Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson to guest on upcoming Opeth album

Ian Anderson/Mikael Akerfeldt
(Image credit: Press)

Jethro Tull founder and frontman Ian Anderson has revealed he will guest on the next Opeth album.

Speaking on the Mystery Tour radio show on Italian station Radio Onda D'Urto,  Anderson made the revelation when asked about musical activity outside of the Jethro Tull camp.

"Well, from time to time I play on other people's records, if they're interesting to me," he revealed. "I just did – last week, I played on three or four tracks from a prog metal band called Opeth. [They're] Swedish."

Akerfeldt told Prog Magazine back in 2021 how he'd tried to get Anderson to contribute to the band's 2011 album Heritage to no avail, saying, "I did e-mail Ian Anderson but I never heard back from him."

Although there's been no official word, Opeth are believed tp have been hard at work on the upcoming record since they wrapped their Evolution XXX tour, celebrating the band's 30th anniversary, in Mexico in February last year.

The band have a string of European festival dates pencilled in for this summer, and it would be unlikely they'd announce a new studio album without a full blown tour to back it up, so any potential release would most likely be towards the end of the year or even into 2025.

Opeth recently reissued their 2003 album Damnation on vinyl while Jethro Tull will release a Steven Wilson remix of their 'great lost album' The Château D’herouville Sessions in March.

Jerry Ewing

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.