Gutter's News opeath interveiw
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| Written by billcalahanmustwin! | |
| Monday, 07 November 2005 | |
The phrase ‘When one door closes, another opens’ is a fitting one when describing the transitional period Swedish progressive death metal act Opeth have made within the last twelve months.
The phrase ‘When one door closes, another opens’ is a fitting one when describing the transitional period Swedish progressive death metal act Opeth have made within the last twelve months.After a successful partnership with Music For Nations that lasted for the better part of three years (After having moved on from Peaceville Records after 1999’s ‘Still Life’), Opeth found themselves without a record label after Music For Nations decided to close its doors in June 2004, and their parent company B.M.G./Zomba Records decided not to retain the band on their roster. Speculation as to just who Opeth would sign to led many to believe that the band would sign to a major label, and in mid May 2005, Opeth finally revealed that not only had they signed to Roadrunner Records, but their newest addition to the line up in keyboardist Per Wiberg (Who is also a member of Spiritual Beggars). Both fear and anticipation were held with Opeth’s eighth full-length release (The follow up to 2003’s ‘Damnation’), but in the short time since it’s release (Back in late August), ‘Ghost Reveries’ has been overwhelmingly viewed as easily one of Opeth’s strongest, and most experimental releases in recent years. While out on tour in the U.S., I tracked down guitarist Peter Lindgren in Detroit (Michigan) to discuss the introduction of Wiberg into the Opeth fold, the different approach the band took when making their latest album compared to the past and their current touring plans, and where they anticipate the road will take them in the new year. First however, I wanted to take a step back six months, when the band first announced their decision to sign with Roadrunner Records. Given the reputation the label had for spearheading the nu-metal movement through the latter part of the ‘90’s, there were more than a few fans that openly questioned, and criticised Opeth’s decision to go with the label, and feared that ‘Ghost Reveries’ would somehow suffer with record company involvement. Needless to say, the ever open minded Opeth members were less than happy with the close mindedness of some of their fans. “At first, it sort of pissed us off. I mean look at us. We’ve been doing our own thing for fifteen years. We weren’t going to sign with Roadrunner Records and suddenly turn into a nu-metal band you know. I think people are stupid when they believe that a record label like Roadrunner Records can change an old band like us. It’s not like some American record label dude is going to turn up and tell us to start wearing baggy jeans. Are Roadrunner Records going to tell us to have a rapper on the next album? No. It was never going to happen. We don’t even have producers involved when making music because we don’t trust anyone. I guess most of the criticism has come from a bunch of kids. They found out that we have signed to this so-called nu-metal label, and in turn they believed that we would turn into a nu-metal band. Hell, even some of the new pictures we had taken of the band were criticised. Some kids out there complained that the grass didn’t look green enough. Get a life! (Laughs) In the end, we just give up caring what those people thought. They should know better. After all the years that we’ve been doing our own thing, we’re never going to change for anybody.” Any lingering criticism for the label change for Opeth was soon cast aside with the release of ‘Ghost Reveries’ of course, so much so that many are claiming the album as one of Opeth’s best in years. “The reviews have been awesome! It’s almost so good that it’s embarrassing! (Laughs) Fans seem to love the new album, and it’s hard to disagree with them because we think it’s really good too. The album is still sort of new to us, so of course we’re going to like the new album as well, but I think in a couple of years, ‘Ghost Reveries’ is going to be considered one of our best albums, if not, the best.” There are several reasons why ‘Ghost Reveries’ stands out compared to Opeth’s output from their last two releases (2002’s ‘Deliverance’ and 2003’s ‘Damnation’), but if Lindgren were to put out one major reason for that, it would be preparation. “We really took a different approach with ‘Ghost Reveries’. The idea for the last couple of albums was to be fully prepared and well rehearsed, but that really hasn’t happened until this it came time to make this album. We really made sure this time that we had time to write the songs, and have them all well rehearsed before we went into the studio. So that’s a big change from the last couple of albums, because they were recorded in a hurry. We would book a studio, start work and then run out of time before we finished. Instead of pushing the release date back, we thought we would go into the studio with at least half the songs that we would actually need, and it would mean that at the end of our time in the studio, there was a lot of unnecessarily stress to finish things up. We were seriously lacking in sufficient time to do our best. Knowing that you have two or three weeks to go, and you still have to write a couple of songs can be really stressful. We don’t blame anyone for the lack of preparation we did for those albums on anyone but ourselves! (Laughs) It’s just how we worked at that point in time. But with ‘Ghost Reveries’, we actually did rehearse, and have everything prepared beforehand. We actually went into the studio with everybody knowing the songs, and knowing what they were doing. It meant that we could think things through more in the long run. We always want leave some room in the studio for some experimentation, because that makes it all the more interesting for us as well. That’s what every band should do, and probably are doing. It’s taken us a long time to get to that point where we were fully prepared! (Laughs) In a sense, all the small details we brushed over in the past due to time restriction in the studio have been perfected on this album. We’ve never done that before. It’s a big change, and I think you can hear it in the outcome as well. It’s made the album stand out a little more, so I’m pretty happy that it turned out this good.” |
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