The Prog’s Bollocks

When Mikael Åkerfeldt joined Opeth in 1990, his head was filled with dreams. Though he gorged on a diet of death metal and “hopelessly obscure” prog records, he spent his formative years starry eyed as heavy metal conquered the world one stadium at a time.

But 10 years later, Opeth weren’t conquering stadiums – they weren’t even winning over pubs. “Our first headline show was at the White Horse in High Wycombe – it was like Bad News, an old guy and his dog showed up!” Mikael says.

It was 2001 and Opeth were working on album number five, their previous albums having achieved a positive critical reception and earning them a cult reputation for boundary-pushing extreme metal. As nice as that was, it didn’t compete with Mikael’s childhood dreams of “swimming pools filled with cash” and “a couple of Rolls-Royces”.

“But then, I probably should have been suspicious when we signed.”