Opeth mainman Mikael Åkerfeldt really doesn’t like his band’s version of Remember Tomorrow by Iron Maiden.
The Swedish progressive metal luminaries covered the 1980 track for 1998 Maiden tribute album A Call To Irons. Although it was later added to re-releases of Opeth’s third album My Arm, Your Hearse, Åkerfeldt says in a new interview with Metal Hammer that their rendition was “shit”.
“We did one horrible Iron Maiden cover with him [former Opeth drummer Martin Lopez],” Åkerfeldt begins.
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When asked if he’s referring to Remember Tomorrow, the singer/guitarist confirms, “Yeah, it was shit. The singing’s shit, the playing’s shit.”
He adds that the cover only has one redeeming quality: that it was recorded with Mieszko Talarczyk, vocalist of Swedish grindcore band Nasum. Talarczyk died in the Boxing Day Tsunami that hit Thailand while he was on holiday in 2004, aged 30.
“That’s my memory of that Maiden song,” says Åkerfeldt. “For that reason, I don’t want it ‘undone’, so to speak, but it’s not very good.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Åkerfeldt is asked which Opeth song he feels is overrated. He points to two tracks on the band’s 2001 breakthrough album Blackwater Park: the title track and Bleak.
He says of the song Blackwater Park: “It’s a great song, but people absolutely love it. We play it every now and then and I’m like, ‘This riff is not good.’ There’s a couple good riffs there but…”
He continues: “Another is Bleak. When I listen to that song… we were gonna play it on this tour [of Europe in February 2025] and I decided against it, because the ending, I can literally hear myself just rushing it together. It doesn’t feel like it’s my song; it’s the fans’. They own that song now.”
Opeth released their 14th and latest album, The Last Will And Testament, to critical acclaim in November. Metal Hammer attended the London date of the band’s subsequent tour and awarded it a glowing four-star review.
Journalist Matt Mills wrote: “Rather than hand out the greatest hits and cater to a nostalgia that, as The Last Will… proved, they have no interest in, they shuffle through classics and deep cuts. Ghost Of Perdition is reliably crowd-popping, getting thousands to roar ‘Ghost of mother!’ in unison, whereas The Night And The Silent Water rewards the diehards, representing 1996’s seldom-played Morningrise with melodeath verve.”
Watch the full interview with Åkerfeldt below.
