Peter Lindgren (Opeth) Interview
Sweden's Opeth is a band that's always coming up with something new. They garnered much critical praise for 2003's Damnation, a mellow, almost progressive album that was the polar opposite of their previous album, Deliverance, which was recorded at the same time.
Opeth has just released the first DVD, Lamentations - Live At Shepherd's Bush Empire 2003. In addition to the live show, which is really two separate shows, including the entire Damnation album and a harder set, there is also a documentary. The 65 minute film covers the recording process for the two albums, which is a very interesting behind the scenes look.
Opeth is currently on tour, and I recently spoke with guitarist Peter Lindgren.
Chad Bowar: How is the tour going so far?
Peter Lindgren: We had a few problems at the beginning, but now we sorted it out and it's going smoothly. Moonspell and DevilDriver are on the bill. We are headlining and they swap opening for us. There have been a few sold out shows, which is great. The Fillmore was the highlight. It's a classic venue in San Francisco and it was sold out. Most of the shows have been really good.
What is the setlist like?
We've rehearsed songs from all albums, but we miscalculated the time. We play for an hour and 45, but the set we rehearsed happened to be 2 hours and 15, which was too long. So we had to take out songs, so now we cover all albums except for the first two.
Are you starting to feel at home when you're in America?
Yes, this is our second home. We're here more than we're in Sweden.
Where haven't you toured that you'd like to go?
We were very close to going to South America, but the Chilean promoter fucked everything up for us with the flights and everything. So we were in Mexico on our way to Chile but we had to cancel because it wasn't even physically possible to fly out with all the equipment.
Japan is the other place that we've never been. Swedish bands are huge in Japan, and they should like us because we've got a lot of guitar stuff going on.
How did you get a gig in Amman, Jordan?
There's a metal audience in Jordan, but we're not allowed to do the death metal screams. We can have distorted guitars and mellow stuff. There's been a few bands that have gone there and played, but no metal bands. It's going to be a very different show I think. We cancelled that show in December, so we're going to do it now. The last guy to play there was Sting.
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