Chapter X

15 years in our career we're looking for a label that could put the record out everywhere. To this day people still comes up to me saying they can't find our records....I've had enough of that shit! With Roadrunner we're pretty confident the record is gonna be available everywhere. Obviously signing to Roadrunner presented a new "problem" for us. All of a sudden we're accused of selling out by some "fans". To be honest, that's such an insult after 15 years as a band and 8 records. I can't believe we haven't earned each and every Opeth fans credibility after all these years. I mean, our songs are 10 minutes long for fucks sake! I've said it before but I say it again, we'd never let anyone interfere with the music of Opeth. It is still, new Cd included, as pure as fucking virgin snow! If you don't like our stuff, that's your taste/problem but don't come insulting us with some goddamn sell out comments! For me it's kinda obvious that young fans have a different picture of Roadrunner records than we who are born in the 70´s and grew up with Roadrunner and metal in general. It just bothers me that we, fucking Opeth have become target of badmouthing of that sense. I've been called everything, badly insulted, but I tell you this one is what gets me the most upset. So, you call us sell-outs?? FUCK YOU!!!

Once we had decided on which label to sign with the negotiations started and obviously we in the band are fucking bums and we don't know shit about contracts. Basically all 5 of us signed the contracts with even peeping through the pages. It could have been a gay porn movie contract for the members of Opeth for all we knew. All I can say is I didn't start playing metal to read through some boring (really!!!) contracts.

As we finished the recording down in Örebro there really was no rest. I obviously came back home and spent time with my wife and daughter, and I tell you taking care of a kid is no easy task, especially if you like to sleep in the mornings like myself, well I used to enjoy it, now I get up at fucking 07:00 at latest. Bye, bye, late PS2 nights!! I don't go to the pub that often either anymore but I tell you what...there's nowhere I'd rather be than back home. The other guys took some time off, but I instantly started working with the artwork and thing like that that needs to be done.

I'd been looking for one of the old medieval looking woodcuts, me and Peter went to the Royal library here in Stockholm looking for a evil (yep!) picture, but that was like searching for a needle in a haystack. Couldn't find one. In the meantime I'd received some pics from good ol' Travis Smith. And as per usual with Mr. Smith, he's a genius...the candle pictures just blew me away...that's the cover, fuck the woodcuts! I love it! It's probably the most gothic looking cover we've had, right?

The title for the record is one of those I came up with just like that, in fact it was the first title I came up with...it was either "Ghost reveries" or "Ghost letters" and reveries sounded cooler. I had intended to do a occult concept piece lyrically and got off to a great start with some downright evil lyrics like "The baying of the hounds" and "Ghost of perdition", then I did "Isolation years" which had nothing to do with the intended concept but I liked it so much I decided to ease up on the concept idea in favour of this one lyric. Why I decided on a occult theme? Well, I've always been intrigued by it, especially Satanism and stuff like that. I studied some books that oddly enough my wife had in her collection like "Servants of Satan" as well as "Witchcraft and Sorcery" + some more.

I figured it'd be interesting to see what a mature 31 year old mind would make of this subject as opposed to the 16 year old kid who used to pose in front of his Bathory poster. I'm quite happy with them to be honest, and they're.....evil!

We had originally been offered Ozzfest in the US, but there's no fucking way we're paying to play...no, Sharon, we get paid to play. This year (2005) as well, there we're many Swedish bands on the bill + the fact that we yet hadn't signed to a new label made the peeps behind Ozzfest to drop us from the intended bill. Although slightly disappointed I was actually quite relieved. Yet, 3 days later we got the offer to do the first ever Sound of the underground tour organized by our American agent, Tim Borror. The line up to me was a big question-mark as I didn't know many of these bands. We were the only European band on the bill and most of the other ones we're I guess, Metalcore or whatever it's called. We reluctantly agreed to do it as it was a pre-release tour and we figured it's good to create a buzz round the album before it's released + playing in front of potential new fans is never bad. We ended up having a blast!!