with the song in such a personal way was “a huge compliment”. His interest in Indian music has also continued beyond Opeth. He excitedly brings up one of his latest discoveries: Black Scorpio, a 1970s record by Bombay rock band The Savages, which he says he had been hunting for ‘a million years’.‘A real musician doesn’t take advice’His advice to young musicians comes from a quote he once read: a real musician doesn’t take advice. Åkerfeldt remembers his own early days, mailing rehearsal tapes to fanzines on homemade Opeth letterheads, photocopied at his mother’s office. “I was working full-time, making no money, of course, but it was such a happy time,” he recalls.At home, Åkerfeldt remains a committed vinyl collector. For his daughter Melinda’s 22nd birthday, he gifted her a turntable — along with his old Skid Row records. It was the first time she had sat through an entire album. “That made me feel so proud,” he says. Some of Opeth’s music, meanwhile, has emerged from accidents rather than elaborate planning. While demoing Sorceress, Åkerfeldt accidentally hit record on the keyboard channel instead of the drums. The random flurry of notes that followed eventually became a song. Perhaps it is fitting for a musician whose career has repeatedly embraced the unexpected.
