The Songwriting Process

Mikael Åkerfeldt, head of diverse progressive metal band Opeth, comments on his process of demoing songs:

I do have an input into pretty much everything because I demo the songs back home; I have a simple Pro Tools rig set up at my house. So I demo all the songs and I finish all the songs and actually have them sequenced in the same order as I want it to be on the album. So we’re listening to the album before we record it really, if you know what I mean.

I record it with like a drum machine and it sounds good but obviously it’s a drum machine. I’m very interested in drums; as far as I’m concerned drumming in Opeth is one of the most important parts; if the drums are nailed, I can just listen to the drum tracks and I know it’s gonna be a good song if you know what I mean. …

… the way I see it, writing songs and arranging [songs] as I do in my home, the way I do it they are so done by the time we enter the studio, that it’s a pre-production that I’ve been so involved in. I think writing songs and having your finger in every pie when it comes to the songwriting, you become a producer if you know what I mean. But when it comes to how to achieve the sounds that we’re looking for, I don’t know shit! I just basically tell our engineer, “We want good guitar sounds” and he’s like, “OK.” We fool around with a few amps and I tell him that’s good-sounding or sometimes I say, “That doesn’t sound good” and he says, “Well, it will sound good later.” So, I really don’t have much of a say when I’m working with engineers. But in the end, I’m always happy.

Source: UltimateGuitar.com