in a new interview with The Metal Sucks Podcast, OPETH mastermind Mikael Åkerfeldt spoke about the possible collaboration with Mike Portnoy.
Here’s the statement from Mikael:
“I love Mike, I consider him a friend of mine, and he’s done so much for the band by bringing us on tour twice when he was with DREAM THEATER, always being very supportive.
“He presented us with an award two years ago in London.”
“He’s a super, super nice guy, massive fan of music, just like myself. There are many similarities between myself and Mike, on top of having the same first name. He’s a great guy and a great f*cking drummer.
“I would love to do something with him, I just don’t know what it will be. I told him a few years back – he wanted to do a really heavy record, and I was, like, on the way to, like, Heritage.
“I was, like, ‘I’ve done that for such a long time, would I want to do that again? Not necessarily.’ I wanted it to be something completely new. We talked about him when me and Steven Willson did that STORM CORROSION [project], but there was so little drums on the record [2012’s self-titled] that we felt like there’s no need really for a drummer of that caliber on that record.
“We’ve been talking about it ever since.”
“I mean, it’s fun to do a project for those kinds of things, I guess, but I wanted it to be something, I don’t want it to be just two semi-famous metal dudes collaborating on nothing. I wanted it to be f*cking special. I still haven’t kind of cracked that idea what that would be.”
Mikael Akerfeldt and Mike Portnoy have been talking about collaborating since 2012 after Mikael released an album with Steven Wilson titled ‘Storm Corrosion’. Mike has always wanted to do a heavy, death metal album with Mikael but considering his statement, it looks like the project may potentially sound totally opposite of what fans are expecting.
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