Author: u0zp4y

For many bands, the pressure to follow up a successful debut album can be a killer. The annals of rock history are filled with hotly tipped artists who have struggled to live up to their opening statement of intent. For Floridian post-grunge band Creed, expectations were sky high after their 1997 debut, My Own Prison, sold more than 2.2 million copies in the US alone within a year of its release. Not that they were feeling the pressure… 

“I can honestly tell you I didn’t even think about that,” says Creed vocalist Scott Stapp, thinking back. “A lot of people talk about, ‘Were you worried about the sophomore slump?’ I had such confidence – and maybe it was just ignorance or youthful naivety – in what we were doing and the music that we were creating. I was just excited about getting this music recorded and putting out a new record.” 

Creed’s immediate success in the wake of My Own Prison painted a target on their backs. Although the album had charted internationally, even reaching No.22 on the Billboard Album Chart in the US, there were naysayers. 

“In the early days of Creed, we were always kind of up against the wall where people were saying, ‘You’re going to be a one-hit wonder’,” remembers guitarist Mark Tremonti. “It was always doom and gloom. We were just trying to survive and stay relevant.” 

The band were hardly scratching in the dirt, though. …Prison’s success meant even with just one album Creed were already headlining arenas in the US and even playing stadiums in Canada, as they hit the road in 1998. But with only one album’s worth of material to their name, they often found that they needed to fill time. A favourite trick would see Scott daring Mark to write a song in front of their audience, before he joined in – something that would yield an unexpected result. 

“Scott would put us on the spot and be like, ‘Hey, crowd, we’re going to write something together’,” Mark recalls with a grin. “I started playing the music, and Scott sang the chorus of Higher; it was literally born in the moment in front of a bunch of people.” 

The band can’t remember exactly where Higher coalesced into being, but it took on a life of its own when they finally got round to writing the album that would become Human Clay. Scott recalls the song’s lyrics were inspired by his fascination with lucid dreaming. Plagued by nightmares from a young age, he hoped the technique could rid him of them once and for all. 

“Ultimately, Higher is a song about Heaven,” he admits. “But I vividly remember becoming awakened in my dreams during the process of making Human Clay, during a recurring dream that I’d had since I was a child. I won’t get into the details of it, but the dream didn’t end well. That night, when I realised that I was asleep, I changed what I did because I knew I was dreaming. So, the scenario didn’t play out as it had for decades, and finally had a positive ending. I never had the nightmare again.”

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Once Creed began to work on the song in earnest, it passed what Scott calls “the goosebump test” – they knew they had written something special. With its propulsive rhythms, a killer guitar riff from Mark, and Scott’s soaring and passionate vocals, the song was immediately earmarked as something for release. 

“When we got into the studio, we were listening back to the mix of it, going, ‘Wow! That sounds like it’s the first single on this record’,” Mark tells us of hearing the finished product. On August 24, 1999, a month before the release of Human Clay, the band would release Higher as the album’s lead single. It was an immediate smash, peaking at No.7 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and staying in the charts for a jaw-dropping 57 weeks. 

“I remember being in the car with my wife buying furniture for our very first home, and they played it on the radio,” Mark recalls fondly. “The DJ was very complimentary of the song. It was a good feeling to hear that it wasn’t going to be our sophomore slump.” 

Not only did Higher gain heavy rotation on radio, but its video became a constant on MTV at the time. It was a mixture of live performance and references to one of the biggest movies of the era. 

“When we filmed that video, that’s when The Matrix came out,” Mark says. “It was the biggest movie, the best special effects and what-not. So, the director said we were going to try to replicate some of those shots.” 

In particular, the band made use of heavy freeze-frames to capture moments of performance and the crowd’s response. 

“Instead of having 40 cameras in a circle around Neo in a fight scene, we had we had one camera on a track that went round in a circle,” Mark says. “We’d have to freeze in the moment, then the camera would go in a circle and try to replicate that 360˚ frozen shot. The whole time when we were doing it, I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is going to work.’ It… came out the way it did.” 

Less than the technical elements, Scott just remembers the ‘fashion’ choices of the time. 

“I poke fun at myself all these years later for my wardrobe,” he chuckles. “Looking at the younger version of yourself and going, ‘Man, why did I think a white tank top with plastic pleather pants was the fashion choice of the day?’ It’s almost like I woke up and just threw something on, not knowing that I was making something that would be played to this day.” 

Nineties’ fashion choices aside, the release of Higher couldn’t have gone better. Its success propelled Human Clay to the top of the US Billboard 200 Album Charts, holding top position for two weeks in October 1999. 

“It was incredible,” Scott says, still overawed by the achievement all these years later. “If my memory serves me, we’d also outsold Garth Brooks!” 

Creed’s success seemed to open more doors of opportunity for them, too. Mark has no hesitation when it comes to picking his favourite achievement of that era: supporting Metallica. 

“Metallica were my heroes and being able to play with them a few times on that cycle was pretty nuts,” he says. “We did the stadium show [Tropicana Field] in Tampa opening up [on December 29, 1999]. That was just nuts – they were gods to me.” 

Human Clay ended up being certified diamond in the US, hitting 11x platinum status in 2004, meaning sales had exceeded 11 million in their homeland alone. Creed not only avoided the sophomore slump, they became one of the biggest rock bands in the world. 

Although their commercial success continued, internal troubles meant Creed disbanded in 2004. Scott Stapp would continue as a solo artist, while Mark Tremonti would form Alter Bridge with Creed drummer Scott Phillips and bassist Brian Marshall, the latter of whom had performed on Human Clay but left the band in 2000. 

But even as Alter Bridge became a mainstay of the rock and metal world, Tremonti and co. weren’t fully done with the past. Creed reunited in 2009 and released a fourth album, Full Circle, which peaked at No.2 on the Billboard 200. The band would head back into hibernation after a 2012 tour, only to re-emerge in 2023. Creed are currently celebrating Higher, and Human Clay’s, 25th birthday by selling out some of the biggest venues in the US to a whole new generation of fans. 

“Scott will ask the crowd, ‘How many of you are at your first Creed show?’ More than half the audience raise their hands,” Mark says. ‘The biggest base of fans that have bought tickets for this current tour are under 34 years old. They’ve discovered the band through social media, through the TikToks, the sporting teams playing the songs and their parents telling them about it. You see a lot of fathers, sons, mothers and daughters coming out to these shows.” 

And obviously, Higher is always one of the highlights of the show. “When we play that song, the place just goes out of control,” Mark says. “It seems like the moment everybody’s been waiting for.” 

For Scott, more than any chart positions or record sales, the legacy of Higher is the encouragement and purpose it has given to people. 

“From my perspective, it seems to be a legacy of inspiration and motivation,” he tells us. “People have connected with the song in the exact manner in which it was inspired. That’s all you can ask for as an artist. It’s continued to inspire all these years later, and hopefully draw people to think of something greater than themselves, draw people closer to something spiritual.”

The 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Human Clay is out now via Craft. For the full list of Creed tour dates, visit their official website. 

Since blagging his way onto the Hammer team a decade ago, Stephen has written countless features and reviews for the magazine, usually specialising in punk, hardcore and 90s metal, and still holds out the faint hope of one day getting his beloved U2 into the pages of the mag. He also regularly spouts his opinions on the Metal Hammer Podcast.

Pearl Jam are grunge’s great survivors, the only band from the early 90s Seattle scene to maintain an unbroken career. In 2013, they released their 10th album, Lightning Bolt – a record which, as guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard said at the time, found them easing into a new phase of their career and lives.

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In October 1993, Pearl Jam were on top of the world and unravelling like a poorly-sewn flannel shirt. The band had just released their second album, Vs. It sold 1.3 million copies within 10 days and topped the US chart for five weeks. Vocalist Eddie Vedder featured on the cover of Time without consenting to an interview; the more they tried to avoid the mainstream, the more it followed them. Some band members drank heavily, others withdrew.

“It felt like we could break up at any time,” guitarist Mike McCready says from his Seattle home, back from a day’s paddle-boarding in the Puget Sound. “That’s why we stopped doing videos – we didn’t want to be totally overexposed. But the record company wanted us everywhere, and there were trust issues within the band and questions about authenticity. We actually had to sit down and say: ‘Hey, do you still want to be in the band, Ed? Do we still want to do this? Is this fun for us?’ It was a weird, scary time.”

That’s when Pearl Jam established the unofficial code that’s kept them relatively well-adjusted ever since. Instead of allowing the seas of change to carry them like shells, they decided to call the shots themselves. Their deadlines would be self-imposed, they would partake in side projects and do very little press (Vedder maintained radio silence for this piece).

Fast-forward to 2013 and Pearl Jam are the only major Seattle band that haven’t broken up or lost their mainstream following. They’ve outlasted and outsold Nirvana, Soundgarden (with whom they share drummer Matt Cameron) and Alice In Chains. They remain one of the most popular touring bands on the circuit, outselling contemporary acts that sell far more albums. Vedder may not climb lighting trusses and dangle 30 feet above the stage like in the early 90s, but Pearl Jam have grown as musicians. With the release of new album Lightning Bolt, they have 10 albums of material to draw from. Their concerts are often over two hours long and feature radically different sets, leading to comparisons to classic jam band the Grateful Dead.

“The Grateful Dead are definitely a template to be understood in regards to this band, and not because we sound like them,” guitarist Stone Gossard explains, at his Oregon vacation home overlooking the Pacific. “The Dead were one of the first bands to create their own universe, do their own thing and keep going forward. The reason we’ve been successful is we haven’t looked back too much. If you do that, you get stuck doing things a certain way because you feel like that’s what’s expected. We’re pretty good at forgetting about what we did before and moving ahead at our own pace.”

Pearl Jam’s new album is a band following its own muse. Unlike 2009’s poppy Backspacer, Lightning Bolt is less focused and more spontaneous-sounding. It feels like the band started jamming to create a batch of eclectic songs ranging from propulsive rockers like album opener Getaway, fast, angular, Dead Kennedys-inspired Mind Your Manners and the anthemic title track, to more experimental cuts, including acoustic-based Sirens, jaunty, jazzy Infallible and melancholic Yellow Moon. If it seems Lightning Bolt is emblematic of a band throwing caution to the wind and cranking out a great bunch of diverse songs, then the band achieved their goal. In reality, its creation wasn’t nearly so simple or enjoyable, requiring two recording sessions and more heated arguments and hair-pulling than members had experienced in years.

“I’m glad the album sounds immediate, because the process definitely was not,” McCready says. “There was a lot of work and a lot of struggle to decide what we really liked.”

“There were differences in opinion about each and every thing,” adds Gossard. “We could have argued until the cows come home about every arrangement and every song. But we have learned not to do that. You gotta pick your fights, and if you don’t win you have to get over it and move on because there’s going to be another fight two days later that you need to figure out how to move through. But a lot of times moving through it and finding the common ground or the compromise that makes the most sense is the way to create the best songs. And we’re all really happy with this album.”

In the past, the thematic tone of Pearl Jam’s albums was partially dictated by their environment. Their earliest material resonated with the frustration of wanting to rock out without being scrutinised. The sombre Riot Act, which came out in 2002, was influenced by the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the deaths of nine fans at the 2000 Roskilde Festival. The pop and new-wave styles of 2009’s Backspacer were a result of positivity in the air after the election of Obama. Lightning Bolt has more to do with retaining youthful spirit in the face of age and accepting mortality.

“It’s hard to speak for Ed [Vedder], and he wrote a lot of the lyrics in the last six weeks, but he’s saying a lot, for sure,” Gossard says. “I think there’s a lot there about our continued middle-aged experiences. Everyone’s in a long-term relationship. Everyone’s got parents that are a getting older and more frail. And we’re all experiencing the digital internet age of way too much information all the time. There are a variety of crazy military conflicts, famines, murders, terrorist activity, and everything you can possibly think of is coming at you a thousand miles an hour. I think that’s where the energy of a lot of these songs is coming from – a lot of different places.”

Pearl Jam started writing for Lightning Bolt in early 2011. When the band entered Henson studio in Los Angeles with long-time producer Brendan O’Brien later that year, they had 16 songs to work with including Getaway, Infallible and Sirens, the latter written by McCready after watching Roger Waters perform The Wall live.

“I was totally blown away by that,“ he says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen something so powerful, and I doubt I ever will again. And it inspired me to write something that had that middle-era Pink Floyd sound. But I didn’t know it was going to turn into a dark, ominous, beautiful ballad until I heard Ed’s lyrics. He stayed up all night and wrote them in California. You hear police sirens in the Hollywood area all the time. And when I heard what he’d written about – the preciousness of life, and hearing sirens and not wanting them to come for him this time. Or are they? Or am I grateful that they’re not?”

Pearl Jam hoped to record quickly and set up a tour, but it became clear that Vedder wasn’t happy with much of the material. Sixteen songs got hacked down to six, three of which wound up on the record. The band wanted the album to be more upbeat and aggressive than what was left.

“We didn’t want it to sound too slick,” says Gossard. “There’s a tendency as you get older and become better musicians to file down the rough edges that can make a song sound good. Whereas if you’re a younger band and you have limited time in the studio, you’d keep the raw sound because you don’t know any better. We didn’t want this record to sound too polished. We really wanted it to hit the listener at a gut level.”

After the studio, Pearl Jam launched a South American tour. They planned to reconvene in their Seattle practice space at the end of the tour, but instead they took time off and flexed other creative muscles. Vedder played solo gigs; Gossard toured with side project Brad and released his second solo album, Moonlander; McCready scored the film Fat Kid Rules The World; bassist Jeff Ament worked on his second solo release, While My Heart Beats. When they were all ready to return to Lightning Bolt, Brendan O’Brien wasn’t available, and then Cameron got back together with Soundgarden to tour and record their 2012 comeback record King Animal.

“I don’t feel like Soundgarden were a big obstacle to Pearl Jam, except in terms of my sanity,” Cameron says. “The past three years for me have been pretty much a blur. But both bands have their own chemistry, so I’m pretty able to keep them separate as a player, and I’ve made time for both.”

In March, when Soundgarden finished touring and O’Brien was available, Pearl Jam returned to LA to finish Lightning Bolt. At first they were frustrated to be working on an album that felt old. But as they got into the process and listened to what they’d recorded, the more excited they became about the faster songs they’d written, including Mind Your Manners and the title track.

“It was good to have that time to listen to what we did and react to it,” Gossard says. “It was a slightly stretched-out process, but as 40-something-year-old men making rock records, three years is not a crazy amount of time to spend.”

Two weeks before the final session, Gossard wrote the rockabilly-tinged Let the Records Play (which would fit perfectly in an episode of True Blood). Apart from a vintage Pearl Jam chorus, it’s an indication that, 20-plus years down the line, there’s room for them to grow musically.

On Mind Your Manners and Getaway, Pearl Jam draw from a similar energy to the early 90s. But they can’t bounce back as quickly from celebrating. “You wake up and there’s a lot more, ‘Oh God, that hurts,’ than there was back then,” McCready admits. “There’s a lot more maintenance these days in order to do what we do. I work out and we all either run or surf or ski or lift weights or do yoga. There are a new set of priorities as we get older.”

Between the recorded catalogue and the stage show, Pearl Jam have become an institution, an anti-corporate corporation. Time, persistence and talent have allowed them to make their own rules, even if the ultimate axiom is ‘there are no rules’.

“This band kind of works like a ouija board,” concludes Gossard. “No one’s fully in charge of how it operates, but you keep looking at the letters and seeing what they spell. And when the planets align you’ve gotta be ready to go.”

Originally published in Classic Rock issue 190, October 2013

Jon Wiederhorn is a veteran author, music journalist and host of the Backstaged: The Devil in Metal podcast. He is the co-author of the books Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal, I’m the Man: The Story of That Guy From Anthrax, Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen, My Riot: Agnostic Front, Grit, Guts & Glory, and author of Raising Hell: Backstage Tales From the Lives of Metal Legends. He has worked on staff at Rolling Stone, MTV, VH1, Guitar Magazine, Guitar.com, Musician.com and Musicplayer.com, while his writing has appeared in TV Guide, Blender, SPIN, Classic Rock, Revolver, Metal Hammer, Stuff, Inked, Loudwire and Melody Maker.

Never meet your heroes, the saying goes – but Opeth have had a blast working with Ian Anderson on their latest album, The Last Will And Testament. Band leader Mikael Åkerfeldt and guitarist Fredrik Åkesson discuss their proggiest album to date, the return of the growl, and why blood isn’t always thicker than water.

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When Swedish prog metal kings Opeth played London’s Eventim Apollo in November 2022, their minds weren’t on King Crimson, Camel or Genesis. They were thinking about the bands who’d made the venue a part of heavy metal history. “To me it’s still the Hammersmith Odeon,” says guitarist Fredrik Åkesson. “That venue has so much history hosting bands like Saxon, Maiden and Motörhead when I was a kid – it’s legendary.”

There were other reasons that night was momentous. The UK stop on their Evolution XXX tour was a chance to celebrate 30 years of achievement, Opeth’s ascension from extreme metal cult heroes to game-changing prog metal torchbearers, paving the way for everyone from Gojira to Jinjer. But even with a packed house and thousands of fans waiting, there was only one face Fredrik was focused on as he played. “I looked up into the balcony and Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden was there, air drumming!”

It’s testament to just how far Opeth have come that they not only regularly pack out massive venues around the world – Sydney Opera House, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Wembley Arena, they’ve done the lot – but have also earned the respect and admiration of some of music’s leading figures. It hasn’t always been the case, though. Their first decade was spent largely trying to outrun a bum reputation inherited from an earlier incarnation of the group. Their ambitious songcraft and clear progressive leanings were an uphill battle best summarised when frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt told Prog in 2023: “People thought we were shit.”

Thankfully, by the 2000s their reputation had shifted. From 2001’s Blackwater Park to 2008’s Watershed, Opeth cemented themselves as one of extreme metal’s most critically revered and boundary-pushing groups. So naturally, they ditched extremity altogether. From 2011’s Heritage onwards, they embraced 70s prog with intricate, complex songs that left their death metal accomplishments gathering dust. Their career thrived – the band found new audiences, even as metal purists decried them from the wings. But who says they can’t go back?

In the summer Opeth released §1, their first single since 2019. On that year’s album, In Cauda Venenum, they’d crossed much of their more technical post-Heritage songcraft with metallic heft, befitting a band that now headlined festivals and could play arenas. They also wrote songs entirely in their native Swedish tongue for the first time. Everyone wondered where they might go next – but nobody was prepared for the return of death metal vocals. At the 77th second §1, Åkerfeldt growled for the first time on record in almost 16 years: ‘Draped in death/the howl of lore.’

Fan response was immediate and, by and large, ecstatic. Loudest were the followers who’d been waiting for a return to extreme metal roots, particularly given Opeth had never stopped playing those songs live. But what about their the fans they’d gained in the past decade of psychedelic hues, symphonic swells and jazz breaks? (Disclaimer: although the album features the return of some death growls, overall The Last Will And Testament is probably the proggiest album they’ve released thus far.)

It’s a humid September day, but thankfully the thick, sticky air is nullified by the coolness of the hotel’s subterranean cinema room. Black and white portraits of Kurt Cobain and Ozzy Osbourne on the walls lend a sense of stylish, sanitised bohemia. It’s rock’n’roll, but with the crusts cut off. So, what’s with the fancy digs?

Fans asked, ‘Why did you stop doing death metal vocals?’ Now it’s, ‘Why have you started doing death metal vocals?’

“It’s the Maiden hotel!” Åkesson says, elaborating that the metal legends opened the site back in 2009 and still have ties to it now. Dickinson attending Opeth gigs aside, they’re not the most obvious bands you’d pair up – but Åkesson admits Maiden inspired Opeth as much as they have countless other metal outfits. “Besides, Iron Maiden have a progressive side,” he points out. “You know, one of Steve Harris’s favourite bands is Jethro Tull. And we got Ian Anderson on our album!”

Musically, The Last Will And Testament expands on the technical complexity that made In Cauda Venenum so brilliant, with latest member Waltteri Väyrynen proving a deft hand at the drum kit as they switch between bombastic, metallic booms and jazz-like skittering beats. “It’s exciting!” Åkesson says. “It’s hopefully rewarding; we’ve put so much time into the album. I’m curious about how people will react.”

Both band members are practically bubbly as they discuss their 14th LP. Åkerfeldt admits he’s made an internal promise to “not be the usual grumpy, cynical bastard” – and we’re inclined to believe him. There’s a palpable sense of excitement around the record. §1 certainly got gums flapping, probably as much as they did when the band ditched those death metal elements on Heritage.

“Lots of people have hang-ups on the vocals,” Åkerfeldt acknowledges. “What I remember from those days was fans asking us constantly, ‘Why did you stop doing death metal vocals?’ Now it’s, ‘Why have you started doing death metal vocals?’ There’s so much focus on this aspect of our sound. Just remember there are other elements too!

“We need that curiosity to always be asking, ‘Well, what’s behind this tree?’” he explains. “I know that can be difficult for some fans – especially in metal, where purity is prized. You end up provoking that identity by doing something like Heritage. It can get boring if people just keep doing the same. For all the talk of ‘next Metallicas’ you can’t get better than the very best at something; when has a carbon copy ever been better? It’s like Highlander – there can be only one!”

Our family stretches back to Polish nobility. I’m hoping someone will call and be like, ‘You own 10 castles in Warsaw!’

Where does that leave Opeth when it comes to finding their space in the prog and metal scenes? “I really wanted to be accepted in the prog scene, but when we were starting, contemporary prog just wasn’t interesting to me – until Porcupine Tree anyway,” Åkerfeldt says. “I wanted to get some kind of acceptance from our very small domestic scene. Three tiny bands formed around a Mellotron: Anekdoten, Änglagård and Landberk. Perhaps due to our associations with Steven Wilson, we banana-peeled our way into that scene. In turn, they started checking out death metal prog or whatever you want to call it. But I wouldn’t say either scene has been more important to us. Now we’ve merged.”

The Last Will And Testament certainly seems to put truth to that statement: it represents some of the most inventive and technically impressive music the band have ever made. It’s also Opeth’s first full concept record since 1999’s Still Life. “We sort of tried the concept record on Ghost Reveries but it ended up getting amputated,” Åkerfeldt admits. For The Last Will And Testament, no such amputations were required. He had a clear idea: the album would be a period piece, set in a pre-World War II-era and concerning a wealthy family whose patriarch has just died.

Each track would be a paragraph from the titular will, read to the surviving children who expect to inherit the fortune. There would be revelations, recriminations and, finally, restitution, with plenty of twists and turns along the way – not least in the only named track on the record, A Story Never Told, which adds a final spike to the tale.

“My grandfather was working on a family tree and he said our family stretches back to Polish nobility. So I’m hoping someone will call me and be like, ‘Hey, you own 10 castles in Warsaw!’” Åkerfeldt jokes. “Though the problem would be that my sister would probably own, like, nine… Then, blood isn’t thicker than water! To me, that idea is fascinating – that you can have a family who love each other, or at the very least care for each other, but the second this wad of cash gets involved they become sworn enemies for the remainder of their lives.”

Ian Anderson has been on my radar since I picked up the first Jethro Tull record – to me he’s a modern Beethoven. I never dreamed he would play on our songs

So far as prog metal concept records go, it’s less 1984, more Knives Out. But then, given both Åkesson and Åkerfeldt are fathers – the latter’s youngest, Mirjam, even adds some narration to the record – it’s also a concept that perhaps hits closer to home more than anything they did 20 years ago.

“My oldest daughter turns 20 in September, so I guess 20 years ago I was a very different person,” Åkerfeldt reflects. “Back then I was more interested in Satan and death than talking about families, secrets and inheritance! Now, having a family, you start to empathise with the idea of a family tragedy.”

Åkerfeldt’s daughter is by no means the only guest on the album. Tull mainstay Ian Anderson also plays a pivotal role, providing narration that helps focus the narrative as well as displaying some of his signature flute skills. The Tull influence has been evident in Opeth’s sound for years – most notably singled out on Famine from their prog-purest album, Heritage.

“Mikael actually reached out to Ian for that album, but he never got a reply,” Åkesson recalls. “Luckily we found Björn J:son Lindh, who passed away not long after recording flutes for that album. But he worked with ABBA – that tells you the calibre of musician he was.”

Although denied that chance to work with Anderson, their paths would eventually cross when Tull played Stockholm in 2022. “It was around the finishing stages of Covid. He was halfway up a flight of stairs chatting to us with a mask on,” Åkerfeldt remembers. “Ian has been on my radar since I picked up the first Jethro Tull record – to me he’s a modern Beethoven. I never dreamed he would play on our songs, but now it’s reality.”

Another iconic figure to pop up on the album is Europe’s Joey Tempest, who provides guest vocals on §2. Åkerfeldt has hardly been quiet about his love for Europe – when Prog last spoke to him he was hungover after seeing them – but their Tempest popping up on a prog metal record remains a shock. Though, as Opeth tell it, the ties between the two bands are tighter than you’d think. “I came from the same suburb as Europe; I used to play a lot with John Norum, their guitar player. I also had a band with [bassist] John Levén,” Åkesson reveals.

If Taylor Swift wanted to sing on our records and I didn’t like her voice… you’re not singing on my record! Maybe I’d say yes, actually

“I went drinking with Levén and he borrowed money from me that I think he still hasn’t paid me back. Bastard!” Åkerfeldt says. “He did introduce me to the other guys, though, so I guess that’s OK. I got to know Joey; I couldn’t believe he knew I existed, let alone that he’d come to our gigs. When he had lunch at my place, I told him about the part on the record. I sang it, and it wasn’t shit, but I was emulating his type of voice. So I asked him.”

While guests are a rarity on Opeth records, Åkerfeldt is quick to refute any idea that their appearance would somehow dilute the band’s vision. “I’m pretty ruthless with our music. If Taylor Swift wanted to sing on our records and I didn’t like her voice… fuck you, you’re not singing on my record!”

He considers for a moment. “Maybe I’d say yes, actually. But ultimately it comes down to the quality. And are they doing something I can’t? In this case for both, absolutely yes.”

Work began on The Last Will And Testament in summer 2023, and Opeth decamping to Rockfield Studios in Wales in early 2024 to record the final product. But with its full concept and the guest appearances, how can the album be adapted for live shows? “We never really play the songs as they sound on record,” Åkerfeldt says. “We’re constantly facing a situation of us rearranging the songs so they can be played by the five of us, as opposed to the number of tracks we can use in the studio. We have to delegate certain parts.”

“I’m doing the Tempest bit!” Åkesson adds in mock-horror.

Given Opeth’s ascension to festival headliner status, what venues are left for the band to play? “Madison Square Garden, maybe. But I doubt we’ll ever do that,” Åkerfeldt reflects.

Our manager said, ‘Ten years from now you’ll be playing the Albert Hall.’ Yeah, right! Then we ended up there

“I guess for us, Hammersmith was the one,” Åkesson says. “I remember we played Massey Hall in Canada and all I could think was about Rush’s Exit… Stage Left. I didn’t even know that was where it was recorded before we got in there, to be honest.”

Åkerfeld notes: “Sometimes you go to one of these ‘legendary’ venues and they’re pretty underwhelming. ‘Oh, it’s a venue.’ Not Red Rocks, though – the scenery there was amazing. When we signed with our manager, Andy Farrow, we were working on Blackwater Park. He said, ‘Ten years from now, you’ll be playing the Albert Hall.’ Yeah, right! Then we ended up there! We need to go the other way now; go play the Camden Underworld or something. We’re getting too big-headed… who do we think we are?”

Staff writer for Metal Hammer, Rich has never met a feature he didn’t fancy, which is just as well when it comes to covering everything rock, punk and metal for both print and online, be it legendary events like Rock In Rio or Clash Of The Titans or seeking out exciting new bands like Nine Treasures, Jinjer and Sleep Token. 

Lamb Of God helped reshape the landscape of metal in the 2000s thanks to albums such as As The Palaces Burn and Ashes Of The Wake. But in 2000, they were still an unknown band from Richmond, Virginia who had recently changed their name from the more provocative Burn The Priest and were about to drop their second album, New American Gospel. In 2007, guitarist Mark Morton and then-drummer Chris Adler looked back on the album that would sew the seeds for the New Wave Of American Heavy Metal.

From modest beginnings at Virginia Commonwealth University in 1990, Lamb Of God rose to become one of the most crucial and acknowledged metal names of the 21st Century. The story begins with guitarist Mark Morton, bassist John Campbell and drummer Chris Adler. Living in the same dormitory at the aforementioned university, the three started an essentially instrumental band.

“It wasn’t like we’d known each other for ages,” explains Morton. “We just got together, and felt we were all coming from the same place, musically. But just because we were an instrumental band, don’t think we were playing prog rock. From the start, the band was called Burn The Priest, and that really tells you we were hard, aggressive and very heavy.”

“You have to understand that we were based in Richmond, Virginia, at the time,” adds Adler. “And the biggest metal band ever to come out of there were GWAR. It was a very insular musical community, where bands didn’t look to the national picture, let alone the international one. We just got in with playing weird music and trying out different ideas. In a lot of ways, it was so refreshing.”

After graduation, Morton temporarily quit to pursue post-graduate studies in International Relations in Chicago. But Campbell and Adler decided to take their music to another level, bringing in guitarist Abe Spear and vocalist Randy Blythe.

“When Mark left, neither John nor I felt it should be the end of the band,” reveals Adler. “Our little project had some momentum going. So we brought in Abe. Now, I have to admit that we never wanted a vocalist – at all. But Abe knew this guy called Randy Blythe, and brought him along to scream over some of our instrumental stuff. We never asked him to join the band. He kinda stayed.”

But for Morton, the lure of playing with his old friends was too great. Two years after leaving the band, he quit his degree course, and went home.

“I always had an open invitation to re-join, and to be honest my sole motivation in going to Chicago was to find other musicians to stretch my talents,” he says. “When that didn’t happen, I wanted to go back and play with my old pals.”

By this time, Spear was a crucial part of Burn The Priest, so the flock was expanded to a five-piece for the release of their self-titled album in 1998 on the Philadelphia-based Legion label.

“We had about four days to record the whole album,” says Morton. “Several songs were actually written at the time when we were just an instrumental band, which tells you what sort of band we always were. I know some people refer to Burn The Priest as mathcore, and we did take some influences from the likes of Confessor, who were mathy. But we also had other things going on.”

Perhaps the most crucial fact about Burn The Priest is that it introduced the fledgling firebrands to Today Is The Day mainman Steve Austin, who produced both the debut and the subsequent New American Gospel.

“It was Randy’s idea,” laughs Adler. “He was a big fan, phoned Steve up, and he agreed to work within our meagre budget. Steve wasn’t my choice at all. I wanted someone like Alex Perialas, who had worked with Testament. Instead we got this crusty punk, and recorded in his house – Austin Enterprises Studio, in Clinton, Massachusetts. But he was a revelation, working harder than some of the band; we got on so well with Steve that he was the obvious choice next time around.”

There were to be two major shifts in the band before the second album hit the ground running. Firstly, a name change…

“That was our idea,” says Morton. “Think about it, Burn The Priest sounds like the sort of thing a bunch of kids would come up with after drinking too much beer in a basement, which is how we got it in the first place. But can you really take any band with that name seriously? It’s so juvenile. By this time, we were starting to step everything up. At that point, we’d sign to the Prosthetic label, and they were desperate for us to keep on as Burn The Priest. Just because we had a buzz building. But we resisted, told them we were going for Lamb Of God. They seemed happy enough.”

The other change was the departure of Abe Spear. “The truth is that Abe had a photography business, and as the band demanded more attention, he had a choice to make,” says Chris Adler. “Simple as that. When you’re in a band at the level we’d reached back then, you were getting a lot of gigs, but losing money on every one. Now, Abe had been an important part of what we did, to the point that when Mark wanted to come back, we asked Abe if he was happy with that. But, no disrespect to him, bringing my brother Willie into the band increased our potential, and opened us up musically to so many great possibilities.”

The newly rechristened Lamb Of God headed back to Steve Austin coop in April, 2000, to record what was to become New American Gospel.

“I don’t even know if we used up all seven days in the sudio,” admits Morton. “The budget was $5,000, which was very small, but again Steve worked miracles for us in there.”

“We had really come on as a band,” adds Adler. “There was a progressive speed metal thing going on, and the whole album does have a real magic. It’s a very dark record I guess, certainly lyrically. That’s because Randy had a lot to get off his chest. I also feel you can hear a real mania in the way that we would play back then.”

Two songs, in particular, refer to incidents that scarred, or certainly shaped, Blythe. Firstly, there’s Terror And Hubris In The House Of Frank Pollad.

“Yeah, that is a real person,” smirks Morton. “It’s a friend of Randy’s out in Chicago, and I believe the song has to do with a crazy night at Frank’s house.”

The other is the more enigmatic O.D.H.G.A.B.F.E..

“Wanna know what that means?” enquires Morton. “It’s ‘Officer Dick Head Gets A Black Fucking Eye’. It’s all based on a time when Randy was beaten up by the cops in San Francisco. He and I were messing around one night, and this idea of ‘Officer Dick Head’ just came out, and seemed perfect.”

The album was also fuelled by a raging thirst, with many trips down to the local supermarket to stock up on booze. Morton recalls those times with a mix of humour and slight horror.

“Thankfully, we’ve calmed down a lot since those days! But, yes, we were drunk a lot of the time. I guess it was fortunate that the studio budget had already been paid to Steve, otherwise… we might have found some use for it. I think that’s why the album sounds so reckless at times. In fact, if you listen carefully you’ll hear the results of all that drinking in the mix. When the album was re-issued and re-mixed, I got the chance to hear Randy’s dry vocals, and seriously, there are moments when his wallet chain is definitely rattling! But it’s part of what gives New American Gospel a special quality.”

Originally released in September 2000, the album is regarded as a defining moment in the rise of what’s been described by many as as The New Wave Of American Metal…

“We didn’t know at the time that we were making history,” says Adler. “We never even saw ourselves as part of a movement. That’s the type of thing you guys in the media invent! But when I look back now, I am so proud of what we did. There is a definite spark about the record. Some of it was born out of frustration and panic. But I can still directly relate to the songs. Whenever I hear them, I am transported back to those times, and the same feeling come out again. With the aid of modern technology, could we do a better job with the album now? No way. It’s about capturing the moment, a spirit. New American Gospel sounds exactly as it was meant to be.”

There’s little doubt that this album is among the landmark metal releases of the past several years. It helped shape a career and define a genre. It was re-issued in 2006. How does Adler feel about that?

“It had been completely left up to me , then it would never have happened. I don’t believe in going back and digging up the past. However, we don’t own the record, and Prosthetic were kind enough to tell us they were doing it, and even asked if we wanted to get involved. They didn’t need to, and I respect them for doing that.”

The remixed version of the album not only added demos of three songs: New Willennium (which became The Black Dahlia). Half Lid (which metamorphosed into A Warning) and Flux, the latter the original title for Pariah. There’s also Nippon, which was only previously available on the Japanese pressing of the record.

For Morton, the album is a slice of his own history to which he can relate, but also feels a certain distance and reticence.

“I’m proud of everything we’ve ever done. Seriously. I’d alter nothing. But if you were to ask me whether I am the same person who made that record, I’d have to say that I hope not. I like to think we’ve all calmed down a little since then. Otherwise I don’t think we’d have survived. The whole atmosphere in the studio was crazed – we were out of control. Kids. Now everything is so much bigger. We’ve come a long way. But ‘New American Gospel’, in a fashion, started it all.

Which leaves one final question: why is the guitarist credited as ‘Duane Morton’ on the sleeve?

“Ah, that’s my middle name. Why did I do it? To protect my privacy. I didn’t want people to know too much about me, so I came up with this way of remaining anonymous. Not that it helped too much. These days, everything about all of us in the band seems to be public knowledge. But it seemed to make sense at the time.”

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 166, May 2007

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term “thrash metal” while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021. 

REO Speedwagon have played their final show as REO Speedwagon, although the band will continue under the name of their founding frontman, Kevin Cronin. Their final show, at the 1800-capacity Venetian Theatre in Las Vegas, NV, ended with Cronin thanking fans and paying tribute to those involved in the band’s 57-year history.

“My chance meeting with Gary Richrath back in 1972 took me from the clubs of the folk scene of Chicago to the greatest venues of the world,” said Cronin. “Red Rocks in Colorado. The Los Angeles Forum. The Budokan Arena in Tokyo. Madison Square Garden. The Chicago Stadium. The Houston Astrodome. The New Orleans Superdome on back-to-back nights. Here, in the Venetian Theater, doing this amazing show with you guys.

“It has been amazing. It has also allowed me an astounding recording career with a with a 10-million-record-selling High Infidelity and a truckload of other songs that you all have taken into your hearts and made them your own.

“And I love that so much. It makes me feel so good so, I thank you for that. Without you and the entire REO fan family there’s no way any of my rock’n’roll dreams would have come true, and so that, my friends will never change.”

Cronin goes on to thank the band’s management – past and present – as well as crew, families and fans, before paying tribute to the other members of the band.

“I want to pay tribute to the co-founders and only real original members of REO Speedwagon, Alan Gratzer and Neil Doughty,” he said. “Plus, the other original members of the band, Gregg Philbin and Terry Latrell, and of course my close partner in crime, in art, in everything, the late great Gary Richrath. Plus with the additions of Mike Murphy, Bruce Hall and 35-year veterans Dave Amato and Brian Hit.

“We couldn’t have done it without any of those guys, so I feel sadness that this is the final REO Speedwagon concert and at the same time I feel grateful to have been part of this incredible ride we’ve all been brothers on, this amazing musical journey called REO Speedwagon, and I wish you all nothing but the best, and when I say ‘you’ I mean everyone who’s been part of this band part of our crew and part of the REO Speedwagon fan family.

“The REO Speedwagon name is being retired tonight, but the music, the spirit, the songs of REO Speedwagon will live on with this band and with me under the name Kevin Cronin. We hope you join us on that adventure.”

REO Speedwagon’s final shows have played out a background of public animosity, with “irreconcilable differences” between frontman Kevin Cronin and Bruce Hall forcing the bassist to sit out this year’s shows.

Hall, who joined REO Speedwagon in 1977 in time to play on the band’s breakthrough album You Can Tune A Piano, But You Can’t Tuna Fish, had hoped to return to the stage after recuperating from back surgery, but was replaced on the final tour by session drummer Matt Bissonette.

The band formerly known as REO Speedwagon will hit the road with Styx and former Eagles guitarist Don Felder on the Brotherhood Of Rock tour next year. Full dates below.

Styx, Kevin Cronin and Don Felder: Brotherhood Of Rock tour 2025

May 28: Greenville Bon Secours Wellness Arena, SC
May 31: Tampa MidFlorida Credit Union Amphitheatre, FL
Jun 02: Jacksonville Daily’s Place, FL
Jun 04: Austin Germania Insurance Amphitheater, TX
Jun 06: The Woodlands Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, TX
Jun 07: Ridgedale Thunder Ridge Nature Arena, MO
Jun 09: Denver Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre, CO
Jun 11: Salt Lake City Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre, UT
Jun 13: Concord Toyota Pavilion at Concord, CA
Jun 14: Bend Hayden Homes Amphitheater, OR
Jun 15: Ridgefield Inn Style Resort Amphitheater, WA
Jun 28: Albuquerque Isleta Amphitheatre, NM
Jun 30: Colorado Springs Ford Amphitheatre, CO
Jul 02: Kansas City Starlight Theatre, MO
Jul 05: Birmingham Coca-Cola Amphitheatre, AL
Jul 06: Alpharetta Ameris Bank Amphitheatre, GA
Jul 08: Charlotte PNC Music Pavilion, NC
Jul 09: Raleigh Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek, NC
Jul 11: Virginia Beach Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater, VA
Jul 12: Bristow Jiffy Lube Live, VA
Jul 14: Syracuse Empower Federal Credit Union Amphitheater, NY
Jul 15: Bridgeport Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater, CT
Jul 18: Gilford BankNH Pavilion, NH
Jul 19: Mansfield Xfinity Center, MA
Jul 20: Holmdel Bank Arts Center, NJ
Aug 01: Dallas Dos Equis Pavilion, TX
Aug 02: Brandon Brandon Amphitheater, MS
Aug 04: Franklin FirstBank Amphitheater, TX
Aug 06: Richmond Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront, VA
Aug 08: Camden Freedom Mortgage Pavilion, NJ
Aug 10: Burgettstown The Pavilion at Star Lake, PA
Aug 12: Saratoga Springs Broadview Stage at SPAC, NY
Aug 13: Toronto Budweiser Stage, ON
Aug 15: Noblesville Ruoff Music Center, IN
Aug 16: Clarkston Pine Knob Music Theatre, MI
Aug 19: Cincinnati Riverbend Music Center, OH
Aug 20: Cuyahoga Falls Blossom Music Center, OH
Aug 22: Maryland Heights Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, MO
Aug 23: Tinley Park Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre, IL
Aug 24: Milwaukee American Family Insurance Amphitheater, WI

Tickets are on sale now.

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 38 years in music industry, online for 25. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.