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A Story Of Hope And Loss With FREDRIK AKESSON From OPETH · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Speaker 1: Hello guys, This is credit from Opah and we are
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  Speaker 1: about to release a new album called Last Will and Testament.
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  Speaker 2: Beautiful Frederick, thanks for joining us today.
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  Speaker 1: My pleasure. I'm actually handover because the way I went
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  Speaker 1: out with our guitar tech was here from the UK
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  Speaker 1: last night and we went for curries and bears.
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  Speaker 2: Sounds like a dangerous night, dangerous combination.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we had one shot trying to stay away from
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  Speaker 1: the shop where we had one tequila shot, which was
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  Speaker 1: a bad decision. It was run. So yeah, yeah, life
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  Speaker 1: goes on, it.
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  Speaker 2: Does it did?
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  Speaker 3: As you mentioned, bro, I bet to release your fourteen
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  Speaker 3: studio album, the Last Will and Testament on October the eleventh, Like,
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  Speaker 3: it's only about three weeks away now, made like how
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  Speaker 3: you feel about it?
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  Speaker 1: What exciting times to see how the album's going to
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  Speaker 1: be received. And we do a lot of interviews right
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  Speaker 1: now and so far it seems talking to journalists like
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  Speaker 1: people really dig it, you know. And of course we're
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  Speaker 1: released two tracks paragraph one, paragraph three now and the
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  Speaker 1: reception is I would say quite overwhelming, and that makes
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  Speaker 1: us happy, of course. But the first criteria is when
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  Speaker 1: we do an album that we feel one hundred percent happy,
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  Speaker 1: with it, and in this case we do.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the start.
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  Speaker 3: So could you tell us a bit more about the
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  Speaker 3: album from a musical point of view and what you're
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  Speaker 3: going forward it?
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  Speaker 1: Well? I think it's a good It kind of assembles
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  Speaker 1: the old opened and the more proggier open last four
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  Speaker 1: albums kind of thing in a more restless, compressed direction
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  Speaker 1: and also step forward. I think the songs are slightly shorter,
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  Speaker 1: but they have more ingredients than ever, like a little
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  Speaker 1: bit like modern day society, even though the theme of
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  Speaker 1: the album takes place in nineteen twenties, which is apparently
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  Speaker 1: quite some time ago. When you listen to it, Like
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  Speaker 1: if you listen to Blackwater Parks, certain sections are dwelled
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  Speaker 1: upon quite long, and that's different with this album. There's
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  Speaker 1: quite a lot of action. It's action packed album, but
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  Speaker 1: I mean not in a hysterical way. There is also
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  Speaker 1: a big part of opal sound. You have the kind
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  Speaker 1: of the jing yin and yang thing. You have a
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  Speaker 1: really heavy section, then you have something more melancholic, a
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  Speaker 1: beautiful ish type of foresty sound as well.
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  Speaker 3: Along those lines made like the press release calls in
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  Speaker 3: your darkest and heaviest record that you've made in decades,
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  Speaker 3: would you agree with that?
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  Speaker 1: I love that it is really dark, and that was
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  Speaker 1: the one of the gold to make it really dark,
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  Speaker 1: but it's it's also at moments really beautiful. I think, like,
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  Speaker 1: but beautiful can be beautiful in a dark way as well,
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  Speaker 1: but it is it's quite evils sounding. Yeah, and yeah,
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  Speaker 1: we like that.
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  Speaker 3: So when you say that it was one of your goals, mate,
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  Speaker 3: like you guys, before you go into the album process,
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  Speaker 3: do you sit down and make a list of goals
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  Speaker 3: that you want to achieve or things that.
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  Speaker 2: You want to do with the album or does that
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  Speaker 2: sort of more come as you go on.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's kind of comes as it goes. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: the direction of the album is usually Michael says, Oh,
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  Speaker 1: this is going to be the most darkest album ever.
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  Speaker 1: That's that's the common thing. And to a certain point,
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  Speaker 1: I think we achieved that, you know, But I think
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  Speaker 1: when we're in the work in progress, we just focus
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  Speaker 1: on one song at the time, just try to do
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  Speaker 1: the best of it and then not maybe necessarily looking
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  Speaker 1: at all the songs at once. Yes, take one thing
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  Speaker 1: at a time. Basically.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Now, there's a beautifully unique conceptual story running through the album.
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  Speaker 3: As well, Like you mentioned before, those sat in the
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  Speaker 3: nineteen twenties. But there's a lot more going on than that.
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  Speaker 3: Can you run it through briefly?
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  Speaker 1: Well, it takes place after World War One, like a
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  Speaker 1: quite decade and time people are celebrating, and it's basically
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  Speaker 1: the left Wooden Testament is about this patriarch, father, narcissist guy,
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  Speaker 1: very rich. It's about his he's the revealing stuff in
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  Speaker 1: his life in this Testament that his children's who's going
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  Speaker 1: to inherit I don't know about, right, Yeah, that could
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  Speaker 1: be different love affairs and new siblings that they don't
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  Speaker 1: know about. So it's basically three children, the twins, and
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  Speaker 1: then you have a daughter who has like a skeleton
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  Speaker 1: disease that the actual patriarch he had a love affair
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  Speaker 1: with the maid, one of the maids, and that's that daughter.
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  Speaker 1: So it's a bit massy story or I mean, it
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  Speaker 1: has a lot of twists and turns. So the Testament
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  Speaker 1: on will it's not like just the Testament where you're
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  Speaker 1: going to inherit. It has a lot of poetry and
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  Speaker 1: also it reveals a lot of side stories through on.
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  Speaker 1: And I mean the album has seven paragraphs, which is
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  Speaker 1: the Testament. And then the last track is the only
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  Speaker 1: one with the title A Story Never Told, which is
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  Speaker 1: actually a letter from this girl who suffers from polio
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  Speaker 1: that the patriarch had with the maid. So this is
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  Speaker 1: the letter from the maid long time after revealing something
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  Speaker 1: that not even the patriarch did was aware of. So
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  Speaker 1: it's really twigged in the storyline if you want to
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  Speaker 1: dig into it. I won't reveal it because that will
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  Speaker 1: probably I don't want to spoil anything, but people who
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  Speaker 1: are interested, they can they get deeper into it. I
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  Speaker 1: think I'm not sure that the special edition vinyl will
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  Speaker 1: have like a printed Testament in it, so you can
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  Speaker 1: read read it like a Testament and will.
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  Speaker 2: That's awesome, right, that's awesome.
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  Speaker 3: And this is it's the first like out and out
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  Speaker 3: full concept record that you guys have ever made. So
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  Speaker 3: why did you decide that this was the right time
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  Speaker 3: in your creed to actually do something like that?
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  Speaker 1: Well, what's the idea? Came from Michael and we knew
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  Speaker 1: about it in the beginning, and the story of the
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  Speaker 1: concept was morphing all along during the writing process of
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  Speaker 1: the music, So I mean the story was to lize
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  Speaker 1: like a month before we or a couple of weeks before
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  Speaker 1: we went into the actual studio, but the concept idea
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  Speaker 1: was there from the get go. But I think, I
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  Speaker 1: mean hope with us down the Still Life was a
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  Speaker 1: concept album and my Arm's your House. But this time around,
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  Speaker 1: it's more for real, Like this concept is really thought through.
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  Speaker 1: It has more depth and more more thought put into it.
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  Speaker 3: Basically, yeah, this is nothing really that new for Opees,
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  Speaker 3: but but on this album, I think you've gone to
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  Speaker 3: the next level with it, Like you've the use of
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  Speaker 3: thatt resperracs and moods it's created throughout those eight songs.
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  Speaker 2: It's it's amazing.
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  Speaker 3: Mate, Like, how how difficult is it to achieve that
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  Speaker 3: that sense and foreboding?
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  Speaker 2: I guess that you get through there with just music.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean all as as a guitar player, I
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  Speaker 1: can only focus on one riff at the time. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: but it's it's really great to, you know, play with
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  Speaker 1: a person like Michael and the rest of the guys
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  Speaker 1: as well, because he really puts the musicians to on it.
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  Speaker 1: He likes to challenge us all. You know, the way
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  Speaker 1: he writes stuff, and he has a very unique way
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  Speaker 1: of writing rifts and rhythms. The beat could be straight,
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  Speaker 1: but there's so much polarithmical things beneath it that when
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  Speaker 1: you listen to it, it takes me a while to
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  Speaker 1: get it, to get the rifts into my DNA. And
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  Speaker 1: talking about the solos, that's kind of my creative part,
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  Speaker 1: which on this album, I did them on my own,
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  Speaker 1: and I've put a lot of thought into them. Like
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  Speaker 1: on account of the previous album, I improvised most of
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  Speaker 1: them with Michael. This time around, Michael has stand it
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  Speaker 1: to me and I did it on my own, and
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  Speaker 1: which was fun. I tried to raise the game and
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  Speaker 1: improve as a player, and like everyone in the band,
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  Speaker 1: you know, every album there's an ambition to raise the bar,
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  Speaker 1: you know, both musically as the unit but also as
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  Speaker 1: individual players. You know.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Now, speaking of Michael, mate like he's actually this
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  Speaker 3: brought back these death metal grounds on this album for
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  Speaker 3: the first time since the Watershed in two thousand and eight.
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  Speaker 3: Was that something that you sat and planned before going
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  Speaker 3: into the album or it just just happened you ran
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  Speaker 3: with it.
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  Speaker 1: Well, we noticed that he kind of liked it a
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  Speaker 1: lot more because we do play all the old stuff
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  Speaker 1: live and he does the growl. We've been doing that,
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  Speaker 1: apart from one tour we did after Heritage. We did
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  Speaker 1: one tour without the grass, which was a bit of
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  Speaker 1: a controversy. But it felt natural this time round and
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  Speaker 1: it was not bringing it back just too as a
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  Speaker 1: sales thing. It served a purpose this time around, especially
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  Speaker 1: with the concept album, because it is one of the
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  Speaker 1: voices of this patriarch, the Father, and also the clean vocals,
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  Speaker 1: and also Ian Anderson who does narrations on the album.
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  Speaker 1: It's also a voice of the Father. Even Joey Tempest
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  Speaker 1: too sings a little bit, it's also voice of the Father.
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  Speaker 1: So I mean, but for me, it's a big part
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  Speaker 1: of the open legacy to have the girls back, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm very happy about it. But I know how Michael works.
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  Speaker 1: If we would have told him we have to you
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  Speaker 1: have to bring the girls back, he would he would
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  Speaker 1: do the total opposite. So that's the way he works,
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  Speaker 1: you know, he has it has come from him. He
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  Speaker 1: doesn't like to get exactly. He hates that and I
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  Speaker 1: know that because I've been playing with him for soon
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  Speaker 1: eighteen years and I was just like, maybe it will happen,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm going to be quiet, and it happened, and
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  Speaker 1: I was very happy about it.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, passion starts by some chance.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is also your first album with my high
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  Speaker 3: back and his name right while Cherry as a drummer,
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  Speaker 3: Yeah what what did what did he bring to the
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  Speaker 3: overall sound of the album?
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  Speaker 1: He brought a up. I mean, he's been working out great.
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  Speaker 1: We did three tours with him before we started working
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  Speaker 1: on the album, and he just nailed everything. He has
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  Speaker 1: the entire spectra like extreme metal drummer, but he also
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  Speaker 1: has the what do you say, the fingertipped field for
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  Speaker 1: more the jazzer, progier parts. Even though he's he's thirty
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  Speaker 1: and we're like student fifties. Actually I have to turned fifty.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, he really has the entire spectrum. I don't
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  Speaker 1: think it's an easy task to be a drummer, no,
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  Speaker 1: but because there's a lot of stuff going on, specially
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  Speaker 1: with this new album. The drums are super complex, really,
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  Speaker 1: and he told us he if he would have only
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  Speaker 1: gotten a month of time to learn this album, he
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't have been able to do it. So he was
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  Speaker 1: practicing for six months doing one at the time. And
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  Speaker 1: I think, really, Michael, he he creates the drum patterns
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  Speaker 1: when he writes the songs. He's really picky when he
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  Speaker 1: does the demos, and they all they sound like almost
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  Speaker 1: like albums. But luckily enough, after we recorded the album,
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  Speaker 1: it sounds more earthy and organic and more human maybe
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  Speaker 1: when the rest of us is putting our skills or
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  Speaker 1: whatever into it, you know. But all three he just
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  Speaker 1: nailed everything. The first track he recorded in the studio
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  Speaker 1: was paragraph three, and he the first take was just there.
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  Speaker 1: But of course as a drummer, he hears stuff we
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  Speaker 1: won't hear, so he'll another one, another one, another one.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, and also a lie. He like
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  Speaker 1: the old stuff with the real fast double kick drums.
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  Speaker 1: It's so even the way he plays it, it doesn't
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  Speaker 1: sound like somebody's pouring out a bag of potatoes on
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  Speaker 1: the ground.
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  Speaker 2: That's a great analogy.
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  Speaker 3: Oh for everyone, Thanks very much for you jing about
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  Speaker 3: most pleasure speaking with you. The Last Will and Testament
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  Speaker 3: is out on the top of the Eleventh's fascinating storyline,
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  Speaker 3: fascinating concept sensational music.
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  Speaker 2: Mate, So best of luck with it. Ibrad as well.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, pleasure talking to you, and thanks
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  Speaker 1: for talking to me.