Fredrick Åkesson - Opeth 'A Patriarchal Concept Album Awaits'

Swedish prog-metal gods Opeth have a new album incoming titled The Last Will and Testament (dropping November 22). This, their 14th studio album, is a concept album set in the post-World War I era, unfolding the story of a wealthy, conservative patriarch whose last will and testament reveals shocking family secrets. The narrative weaves through the patriarch's confessions, the reactions of his twin children, and the mysterious presence of a polio-ridden girl who the family have taken care of.

The album begins with the reading of the father's will in his mansion. The polio-ridden girl's presence at the reading raises suspicions and questions among the twins.

In anticipation of the album's release, Wall Of Sound's resident metal bogan Duane James settled in to discuss the album with longtime Opeth guitarist Fredrik Åkesson and, to find out about those incoming Australian tour rumours... 

You guys have a new album coming out, it's Opeth’s 14th album, The Last Will and Testament. When I saw the title, I thought this might be Opeth’s swan song. It's not. It's about the story being told on the album.

Correct. Yeah, we’ve heard that reaction before, actually. In a way, I think when Mikael [Åkerfeldt], he usually mentioned that every album is to be more focused on the actual writing. He kind of looks at it as the last one. But anyhow, that's not the case to clarify that.

But it is about this old patriarch guy, mean, conservative, super-rich guy in the 1920s after World War I, decade and times. He dies and this is about his will and testament to his children, which are three. It’s about them getting this testament read for them and there's a lot of sideline side stories and lots of stuff that will be revealed for them that they didn't know about. Some kind of dark twist and turns.

So yeah, it's a concept album. All the songs are titled paragraphs up from one to seven, and then the final track has a name, which is called A Story Never Told.

I did notice that, that you'd done away with song names and paragraphed them out. 

Yeah, our management, when David came to visit us when we did the album in the Rockfield Studios in Wales, they were quite upset about that. At least you need to have a song title in brackets, something. Because they're thinking about the business side of everything. And I mean, you can't do the paragraph sign (§) if you go into the streaming service or anything like that, but I guess you can write paragraph. That's the way to do it then.

Well, on the streaming service, I saw they did the paragraph sign.

Oh Really?

I was fortunate enough to get an early copy, and I've played it like three or four times in a couple of days. I've been driving to it as well, which is dangerous. But there's a huge range of styles going from very mellow to ridiculously heavy, a huge shift in sound, but I think it serves the story as well, like the drama and all that sort of stuff.

Yeah, definitely. There’s a lot of talk about bringing back death metal vocals, the growls, which I'm very happy about. But they also serve a purpose with the storyline, all these different voice characters Michael has, his clean voice and I think he also developed another thing we haven't really done before. More theatrical type of clean vocals that you can hear in Paragraph One and some other places.

But also the Growl is one of the father's voices from the Testament from the other side. Also you have Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) on the album. Fantastic to have him as a guest and he also serves a purpose with basically playing the role of the main character in this patriarch evil old guy.

Yeah, because he played flute as well as doing the narration throughout the album.

He plays flute on Paragraph Four and Paragraph Seven. But on Paragraph Four he plays more of a solo, which I kind of freaked out [about]. I didn't know that because I played a guitar solo right after. I didn't know about that until after I did the solo or we didn't know because he never really got asked to play a solo on the album. It was actually Ian himself who asked Michael, do you want any flute on the album? Yes, of course we do. We would love that.

Yeah, whatever you like, IAN ANDERSON!!!.

We didn't really have a section for it, but it showed out that on Paragraph Four, there is a section before the solo that really worked out well, actually. Amazing.

It surprised me because I didn't know that. He obviously played guitar with Jethro Toll all that time, I didn't know he was playing flute and it was really quite good. The other cameo you've got is Joey Tempest from Europe.

Yeah

That's pretty cool. Here in Australia, obviously they're most known for 'The Final Countdown'. That still gets played on radio here in Australia.

Yeah, I mean I grew up in the same suburb as those guys, but they were untouchable then because they're a generation older. And I remember looking up to them, wow, going to see their shows and later on I [became] friends with the guitar player, John Norum. We've been jamming out and co-writing some tracks with him and stuff like that. But Michael and Joey became friends and he was over at Mike's house for lunch and Mike had his track, Paragraph Two. He just went for it and asked Joey, because he doesn't really do a lot of guest appearances. Do you want to go down in the studios, try this thing out? And he was, yeah, let's go for it. But at the time, Mike didn't have the lyrics finished. So Joey did his vocal, his backing vocal part. It’s more of a trade off with him and Ian actually in the song, if you listen to it. It’s more of a corresponding type of thing. Which is a very unique blend, I think, because you have them two left/right and then after that Mikael comes in with his brutal growl. It's a bit of a surreal combination of people, really.

The growl, I think is important because I was talking to a few of my workmates, for Wall of Sound, and one of them goes, is there growls on it? I went, yeah, there's heaps. I told him it's really mellow, and then it just blows your head off. Anyway, it has been a few years since you've been to Australia. The last time you were here was 2019.

Yeah. We were lucky enough to be able to do almost, well, we did America and we did Europe, Australia and Japan before the pandemic kicked in. So we were so lucky. We played the last show in Los Angeles and the week after they shut everything down. It could have been in the middle of the tour. 

Did you get home in time? 

Yeah, we got home.

I think we all got Covid when we got back on the flight as well, ha ha. We shouldn’t laugh about it because it was a terrible thing for many people and for everybody to a certain extent.

Yeah, I know we weren’t essential workers, as tattooists. I think all in all, we spent 140 days in lockdown.

Yeah, I mean a lot of other countries had more rough time than Sweden. I know Marty Méndez, our bass player, lives in Barcelona and if you went out at night, you could get beaten up by the police. Sweden was a bit more open. Some restaurants were open, you could sit in there, you had to have a certain distance, whatever. Well, we shouldn't dwell on the pandemic. It sucks.

I know. It's old news anyways.

Yeah, exactly. Anyhow.

Well I think the last time or maybe the time before that (2017) you played the Sydney Opera House. Is there any plans to do that again?

I'm not sure if I can reveal anything, but right now we are talking and there's dates displayed to us, but if I say anything I might get yelled at. So I don't think they need to be official, but we're talking about next year. I can reveal that much.

Oh, you're going to be here next year. Can we rule out Knotfest?

No, I can't comment that. I would say hopefully soon, something will be revealed, official. But as long it's not official, I can’t say anything. But it's a big topic right now and everybody wants to go, so we will be there at a certain point.

Australia's always been fantastic to Opeth and very important and it's fun to go there. The travel is long, but being there is always great. Food is fantastic and the crowds are great friendly people.

Well, you've been here a few times now. There's only so many times you can hold a koala and pat a kangaroo. Is there anything you'd like to do in Australia while you are here next time?

Yeah, I mean we've been, where are you? You’re in Sydney, right?

Yeah, we're out west of Sydney.

I always thought about walking on the Sydney Bridge, the thing you go over it, but it's supposed to be extremely exhausting. Maybe not a good thing to do before a show.

I would do it. For me (when I did it) it was exhausting because I'm petrified of heights.

Yeah, me too. I hate heights. But it looks like it's pretty safe.

I felt safe, but that didn't stop me from shitting myself. 

I’ve never really been into the countryside in Australia. I know Michael had a lady friend there before and he went into the Blue Forest and stuff like that.

Yeah, the Blue Mountains. That's sort of where we are. We're right on the edge of it.

So I mean, we never get the time enough to do touristy stuff. If we have an off day, we're going to hang out at the hotel. Go out to some nice restaurants and go to some pubs. Hang out. Maybe see a gig or something like that. That's always fun. I mean, of course there must be so many fantastic places to visit. But I mean, we've been at the ocean a few times and I really burned up my back last time, or a few tours back. I had fever when I got back home. I didn’t have a T-shirt on me and we were kind of stupid Swedes going into the water and nobody else was swimming. But that day apparently, that day was dangerous marine life. It was probably like a white shark nearby. This was up in Perth. We realised afterwards, fucking idiots.

I've been told of people sitting on a beach up the top end, at Darwin, and there's crocodiles and sharks. And they've seen a full tourist bus turn up and just a busload of people jump off and go swimming in the water. 

WOAH!

They’re all sitting on the sand going, what are these guys doing? No one was eaten thankfully, but there’s signs everywhere, in every language.

I mean this particular beach, people do swim there. I guess they keep track on whenever there's a white shark or something dangerous out there.

Ah they’re there. So you guys, your songs vary. You've got the shorter songs, but you've got these 10 minute ones. I was talking to my boss for Wall of Sound, Browny, and he goes, do you ever think that they get three minutes into a 10 minute song, and he's like, fuck, I need to take a piss.

Ha HA Yeah, I mean that happens. What can you do? You just have to piss yourself. Note: I haven't done that.

Yet!

Well you just got to shut it off I guess. But there are also moments where if there's a complex, really long song, when you start thinking dangerous things. You start thinking, how can I even remember all this stuff while you playing it? So you always have these little mind goals, these little demons that you battle with. Psychological demons every time you play. 

Well, it's impressive. 

Depending on how many beers you had the day before, that will affect you of course. 

Sometimes if I'm playing darts or snooker, a couple of beers makes me a better player. So I dunno if it's the same with guitar, but we'll see.

Well we don't drink anything at all before the shows, but we do afterwards. I mean, occasionally if we're real tight we do a shot, a small shot just to raise some hell.

I have a question that I ask a lot of people. It's a scenario, the planet's blowing up. We're all getting on a giant spaceship to leave Earth. You're only allowed to take one Black Sabbath album with you. Which one is it and why?

It will be Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath,

That's awesome. That is my number two. The first one I would take is Master of Reality.

Oh, that's fantastic.

Yeah, I actually have two UK vinyl original of it in mint condition. Now, I'm bragging about my record collection.

You'll love it here at work - Higher Ground Kurrajong - We are also a record store. 

Oh cool. 

Yeah, so there's a lot of doom in there. No Opeth because every time it comes in it gets sold.

Alright, that's good news.

Yeah, well there's a lot of black metal and doom metal in there. 

Cool. Do you have a lot of vintage, second hand?

We have a mix of old and new. I’ve been eyeing off a first press copy of Iron Maiden’s Live after Death on the wall.

Life After Death also had that booklet with it in there. You should have a booklet.

I'll grab it and have a look. Hold on.

It's not as big as the actual album sleeve. 

(Pulls out an insert) Is that the one? 

Yeah. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, you got it.

There you go. $150. I might have to buy that. But look, Fredrik, like I said, I've been listening to the album. I really, really like it, mate.

Thank you. That makes me really happy. It's interesting times for us to get some reception.

Thank you so much for your time. I can't wait til the announcement of your tour and hopefully I'll catch up with you next year when you play.

Yeah, we should come see your record store.

That’d be a genuine honour for us. See you then.

Take care man.

Interview by Duane James @duanejamestattoo

Opeth release The Last Will And Testament on November 22.
Pre-order/save here

Opeth – The Last Will and Testament tracklisting

1. §1
2. §2
3. §3
4. §4
5. §5
6. §6
7. §7
8. A Story Never Told