According to Blabbermouth.net, in a new interview with Japan’s Prog Project, Opeth guitarist and vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt was asked if it is a “challenge” for him “to stay progressive or to keep evolving” when he is writing music for his band. “Yeah, good question. I’m not sure if it’s so important for me to feel that we are progressive, because I don’t really know what it means anymore. Back in the day, I think that it was easier to define a progressive band because they were mixing styles and stuff like that, but now progressive means fast guitar solos, and it’s become a sound and maybe not so progressive.

The artist adds: “I think progressive music, especially in rock and metal, has become a bit regressive. And it’s also, I don’t know if I can decide if we are progressive or not. I think it’s up to the audience to decide, but for me, it’s become less and less important to be labeled progressive because I don’t know what it means anymore. But when I write music, it’s easy to, I think, make progress for our own music, because I have so many different kind of influences and I’m very passionate about my music and stuff like that. So I try, but at the end of the day, I just wanna write emotional music.”

When being asked to clarify that he does not “think about trying to be progressive” when composing music for Opeth, Akerfeldt said: “No. I don’t wanna repeat myself. Many of our fans want us to maybe repeat what we did in the early 2000s, but I’m not really interested in that. I like for us to progress, but not necessarily just so we fit into the progressive rock/metal genre.”

Photo Credit: Mehreen Rizvi