's Mikael Åkerfeldt says that he doesn't consider himself a singer or guitarist, and opts to label himself with the all-round term "musician" instead. The distance the frontman feels between himself and the two former terms is caused mostly from his lack of confidence and absence in vocal training, professing to not know "what the hell I'm doing most of the time." In a new interview with Finland's Chaoszine, the prog metal man explains (as transcribed by )" "I don't really see myself as a singer — or a guitar player for that matter.
I see myself as a — I am a musician. I like to come to write music. I think that's fun.
The singer thing, it's, like, nobody else wanted to do it [in the early days of Opeth]. I guess it has to be me." Adding how he doesn't view himself in league with other successful frontmen, Åkerfeldt continues,"And I don't compare myself to my peers or my idols, especially my idols.
I don't go, like, 'Hey, Ronnie Dio, what's your trick? Mine's this and that. I'm gonna teach you something.' Those guys up there.
I'm just like a bum who got lucky. "With our own albums, I wanna listen to the record and not really hear that it's me, so to speak," he says "So I like to distance myself from the person singing on the record. And with death metal vocals, that's quite easy, because, of course, I don't sound like that when I'm talking to you now.
And with the clean vocals, I'm just kind of trying to get as close to my idols as I can. "But everybody's given this p.