Opeth frontman Mikael Akerfeldt appeared in a new Metal Hammer interview and named his pick of the greatest death metal band of all time.
“Ultimately, the best death metal band of all time is Morbid Angel,” he said. “‘Alters Of Madness’ had everything I wanted from that music – the musicianship, but also an intensity that I was after… plus the best death metal vocals I’d ever heard. David Vincent is better than Chuck [Schuldiner, Death founder] and Chuck is f*cking awesome! David Vincent is the king of death metal and I shape my own vocals after him.”
His bandmate Fredrik Akesson added, “We mustn’t forget Entombed too, though.”
Akerfeldt has made it clear many times that he was highly influenced by Morbid Angel’s music. Not only that, but Opeth opened for the band back in 1996 too.
“We supported Morbid Angel on this tour, on this show [that ended up being released as ‘Entangled in Chaos’], if I remember correctly,” he explained.
“We were playing with, yes, my favorite death metal band of all time, but we thought they were old f*cks because we were younger and had this new sound. “It was like Iron Maiden opening for KISS in 1980. KISS were on the way down and Maiden just had their debut come out. That’s how we felt… we would crush them. I’m ashamed and blushing to admit it, but that’s how we felt,” the frontman admitted.
Even after how he felt, the rocker admitted that Morbid Angel blasted them ‘in a couple of seconds.’
It appears now, however, that Akerfeldt is no longer as interested in death metal as he used to be, and the last CD he bought from a death metal band was in 1995.
In other news, Opeth are getting ready for their October North American tour. It’s scheduled to start on October 11 in Milwaukee, and the band will perform almost every day until they finish on October 31 in San Francisco.