OPETH visited Australia at the end of last year during their tour supporting their new album Heritage and whilst out there the band played in Melbourne. Metal Obsession caught up with bassist Martin Mendez and drummer Martin ‘Axe’ Axenrot to have a chat before that show. You can see some extracts from the interview below:

MO: Well Heritage does go down a new path in terms of style, doing away with many of the death metal elements and bringing new influence to the table. Have the shows been adjusted top cater for the new album?

Axe: Yeah there’s no sort of…death metal-ish songs in the show at the moment. It’s still very dynamic, lots of heavy stuff also, but there is no growling in the current setlist. That’s what we decided to do, to make the show a bit different than in the past.

MO: In general with 10 albums now it must be quite difficult to put together a setlist, particularly with the songs being quite long. What process do you use to make a setlist?

Mendez: Usually we play for less than two hours, which is little more than 10 songs so it does make it difficult. We always try to incorporate as many albums as possible, but it doesn’t happen very often.

Axe: At the moment we are playing 5 new songs, which is great for us. It is the most songs off a new album that we have ever been able to play.

MO: I have seen a lot of Opeth Tattoos and other tributes to the band, what would be the coolest fan tribute that you’ve seen?

Mendez: Tattoos are amazing, I think it is awesome when people do that. I love seeing bands playing our songs on the internet, or even just one bass player or one guitarist playing along to our songs. I think that is really cool.

MO: What is your favourite Opeth song to play, and which do you find most challenging?

Mendez: Favourite is hard, because it changes from day to day. The whole set is very challenging. You have to concentrate very hard and play right, because everybody else is playing right.

Axe: It is like one long set of good music to me. It is always fun to play, it never gets boring because there’s always different elements to each show, even when the songs are the same.

You can read the full interview on Metal Obsession by clicking here.

You can also pick up a copy of OPETH’s new album, Heritage, by pointing your mouse in this direction.