The People Vs. Opeth: The Swedish prog-metal kings on games, ABBA, and how much of a dictator Mikael Åkerfeldt is

“Oh wow, nobody’s ever asked me that before. Shit…”

Around a bar table in London's Karma Sanctum hotel, Mikael Åkerfeldt is questioning one of life's biggies. To his left, guitarist Fredrik Åkesson chews on the matter K!'s just put to them on behalf of one of Opeth's fans, with an equally deep expression.

"Who cares how we're so damned handsome?" the singer and guitarist eventually replies, mulling the question again. "What's important is just that we are."

Mikael already gave us the lowdown on his band's new album, The Last Will And Testament, at Bloodstock back in August. Thus, we reasoned that the best idea for what to talk to them about today would be to invite fans to send in their deepest, most pressing questions to the band.

Here, then, is what they had to say to you…

Lukas asks… Why are you all so handsome?
Mikael: “Good genes. And good jeans.”
Fredrik: “No stains on the jeans.”
Mikael: “We think about this a lot because he's got a girlfriend, I’ve got a girlfriend, and it’s like, ‘How the fuck can they think that we are not disgusting pigs? What do they see in our ugly fucking asses?’”
Fredrik: “It’s a mystery. I wouldn't say I consider myself handsome, but that's just me.”

Ted asks… Mikael, are you still thinking about doing a solo album?
Mikael: “No. I was almost gonna give a Ritchie Blackmore answer, like, ‘This is my solo album’, but we are very much a band situation, even if I write most of the material. But because I am in this position, I don't have the need, almost. Opeth is the vehicle for everything that that we want to do. There's not really any boundaries. And I don't have a super-odd fetish for reggaeton that means I'm going to do reggaeton solo record. Everything that I want to do I feel I can do in this band. Fredrik is doing one, though…”
Fredrik: “Yeah, I'm working on it. Opeth is, of course, 100 per cent priority number one. But I have two songs already mastered and done, I just need to finish the rest of the seven songs. It’s going to have nine songs on it.”
Mikael: “Why nine?”
Fredrik: “Dante’s Inferno. It's an occult number. I have a third song almost done. Biff Byford from Saxon has said he's going to sing on it. That’ll be a metal song, but the other two ones are instrumental, tons of guitar solos. It's an overdose of guitar.”

Deathtormentor asks… What's your favourite video game?
Mikael: “The Last Of Us Part II. It's a masterpiece. It goes beyond video games. I got emotionally attached to that game and to the characters, which never happened before. That is the best game that was ever put out. If you looking for something besides just shooting people in the head, which is fun, that's my favourite, closely followed by Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption.”
Fredrik: “I’m into Assassin's Creed, the Viking one. That’s fun, because the original games are little limited, but now you have an entire world and you can just wander around it. You have missions, but there’s also a lot of freedom to plunder monasteries and stuff like that village. And it is a pretty cool story. You start off in Norway, then you go to England, and you eventually go into London. So it has a bit of a storyline to it. I also a samurai game called Ghost Of The… something.”
Mikael: “That sounds cool. Can you commit hari-kari?”
Fredrik: “You can. It's pretty gory. It's a lot of blood.”
Mikael: “I was born in the ’70s, so growing up me and my friends played Commodore 64, which I was transfixed by. We played and played and played. But in those days, your parents would come down after an hour and go, ‘That’s enough for today, one hour.’ Now, being 50, it's a bit like, ‘Is it still cool? Can I sit and play games?’ Yeah. Of course I can!”

Ben asks… Is this your last album?
Mikael: “It's not. I know that title has made people ask that, but that's not the intention. We're probably going to do more, but we work, or at least I do, thinking that every album might be the last one. It's a healthy way. It keeps us on our toes. It makes me go the extra mile with the music and make it matter. So I always treat it as the last record, because you never know. And, like I said, it makes it mean something, not just another fucking record. I think it's a good way to treat a fortunate career. We're very fortunate to do this, so we put our souls in this music. And you know, we don't treat it as an enterprise, as a career. It really matters to us. For that reason, I think it's healthy.”
Fredrik: “We have a new drummer as well, Waltteri Väyrynen, so we have some new fire, some new power. He’s younger than us, so we just suck a bit of his blood.”
Mikael: “We’re draining him like vampires. Energy vampires.”

Annie asks... What was the first riff that you learned?
Mikael: “Probably Smoke On The Water, all on the high-E string.”
Fredrik: “Breaking The Law, Judas Priest. I was taking violin classes when I was younger, about seven, eight years old. I started getting into hard rock and metal, and we were playing Breaking The Law on the violin, and our teacher got really pissed off.”
Mikael: “I didn't have the grit to practice. It was just cool to have a guitar. Besides, I wanted an electric guitar, but I got a nylon-string classical guitar from my grandmother. I wasn't even 10 years old. I was very young. I desperately wanted electric guitars. I painted knobs on the top and a pickguard and stuff.”

Toby asks... Which of your albums are you most proud of?
Mikael: “It's always the latest one. It would be really odd to say, ‘Yeah, the second one,’ when we’ve done more since. Like, we don’t like those? I don't rate our records as worse or better.”
Fredrik: “I think the last one really assembles all the ingredients in a great way, with a prog side and the more death metal side. It comes together as a nice unit.”
Mikael: “And we got Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull on it. That's one big feather in the hat.”

Wilhelm asks… Death or Atheist?
Mikael: “Death, because they had more albums. I only got the first Atheist record. I don't think they get enough credit for being an early death metal band, so to speak, who dabbled with progressive touches. Their album Piece Of Time was cool. But Death, definitely.”
Fredrik: “Death also. Mostly because I haven't really listened to Atheist!”

Joseph asks… What’s your favourite ABBA song?
Fredrik: “Eagle. It's just more dark, more sad, not so happy.”
Mikael: “I like almost all their songs. Me and my girlfriend were talking about ABBA, and that song Chiquitita came up. We were like, ‘That's not one of their best songs.’ But then we put it on and realised it's super-awesome. Also, Lay All Your Love On Me? Masterpiece. I really, really love the last song that they ever recorded, The Day Before You Came. It's super-sad with odd production, and it's super-Swedish. That's a superb song.”

Dave asks… Fredrik, what's Mikael like to work with in the studio?
Fredrik: “Dictator. Complete asshole. Nah, sometimes a bit of a dictator, but all for the good. He’s also open to ideas, which is very important for me. He gives me a lot of freedom. I get a lot of responsibility with, like, sorting out the guitar tones with amps and stuff like that. And, of course, he writes the stuff, but we work together on the record, we bounce ideas, and it feels like we're a team.”
Mikael: “I can't get a bit tunnel-visioned, listening in the studio. When there's too many voices, I get bit thrown off. That's when I get a bit dictator: ‘Shut up! Let's do this!’”
Fredrik: “So yeah, actually, just a dictator, now I think about it…”

Opeth's album The Last Will And Testament is out now via Reigning Phoenix

Read this next:

• “Screaming, for me, is almost like rapping”: Mikael Åkerfeldt talks Opeth’s new album, The Last Will & Testament
• The 13 essential progressive metal albums you need to know
• Devin Townsend: “This album was meant to be an homage to youth. It ended up being a way to process loss”