Fredrik Åkesson of Opeth reveals how their current drummer got the job permanently

Opeth guitarist Fredrik Åkesson discussed the group’s September 2022 acquisition of drummer Waltteri Väyrynen (Paradise Lost, Bloodbath, Bodom After Midnight) in a recent interview with Rock Antenne’s David Loebe at Guitar Summit 2024. Sami Karppinen, who had been Martin “Axe” Axenrot’s temporary replacement since the fall of 2021, was replaced by Väyrynen as the band’s stand-in drummer.

Yeah, we had a guy that helped us out in between, a guy called Sami, who actually was Axe’s drum tech. So he did the two American tours we signed up for, and also the festival summer season. And then we had Waltteri in mind because we saw him play the track ‘The Devil’s Orchard’, which is… He’s more of, I would say, an extreme metal drummer, but in Opeth, you need to have a bigger spectra, you need to know the prog, the more calm stuff and tasteful stuff, and he played that track, which is not a death metal track, but he just nailed everything; he really had the entire spectra as a drummer — all the different elements that are required within Opeth, because we kind of switch in between ’70s prog rock, hard rock, metal, death metal, progressive metal, blah, blah, blah, etc. Some slightly jazzy stuff as well. But we did three tours with Waltteri before we recorded the album with him. So he just nailed everything directly. When we went into the studio, the first track we recorded was one that we released so far, ‘Paragraph Three’, and he just nailed it on the first take. So, ‘That’s it.’ But he was, of course, as I would be, ‘No. Another one.

Vocalist Nick Holmes (also of Paradise Lost), one of Axenrot’s bandmates from Bloodbath, claimed to BLABBERMOUTH.NET in August 2022 that the drummer’s failure to receive a COVID-19 vaccination was the reason he left Opeth. It is unclear whether Axenrot’s vaccination status is the sole reason he is no longer performing with OPETH, and he has not made any public remarks regarding his departure. Martin Lopez, who departed Opeth in May 2006 due to illness and anxiety attacks that prevented him from participating in several of the band’s tours, was replaced by Axenrot, who formally joined the band about twenty years earlier.