Fredrik Åkesson, Opeth
Posted on 22nd Oct 09 by Jonathan Keane | 
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Fredrik Åkesson has a resume that reads rather impressively, having spent the early days of his guitar playing career in hard rockers Talisman and Southpaw, amongst others. Then in 2005 he found himself with fellow Swedes, Arch Enemy, following the departure of Christopher Amott. He now makes himself at home with Swedish progressive metal kings Opeth, [...]
Fredrik Akesson
Fredrik sat down with Drop-D for a quick chat, a few hours before a storming set in Dublin’s Olympia Theatre.
Drop-d: So, how are you?
Fredrik Akesson: Good
Drop-d: Tired at all from rigours of touring?
Fredrik: Ah yeah a little bit, but excited to play here tonight.
Drop-d: First off, you’ve just completed the UK leg of The Progressive Nation tour with Dream Theater. How was that?
Fredrik: It was good. It was a bit special to play Wembley Arena, those classic arenas where Iron Maiden and Thin Lizzy, bands you grew up with played. I think it went down very good. Yesterday, we were in Belfast, where we played a headlining show as well.
Drop-d: You’ve toured with Dream Theater on Progressive Nation before, but in the States. Has this time been different in Europe?
Fredrik: One thing that’s different is that on the US tour there were a lot of seated arenas, with the crowd sitting down and that’s not so rocking! On this European run there have been no venues like that. Otherwise, on this one there have been different bands like Bigelf, another cool band, and another band called Unexpect.
Drop-d: What do you think of Bigelf and Unexpect?
Fredrik: I’m a bit of a fan of Bigelf. Unexpect are a bit weird, they’re crazy. There’s a lot of stuff going on in their music. I’m trying to get it, I’m not right now. But it’s cool.
Fredrik: There have been so many gigs; we’ve been out on the road since the end of April last year. So, this is the last run for this album. It’s been really good, it’s been successful I must say.
Drop-d:If I may just move onto Watershed… How did you and Martin “Axe” Axenrot (drummer), being the two newest members, settle into the Opeth recording process?
Fredrik: I was actually in the studio a lot by myself because Mikael (Akerfeldt, guitarist/vocalist & chief song-writer) had just become a father for his second daughter. So, he obviously wanted to go home as much as possible. He was very confident in me and I had a lot of responsibility on my own; that made me feel really relaxed with the recording. We were really prepared as well, we rehearsed a lot. For Axe it went well too, he worked a lot with Akerfeldt with the details. Akerfeldt was very involved with the drum parts and Axe did a lot of his own stuff too. But when I did my guitar parts he wasn’t even there. We went through the stuff though; he knew I could do it.
Drop-d: Has that treatment from fans changed now?
Fredrik: I’ve got a lot of positive feedback from fans. But I’m not reading the forums and Blabbermouth and stuff like that. I get a lot of mail on my MySpace from people who think it’s good. I’ve never got any negative feedback on that at least. It feels like it’s going in the right direction.
Drop-d: You co-wrote the song Porcelain Heart with Mikael Akerfeldt, what was that like? Did you learn much about his approach to song writing?
Fredrik: I went a lot to his house, playing solos and other songs we’d demoed. It was good, first of all, for me to join the band at that time in the beginning of the writing process for Watershed. It made me feel apart of the band, playing on the record, and then touring, unlike other bands, when I was in Arch Enemy I only did touring. I couldn’t put my seal on the stuff.
At his house we worked for about sixteen hours on Porcelain Heart and did a lot of other riffs that didn’t end up on the record. But then the day after, he called me up and said he re-arranged everything!
Fredrik: He’s one of those writers that if he’s focussed at home he can get a lot of stuff done when he finally sits down. I was really impressed by Mikael’s discipline when he works. He gets stuff done and works really hard. It’s very inspiring to play with him.
Drop-d: So the album is out well over a year now. Do you feel it’s made the impact you’d envisioned?
Fredrik: It seems like the fans are happy with it. Maybe some fans think we are going into a more melodic direction but I don’t think so, I think Watershed is a very dark album. I’m anxious to do the next album. I think it will be even darker and heavier.
Drop-d: I agree, I saw you guys play here last year November and I thought the new songs like Heir Apparent and The Lotus Eater worked so well with older tracks like Bleak and Demon Of The Fall.
Fredrik: Oh good!
Drop-d: On the topic of set lists, is there much thought put into it or is it just thrown together before a show?
Fredrik: We rehearsed a lot before this tour so we can mix. We’re changing a couple of songs from yesterday. It’s challenging for us because you could get comfortable playing exactly the same set every night. But now we think “Oh we should do that one instead.”
Drop-d: After the Progressive Nation tour concludes what’s next on the agenda for Opeth?
Fredrik: After that we go home for a week and then we play one show in Tel Aviv in Israel. Home for another week then we play two shows in Japan and three or four shows in Australia.
Drop-d: Will that be your first time playing Israel?
Fredrik: It’s my first time, but Opeth has been there, I think, two times before.
Drop-d: Have you guys put much thought into the next album? When can we expect that?
Fredrik: The plan is that after the Australian dates, we’re done with touring. We’ll do some shows next year, maybe some special shows because it’s the band’s 20th anniversary. So there might be something in April which hasn’t been confirmed yet. Maybe we’ll play a few festivals too. But next year, it’s time off and it’s also time to write the next record. The goal is to start recording at the end of next year.
Drop-d: Yeah, personally, I love them. I definitely recommend they’re first album, Dust.
Fredrik: I’ll check that out.
Drop-d: They also pulled out, last minute, from the Belfast show.
Fredrik: Yeah, our crew said it was because there wasn’t enough space on the stage. It was a tiny pub and we have quite a lot of stuff. We didn’t bring everything up, but it was impossible. I found out about it right before they were supposed to play. It was a bit weird; I hope they didn’t travel all the way up there.
Drop-d: Alright, that’s everything. Thank you very much and good luck with the show tonight and the rest of the tour.
Fredrik: Cool.
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Tags: Arch Enemy, Bigelf, Dream Theater, Fredrik Akesson, Mikael Akerfeldt, Mourning Beloveth, olympia theatre, Opeth, Unexpect