Opeth On ‘The Last WILL and TESTAMENT’

Swedish rock legends OPETH are excited to heading to Australia and New Zealand in November 2025. After six long years wait, the November tour promises to be groundbreaking – seven absolutely massive concerts featuring two hours plus sets including landmark masterpieces and songs from Opeth’s darkest and heaviest album in decades – the critically acclaimed concept album, The last WILL and TESTAMENT.

The last WILL and TESTAMENT is a concept album set in the post-World War I era, unfolding the story of a wealthy, conservative patriarch whose last will and testament reveals shocking family secrets. The narrative weaves through the patriarch’s confessions, the reactions of his twin children, and the mysterious presence of a polio-ridden girl who the family have taken care of. The album begins with the reading of the father’s will in his mansion. Among those in attendance is a young girl, who, despite being an orphan and polio-ridden, has been raised by the family. Her presence at the will reading raises suspicions and questions among the twins. Fredrik Åkesson talks to Hi Fi Way about the album and tour.

Congratulations on album number fourteen.
Thank you very much.

Did this one really challenge the band? It is an epic record…
Yeah, I mean, there’s tons of stuff on it apparently, some new ingredients and some old coming back. We’re very happy about it. It’s exciting time seeing how it’s been received now.

Five years between albums seems like a long time. Was it just one of those tough albums to make?
The album was written quite fast, but the reason why it took so long between the previous and this one is first of all, due to the pandemic and the way Mikael works, he can’t stop working on an album until the touring cycle for the album before is finished. So as soon as we were able to go out and tour again we still had obligations scheduled that we had to fulfill before going into the writing process for a new album. So that’s the reason why it took some time. But, of course the pandemic took a chunk of two years away as well.

Did you have a vision of how you thought the album was going to sound?
Well, we talked about we wanted to be more heavier. I noticed that Mikael doesn’t want to have ideas to shoved down his throat. If we tell him what to do, he’d probably do the opposite. We all noticed that he liked to do more of the old, death metal vocals suddenly again. We always play them live, but we play more old school stuff, I think, in our set lists. We thought it was fun, and I noticed he thought it was fun. Also having a new drummer, Waltteri, he likes that stuff as well. There was talk about doing something more heavy and that was it basically.

Did the band go about the process of making this album any differently?
Mikael is a bit of a lone wolf in the writing process, but the first track was paragraph seven. He sent it out to us and he sent me the section for the guitar solo. He wanted me to come up with a solo. So, I did that and then everybody got it and we kind of dig into one song at the time. We didn’t start rehearsing until I the first song was finished beginning of June last year. Then in November last year everything was written. It was written pretty fast and we started rehearsing in November. I think we played together like twenty times because I really wanted to nail everything with him.

It was also challenging because you don’t have any vocals or any guide with bass or keyboards to lean upon to nail all the riffs with him was a great practice before going into the studio, definitely. We rehearsed maybe seven, eight times before we went into the studio, which was great. I think everybody had their parts in their DNA musically, which is good when you’re in the studio environment, so you don’t have to spend time thinking about certain parts or anything like that. You could focus more on dialling in sounds, testing what kind of a mic or amp or whatever you’re going to use.

Was it always the intention to do a concept album? Did it take quite a bit to have a compelling story to be able to have running through these songs?
Well, the general idea about the concept was there from the start, but the story was crystallized right after the last song was written maybe December last year. The lyrics are different. I mean, everything came together when Mikael rewrote the lyrics. The storyline also had a bit of a help with his girlfriend Clara as well, especially the last track on the album is called A Story Never Told, which is a twist in the storyline. It’s about this old patriarch in the 1920s after World War I, decade in times. But he is a bit of a narcissistic, conservative, super rich man who dies and all the songs are called paragraph one to seven because they are paragraphs in his will and testament.

There’s a lot of side stories in his will. It’s not just what you’re going to inherit, there is a lot of stuff that’s being revealed that his kids don’t know about. There are certain turns, certain dark stories within this that people are interested can delve deeper into when they play the album and can make up their own mind about it, but it’s a pretty clear story. The final track, the story takes a pretty big twist, in track number eight, which is called A Story Never Told. It’s the only track on the album that actually has a title, which is a letter that comes to one of the daughters that eventually inherit everything and she gets to find out something that wasn’t revealed in the will. Also, a thing that the patriarch, the father, didn’t know as well. He was tricked at the very end. So, it’s a pretty cool twist of the story.

In terms of this album and the live show, do you need to think about the order they are played to replicate the story, or do they stand up in their own right?
Yeah, we’re looking at using the concept in the story on the screens in the shows, we’re working on the content for that to fit the song that relates with the storyline for each song. We talked about it, we can’t really play the album in its entirety right now. Maybe we’ll do it sometime, but I think it would require like a string orchestra along with it, which is featured on the album. Ian Anderson also plays a big role on the album on flute and the narrations. Currently, we’re looking at rehearsing five tracks. I would think we will play three or four tracks and then mix it up with stuff from the back catalogue. Luckily enough, these songs are slightly shorter than the normal Opeth tracks, so maybe we can squeeze in four new tracks at least. They’re shorter, but they have more ingredients than ever I would say, they’re more restless in the song structure.

With those death metal elements that were introduced back into this album, did that start getting the band a bit excited in the studio once the songs started to take shape?
Definitely, immediately when we got the first track, which was paragraph seven, has that element back. I was really happy about it. I think this album combines a bit of the old Opeth, the previous four albums, which might be considered a bit more proggy, but still, I think it’s a step forward for that. It’s not now we’re going back to the Blackwater Park album or anything like that. I was super excited about it when I heard the growls are back. I think this suits the band well now where we are right now and also it suits the storyline of the album because it’s basically the father’s different voices. The growl is one of his voices. The clean vocals are one of his voices. The Ian Anderson narrations is one of its voices, so it also makes sense. It’s not just bringing it back for the gimmick of it, but also on the contrary, it’s a massive part of the Opeth sound as well. So, it was about time, you know!

Working with the likes of Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) and Joey Tempest (Europe), how was that?
Ian was asked to play on the Heritage album, but he didn’t reply and his son found out about that in some interview Mikael did. James, who also is the Jethro Tull’s manager contacted Mikael and said that he might be up for some type of collaboration and being huge Jethro Tull fans and he’s of course a legend. I think Mikael sent him a few tracks and it worked out really well. He really took on the role as the patriarch and I believe initially he was only supposed to be on one track, but I think he does narration on four, but it was never talked about him playing flute on the album.

Luckily enough, he was the one who asked, do you need some flute on the album? And it was yeah, yeah, yeah, sure! He ended up playing flute on paragraph four and paragraph seven, which was a blessing. Of course, I have to pinch my arm because I get to play a guitar solo after his solo. That was something I didn’t believe and wouldn’t have thought that would happen when I was a kid. With Joey, we’re good friends with the guys in Europe and they’re generation older than me, but I grew up in the same town as they did. I’ve been playing with the guitarist John Norum for quite some time, but Joey seems to be a bit of a fan of the band. He came to see us in London when played once, and him and Mikael developed a contact and he was over at Mikael’s house for lunch and he was working on this track, the second track on the album, paragraph two.

He asked if he wanted to go down and try something, and he was, yeah, yeah, let’s try it. But at the time, he didn’t have the lyrics finished. So Joey did his vocals in his house in London later on, but I don’t think he does many guest appearances and Ian neither. So, it’s quite a unique combination in track number two where you have Ian on one side and Joey on the other, and after that, Mikael comes in with a growl after that. It’s a bit of a unique combination that hasn’t been done before.

What did you think when you put the headphones on and listened to the album start to end for the first time?
I was super happy. It’s always a struggle with a mix because some people might think more individually or out of a musician’s perspective and if you turn up something too loud it will affect something else. So, it’s a lot of opinions, but I think we got there in the end, I was really happy after the mastering was done at Abbey Road in London and I listened to it again. I like to listen to it in at least three different formats. The way kids listen to it on cell phones, which is terrible and good proper headphones and lesser good headphones and in speakers, four different ones. I think it’s difficult because there’s a lot of stuff that needs to fit in this frame and what I like to hear with the album is to hear everything clearly and I think we do. It sounds pretty powerful.

Are you looking forward to touring this album?
We started in North America, we have been rehearsing the new and there’s a lot of prepping with gear and all that, logistics and stuff like that. It’s going to be fun. We recently did a three week tour in the summer. We played festivals and headline shows, when we started touring this summer we had played for more than a year together, then it’s a bit tough to get back in the saddle again. We are looking forward to Australia, it has been a while now and Australia has always been a great supporter of Opeth. The road to get there is hell but worth everything to get there.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Opeth on the following tour dates, tickets from Metropolis Touring/ DRW Entertainment…