“Oh, shit,” Mikael Åkerfeldt sighs. “Boring!”
The Opeth mastermind is on a video call with Metal Hammer and – after a five-minute preamble where we’ve spoken about Godflesh, Killing Joke and Led Zeppelin – we’ve informed him that we need to talk about his band now.
A dry-humoured Swede who seemingly adores every progressive band except his own, he’s clearly reluctant, but this is a special occasion. March 2026 marks 25 years since the release of Opeth’s lauded breakthrough album, Blackwater Park, and at the end of the month it’s getting a glossy, double-vinyl reissue.
Blackwater… landed like a nuclear bomb in 2001, blasting Opeth to the top tier of modern prog alongside Tool and Dream Theater and earning them the somewhat cursed tag of “thinking man’s metal”.
It was the culmination of a 10-year-long journey for the Stockholm four-piece, who were initially vilified for being weird and a bit naff before climbing to international acclaim. So, as much as Mikael may protest, it’s well worth talking about – and we also sneak in some chatter about their horrendous first gig, a potential reunion with Steven Wilson, and why he’s sick of touring.
How do you feel about Blackwater Park 25 years on?
“I can’t remember the last time I played through the entire record. It probably would have been 24 years ago. It’s not magic to me: it’s just a record. I appreciate the fact that it’s a record that a lot of people, for some reason, picked up when it came out and it started living its own life. I don’t hear what the fans of that record hear.”
You have talked about how overrated you think Bleak and the title track are.
“Mildly overrated. Both songs have been up for ‘should we play them?’ many times over the years and every time I revisit that song in order to see if it’s something we should do, I’m like, ‘Ah, that section is so poorly written. I don’t like that part,’ and it just falls through. If people want to love that song and think it’s a classic, then that’s awesome, but for me, being right in the middle of it, it’s difficult to feel that.”
You’ve said you think that it’s a classic because of timing more than anything else…
“We had a new record deal with Music For Nations, a strong label in the UK, and we had good distribution in the US, which was a big market that we wanted to get into. A record label called Koch put it out over there and, for some reason, managed to get the record out in the shops. Up to that point, we’d not experienced our records being available everywhere.”
Do you really think that early Opeth were like Napalm Death but worse?
The guy in front of me goes, “Did you see Opeth last night? They were terrible!”
“That’s true. In the band that I had before Opeth, we had a few original songs that I wrote, and they didn’t really sound like Napalm Death apart from some kind of grindcore-y parts. If we didn’t have anything, we used to improvise grindcore, which is fairly easy. You don’t really have to say what key you’re going to improvise in, because you can’t tell. Make shit up and do it quickly. I like to think that we were a poor version of Napalm Death.”
The band didn’t have a very good reputation in Stockholm before Blackwater….
“Nobody knew who we were, but the people who did know who we were thought that we sucked. And that was kind of based on one disastrous show that we did: our first show!”
Didn’t the crowd steal David’s [Isberg, original singer] mic stand?
“Yeah, and we improvised a grindcore song at that show, so we probably came across as super-amateurs, which we were. We didn’t even have our instruments. We had to borrow them from the headliner. The crowd was throwing snus [tobacco pouches available in Sweden] in David’s face, and he got pissed off, which you would, and then they stole his microphone stand. He dived into the audience and tried to chase the guy down. There was a show the next day that I was in line for – I want to say it was Morbid Angel – and the guy in front of me goes, ‘Did you see David’s fucking band last night? They were terrible!’”
What was the nature of the tension between [Blackwater… producer] Fredrik Nordström and [co-producer and Porcupine Tree frontman] Steven Wilson?
“Steven is kind of timid, even more so in those days, and Fredrik was quite commanding: he could really demean you but mean it as a joke. Maybe that didn’t sit well with Steve. Steve wasn’t very well-known at the time, apart from anyone who liked Porcupine Tree, so Fredrik was like, ‘Who’s this guy?!’”
Wouldn’t Steven change something only for Fredrik to change it back?
“Steve would mix the parts that he produced, so Fredrik had to mix everything around Steve’s already set mixes. Fredrik approached Blackwater Park as he did pretty much any other record. He had his ways that worked, if you know what I mean. The difference was, of course, that our music was quite different to the other bands that he was working with at the time.”
Will you and Steven ever make a follow-up to [2012 collaborative album] Storm Corrosion?
“We’re constantly talking about it. We are going to try something at some point. How, when, et cetera, I don’t really know, but I met Steve recently [during a tour of Australia]. I went to see his show and we went out for a drink afterwards and hung out and talked a bit. I don’t think we’re going to follow the specific tone we set with that record, and depending on what comes out of it – if anything comes out of it – if it’s something that we would think is Storm Corrosion, then it’s Storm Corrosion.”
You recently spoke about being sick of life on tour. You’re doing some special standalone shows this year, like at the Pompeii Amphitheatre and Piece Hall in Halifax. Is that what your live schedule will look more like going forward?
“Right now, I’m so tired of touring that I have to say, ‘If that.’ I don’t have a craving to go out touring. I don’t know how much I need the adoration and the attention. It’s such a simple, stupid fucking life on tour. I missed a lot of my kids growing up and the days on tour are samey, samey, samey. My oldest was born in 2004, so there’ve been times where I’ve come back from a tour and my kids don’t know who I am.”
How about future creative plans?
“I want to shake things up again. I don’t want to get stuck in a rut and do ‘business as usual’ with this band.”
[Latest album] The Last Will And Testament famously brought your growls back. Are you saying you’ll take them away again?
“Yeah, I might steal them back! I think it’s part of our success, challenging people constantly. I’m a bit of a destroyer, you know? The Last Will And Testament is like a beautiful sand-castle on a perfect beach – now I want to take a bucket of water to it!”
Blackwater Park will be reissued on expanded 2LP vinyl via Music For Nations on March 27. Opeth will tour Europe in the summer, India in October and Central and South America in November.
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