How did a Swedish death metal band end up releasing one of the greatest progressive rock masterpieces of the modern age? Opeth’s MIKAEL ÅKERFELDT looks back on 20 years of Damnation
BY AMIT SHARMA PHOTOS BY MICK HUTSON/REDFERNS
Ever SINCE THEIR formation in 1990, Swedish metallers Opeth have been no strangers to wild experimentation and unexpected detours into the creative leftfield. Even their 1995 Orchid debut showcased a bunch of musicians who simply refused to exist within the usual confines of death metal — borrowing elements from long-distant worlds such as jazz and classical and then fusing it all together into something greater than the sum of its parts.
But even the band themselves would admit that 2003’s Damnation album — a 43-minute love letter to their vintage progressive rock influences — was something they never quite saw in their own destiny. After breaking out of the underground and making their mark internationally with the Steven Wilson-produced Blackwater Park in 2001, the Stockholm-based quartet now had the world’s attention. For singer/guitarist and mastermind Mikael Åkerfeldt, who had undertaken the role of writing virtually all of the music early on, it was now time for his band to really spread their creative wings in the form of two records — the extreme brutality of Deliverance and its calmer companion, Damnation, released six months later. So when exactly did he realize his metal band was going to start working on music that would had little to do with the guttural roars and blastbeat fury they were typically associated with, and did he ever consider releasing Damnation as another project entirely?
“I definitely wanted it to be an Opeth record,” says Åkerfeldt, talking to GW via video conference from his living room on a chilly day in Stockholm. “Before Blackwater Park it didn’t feel like that much was happening around the band. We were active but we didn’t tour or have much going for us. Suddenly that all changed. We became aware of the fact that people knew who we were. I had this idea of doing two records, one heavy and the other more ballady and calm…
“I’d always wanted to make a more chilled-out album, but at the same time had never envisioned it actually happening. So I pitched the idea for releasing both together, and the answer from our label at the time was no. I asked for some adjustments to our contract — an additional sheet of paper that said we’d make both for the price of one, counting as a single album. That’s how much I wanted to do it! And, of co
