Opeth member leaves band

Thu 7th Apr, 2011 in International News

It hasn’t been a good week for keyboardists with Four Year Strong and now Swedish progressive metal band Opeth parting ways with their ivory tinklers.

The band’s vocalist/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt has announced that: “It’s been somewhat of a revolving door of members during the last couple of years, and now Per [Wiberg]. is no longer a member. [Martin] Mendez [bass], Axe [Martin Axenrot, drums] and Fredrik [Åkesson, guitar] and I came to the decision that we should find a replacement for Per right after the recordings of the new album, and this came as no surprise to Per. He had, in turn, been thinking about leaving, so you could say it was a mutual decision. There’s no bad blood, just a relationship that came to an end, and that’s that. We wish Per the best, and he did a splendid job recording keyboards for the last record, which stands as his final recording with Opeth.”

Opeth celebrate their 20th anniversary with the release of their tenth album later this year.