During a recent appearance on The Prog Report’s Wheel of Prog, Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy chose his all-time favorite Opeth song while discussing the band’s discography.
The drummer revealed that his favorite track by Opeth is ‘The Baying of the Hounds’ from the ‘Ghost Reveries’ album and explained:
“It’s everything I could ever want out of an Opeth song. Before [Dream Theater’s] Progressive Nation [tour], I told Mikael [Akerfeldt] he could only come on the tour if he puts that in the setlist.”
In the rest of his interview, he shared his thoughts on Opeth’s other albums, including, ‘Orchid,’ ‘Morningrise,’ ‘My Arms, Your Hearse,’ ‘Pale Communion.’ Mike said the following about ‘My Arms, Your Hearse’:
“I really like this album, and this is my favorite of the original three. This is where they started to sound like Opeth. It’s the first album with [drummer Martin] Lopez on drums. [Bassist Martin] Mendez was in the band even though Mikael plays bass on this album. This is filled with classics — ‘April Ethereal,’ ‘When,’… ‘Demon of the Fall’ is a staple that they still play.”
Actually, Portnoy and Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt talked about forming a band together since 2010, but it never happened. The musician was supposed to join Storm Corrosion with Åkerfeldt and Steven Wilson, but they decided the music didn’t need heavy drums. After talking about his big admiration for Opeth in a 2017 chat with Team Rock, Portnoy mentioned his desire to work with Mikael, saying:
“He is the one person that I have yet to work with. We’ve toured together, and I’ve taken Opeth out when I was in Dream Theater, and he and I constantly flirt with the idea of doing something together. We’ve been talking about it for 10 or 15 years now. We’re just waiting for the right moment, for the right vehicle.”
Åkerfeldt also disclosed that he would love to collaborate with Mike in the future, speaking to The Metal Sucks Podcast in 2019. However, the challenge was finding the right musical style or concept for their collaboration.
Below, you can watch Portnoy’s full interview and listen to his favorite song by Opeth.
