Opeth Mainman Mikael Akerfeldt pays tribute to Denis ‘Piggy’ D’Amour and reveals the birth of Opeth. Had it not been for VOIVOD’s landmark 1988 album ‘Dimension Hatr퀌_ss’, OPETH would not have been formed. “I listened to that album every day on my way to school for a month and a half,” says Mikael í€äó_kerfeldt in the latest issue of the Swedish magazine Close-Up. “It was like Piggy totally created his own chords, disharmonic stuff that no one else did back then. For me, a major part of the band’s appeal was, ‘How is he able to make it sound so disharmonic and crazy?’ That’s something I wanted to pick out [on the guitar] myself. In essence, it’s basically the ‘devil’s interval,’ the chord Black Sabbath used in the song ‘Black Sabbath’. You play those three tones together in ONE chord and get the VOIVOD feeling. It should be played rhythmically as well. “There have never been any other bands that have sounded like VOIVOD, not even today,” continues í€äó_kerfeldt. “Many bands cite VOIVOD as a huge influence, but none have really been able to bring it into their own music. However, I would imagine that groups like NEUROSIS probably have listened to VOIVOD quite a lot.” OPETH – GHOST REVERIES – OUT NOW