One of 2019’s most anticipated heavy rock/metal albums, In Cauda Venenum, will be released by Swedish prog-masters OPETH on September 27th via Moderbolaget / Nuclear Blast Entertainment. December will also see Opeth performing a stunning set of classic tracks from throughout their 30-year career as well as introducing Australian audiences to astounding new material from their forthcoming studio album. We caught up with guitarist Fredrik Akesson to discuss the new songs as well as touch on the upcoming tour plus take a quick look back at their sold out performance at the Sydney Opera House back in 2017.
Andrew: So hows things with you and the band at the moment?
Fredrik: It’s good! We’re finishing up the last of the European festivals, this week we played in Belgium and Holland and now this Friday we’re going to Vegas to play the last festival. So it’s been good, it’s been a good summer run playing every weekend. Had a bit of a vacation in between so apart from that we’ve been preparing for the new album release of course and preparing the stage setup and what songs to play on the upcoming tour we’re doing so a lot of rehearsal ahead basically.
Andrew: I may have asked you this before but that’s got to be a difficult task to pick out a new setlist for a new tour I suppose.
Fredrik: It is, especially the more albums there is it’s more difficult and we’re pretty keen to play stuff from the new album. I think it’s going to be really fun to play some of these songs live, so of course you want to do that but you also want to bring out some of the older stuff we haven’t played in a while. We have some ideas but I shouldn’t say anything, leave it as a surprise but I think it’s going to be a cool setlist. We’ve played the same songs now for almost 2 years, we might have had a bit of a break before the recording of the new album but we haven’t really changed the setlist much for a long time so it’s about time.
Andrew: Yeah definitely, we are looking forward to seeing you back in Australia again. The end of the year we’ll be seeing you, it seems like a bit of a regular occurence for you guys to come down to Australia, maybe every 2 years on average.
Fredrik: Yeah it’s great because we always get well received in Australia but it’s a tough journey but it’s all worth it. This time around we’re going to be playing in India before Australia, also China and Japan so makes it a little bit easier travel wise to do before. I mean going from Japan to Australia instead of Sweden is a bit easier, it’s like half the road!
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah definitely!
Fredrik: But it’s a tough schedule, we’re playing every day I see. So we start on December 10th and it’s a gig everyday..no there’s one off day, probably in Melbourne.
Andrew: When you were here last time you actually played at the Sydney Opera House so I gotta ask, what was that like?
Fredrik: Mindblowing! I believe we were the first band to play death metal stuff there and that felt a bit rebellious actually! But it was a beautiful venue, classic, iconic venue that everybody in the world knows about so we were blown away that it was sold out in a couple of days and really grateful for that. The gig went fine, we played one f the long gigs, almost 3 hours or 2.40 or something. The crowd was great and it was different, it’s seated and it’s a bit more posh or fancy in a way but I’m abit lazy now, if I go to shows I wouldn’t mind sitting down [laughs]. But it was mindblowing, definitely.
Andrew: Awesome, well you have a new album coming out in September and I don’t know if this is the first time you guys have done it before but I believe you are relesing this album in both English and Swedish. Have you done this before?
Fredrik: No this is the first so that’s quite different. I mean the album was written in Swedish, when Mikael (Akerfeldt, vocalist/guitarist) wrote the album he thought about it in Swedish so that’s where it spawns from and the English translation was done in the studio. So we were all pretty used to the Swedish version because that’s the demos we heard all the time and after a while you didn’t think about it wasn’t English anymore but I think it’s a good thing we did both. They are also quite different because of course the melodies would alternate a little bit depending on different words, which note to linger on, which syllable etc.
Andrew: When you go on tour then, will you be playing different versions depending on the country you are playing then?
Fredrik: We will ask the crowd before every song from the new album, ‘We have it in Swedish or English’, and see what is the favorite [laughs]. I don’t know, Mikael is one of those that could do that live I guess with the way his sense of humour goes.
Andrew: [laughs]
Fredrik: I guess when we play in Sweden we will probably play the Swedish versions, or in Norway. But I think we will play the English versions elsewhere if the crowd is not demanding it, I reckon in Australia they would prefer the English versions.
Andrew: Possibly but I would still like to hear the Swedish version as well. I mean is there a huge difference or just a small, subtle difference between the two?
Fredrik: It’s not a huge difference but I mean for me who was used to the Swedish version than the English version is quite different but personally for me some songs work better in English and some work better in Swedish, melody wise. Like the ballad “Lovelorn Crime”, the fifth track…have you listened to the album yet?
Andrew: Yes I actually have and I was going to ask you about a couple of the songs but go ahead.
Fredrik: Yeah the ballad “Lovelorn Crime” I kinda think that the chorus works better in Swedish but of course the fact that I’ve heard from the beginning in Swedish. But the translation wasn’t that difficult as we were assuming, lots of the lines could be translated directly so it’s quite close, the meaning of all the lyrics I think which is good.
Andrew: I’ve only had the chance to listen to it once through but my favorite song so far on first listen is actually “Charlatan”, I just love that real prog sensability in the song and it seems that would be quite a difficult song to play by the sounds of it.
Fredrik: Yeah that one is quite different for this album I think. Also one interesting detail with that song is that Martin (Mendez) plays the bass of course and me and Mikael is also playing bass, there’s no guitars on that tune. So it’s me and Mikael play bass left-right but we play through guitar amps and also distortions so it almost sounds like a guitar because we didn’t want this track to sound like a nu-metal track and this way to use the bass instead became grittier. So that was pretty cool, very different, we hadn’t done that before.
Andrew: That makes sense to me now because when I listened to that song it does have a very big bassy sort of sound to it.
Fredrik: It became more brutal the way I put in those phases and distortion on 10, it was really like screaming! It was fun and to play that live we have to bring basses as well.
Andrew: Yeah that’s a great track, I love that. But the other one I want to ask you about is, and I’m hoping I’m pronouncing this right, is “The Garroter”. That song has a real jazzy feel to it and reminds me of like a bluesy, smokey kind of sound to it, what was the idea behind that song?
Fredrik: It’s the oldest track on the album definitely but I think it came out very dark, it’s not a happy jazz track, it’s almost spooky I think. I was a bit involved in that track with the choruses because there was these chords and some jazzy guitar licks so Mikael asked me to come up with those for that one and it is quite different, it might be a cool track to play live actually.
Andrew: Yeah definitely I know you’ve done some acoustic stuff before in the past and that one seems like it would ledn itself quite well to that kind of intimate sort of setting.
Fredrik: Yeah when we do a live st we usually want to space out a little bit in the middle and play some semi-calm stuff and maybe a ballad and maybe that will fit in there if the time allows us. Also the fact that we used to read the screens on the album as a 21 piece string orchestra when we recorded in London and all those strings make that song even more powerful. The strings are on at least 5 tracks I believe so there’s quite a lot of that.
Andrew: Yeah I guess theres a very orchestral feel to some of these songs which makes sense as Opeth has always had an orchestral feel I suppose.
Fredrik: Yeah I guess, yeah.
Andrew: So when you were first going into this album and coming up with ideas for the songs, was there a certain idea or theme that you were going for or was it letting everything come out naturally?
Fredrik: Kinda letting everything come naturally but lyric wise it’s not a concept album, every song has their own story basically but there was some different topics like “The Charlatan” is about psychopaths. It’s not the most uplifting lyrics on this album but it covers different topics but me personally I just want to make it as heavy as possible, always try to turn up the guitars in the mix, always arguments about that! I think the general mindset was to make the best Opeth album ever which is always like that, you have to have that kind of mindset I think when you go n and do an album. The band really has to believe it’s going to be that.
Andrew: Do you ever look back on an album and think 6 months or a year later and go, ‘Maybe we could of done this better or that better”, or do you let it go and have no regrets about it?
Fredrik: I think you always think about stuff like, ‘Maybe we should have done that instead, maybe that could have been lower in the mix, or higher’. But you get to a point as you say, to just let it go and look at it as a time print of that certain time and things move on.
Andrew: Yeah you guys have been doing this for quite a while and I know you’ve been in the band for over 10 years…
Fredrik: 13 years, next Spring it’s 13 yes.
Andrew: 13 wow there you go! Is it getting easier or more difficult to come up with new and fresh ideas for each album?
Fredrik: Well this time around Mikael is actually on fire because initially we were supposed to have a longer break but in the beginning of the year, he had 2 or 3 months where he was just locked in and I was there listening a little bit putting down some solos but he was super focused. I think he was like that when he gets the poison for writing new albums so to speak, he gets obsessed by it. He works very focused and very driven, it’s quite amazing actually the drive he has when he comes into that creative period of this time.
Andrew: Well it’s obviously worked very well forOpeth and a lot of fans are excited to see you back on the road again. Congratulations on the new album, it sounds fantastic as you always do and we will see you in Austrlaia in December.
Fredrik: Thank you!
OPETH AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES
Adelaide – Tuesday 10 December – Thebarton Theatre
Perth – Wednesday 11 December – Astor Theatre
Melbourne – Friday 13 December – Palais Theatre
Sydney – Saturday 14 December – State Theatre
Brisbane – Sunday 15 December – Tivoli Theatre
Tickets from: http://davidroywilliams.com/tours/opeth2019/
