JETHRO TULL’s IAN ANDERSON To Guest On OPETH’s Next Album

Opeth seems to be going further down the progressive rock rabbit hole, as Jethro Tull founder Ian Anderson has revealed he played flute on “three or four tracks” on their next record. Well, that or we’re about to get some seriously death metal flute.

According to Anderson in an interview with the Mystery Tour radio show: “Well, from time to time I play on other people’s records, if they’re interesting to me. I just did — last week I played on three or four tracks from a prog metal band called [Opeth].”

And if you’re thinking that might be a stretch, it’s clearly been on Opeth mastermind Mikael Åkerfeldt‘s to-do list for a while. Blabbermouth points out that Åkerfeldt mentioned in a Prog interview that he originally asked Anderson to play on Heritage way back in 2011, but the two never got together.

“I did e-mail Ian Anderson but I never heard back from him,” he said at the time. “Funnily enough, when I went down to Steven‘s [Wilson] place to mix the album, we’re sitting on his couch and he says, ‘Oh, I just got an e-mail from Ian Anderson,’ and I was, like, ‘What?!’ And he just said, ‘He just wants me to look into [remixing Jethro Tull‘s 1971 record] Aqualung. I’m really happy in retrospect that we have [Björn J:son Lindh] because it fits with the vibe of the record.”

No word on when we can expect the new Opeth record. Outside of Anderson‘s appearance, it’ll also be Opeth‘s first with drummer Waltteri Väyrynen, who replaced longtime drummer Martin Axenrot in 2022.