It's pretty obvious Opeth's Mikael Akerfeldt has been concentrating heavily on vocal performances over the course of the past few Opeth albums, and now he's looking to take that passion elsewhere.
In an interview with Rock Hard Megazine, Akerfeldt says he's been talking to Devin Townsend and a slew of other mystery musicians about doing a band together that's heavily concentrated on vocals. He also says everyone in the band would sing, which sounds awesome!
"I talked to him about doing something, not just me and him – it'll be a band of musicians.
"I came up with the idea, talked to one guy from Sweden – I love his voice – he was like, 'If you're in, I'm in.' Then I met a keyboard player, asked him, 'Yeah, I'm in'; I talked to the drummer, 'I'm in,' I talked to Devin, 'I'm in.'
"The idea for this – if it happens – is to have a band consisting of lead singers. So vocals first, instruments second. Because that's been missing in music now, I think – people comfortable with singing lead vocals.
"If they're a bass player or a drummer – great, but singing is the most important thing, that they have a lead-vocal type of voice. If the band happens, it's not gonna be anything big, just do a record for fun, if we get there. And like I said, the focus is on singing; a lot of harmony singing where one guy takes the lead and the other guys are singing harmony.
"I love vocals and I've been missing that in the rock scene."
If the "one guy from Sweden" ends up being Dan Swanö (Edge Of Sanity, Witherscape), this will be the greatest group of vocalists that has ever existed. Plus, maybe the drummer is Mike Portnoy? Portnoy has been wanting to do a project with Akerfeldt since basically forever.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjg99ysN6M0[/youtube]
