OPETH frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt recently opened up about his parents’ reaction to his career in music. In a conversation with Chaoszine, he revealed that his parents were taken aback by his death metal vocals, with his mother expressing a particular fondness for his clean singing voice.
“They weren’t particularly proud,” Mikael said. “My mother always told me that I had a lovely, lovely, beautiful voice when I was a child, ‘Yeah, you had such a beautiful voice.’ Of course, when I got older, I stopped singing. I didn’t want to sing. But then we started doing the bands or whatever and put out the records. She didn’t like it.”
“Her idol is Tommy Steele, and she liked Cliff Richard, if you know what I mean. And she didn’t particularly like metal. My dad was, my dad is now kind of like, ‘Sounds awesome son.’ But at the time they weren’t really impressed. They didn’t understand what I was doing, which is just the way you wanted when you’re a teenager, you don’t want your parents to go like, ‘I understand exactly what you’re doing.'”
The interviewer brought up the fact that death metal was in its infancy during Åkerfeldt‘s formative years, potentially adding to his parents’ bewilderment.
Mikael added: “It was our own little secret. Little dirty secret that this genre existed at all, and you didn’t bring mothers and dads into that. It was ours. But now they are proud. And my mother talks like, ‘I love your song ‘Burden,’‘ she brings up the ballad songs, of course. ‘So beautiful.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, thanks.'”
Continuing, Åkerfeldt recounted a funny story about his dad misinterpreting a mashup as a genuine collaboration.
“My dad actually called me up saying, ‘I like what you did with PINK FLOYD.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Well, you did a song with PINK FLOYD.’ He doesn’t know who PINK FLOYD is, but he’s like, ‘That’s a great song.’ I was like, ‘Well, we never did a song with PINK FLOYD.’ So it turns out somebody had mashed together two songs on the internet or whatever, and he figured it was for real.”
“He was like, ‘That’s a great song.’ But I talked to him again the other day, and he was name-dropping song titles. I was like, ‘What the f**k happened? He’s become a fan at 80 years old.’ Better late than never.”
OPETH are set to release their new concept album, The Last Will And Testament, on October 11 through Reigning Phoenix Music. The album’s first single, “§1,” is available for streaming below.
Reeder, the visionary behind Metal Addicts, has transformed his lifelong passion for metal into a thriving online community for metal aficionados. As a fervent devotee of black metal, Reeder is captivated by its dark, atmospheric, and often unorthodox soundscapes.