Opeth guitarist and bandleader Mikael Åkerfeldt has made a claim that might enrage many modern musicians, but he has the receipts to back it up.
Under Åkerfeldt's leadership, the Swedish group has transformed from a death metal outfit into one of modern prog rock’s biggest bands. While never truly losing their metal edge, save for their divisive 10th album, Heritage, Åkerfeldt has interwoven influences as wide-reaching as Yes, Camel, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Billy Cobham and Slayer into the band's expansive sound.
But, he says, not all artists in the contemporary progressive scene are as progressive as their genre tag implies. The Beatles are much more deserving of the title.
“I like to think that we're a progressive band, maybe even belong to that genre, but I make a difference between the genre and actual progressive music,” he tells American Music Supply. “It doesn't have to be wiggly guitar solos.
“For my taste, progressive music of today has become very technical, as opposed to mixing musical styles, which is kind of what I think it was in the beginning.”
Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson has cited both an obscure 1970s jazz record and Eric Clapton's Cream as prog's progenitors for that very reason. Both acts, which actually shared two members, mashed genres together at will. The lasting impression it left on Anderson is evident in Tull's pivot from blues-rock to folk-tinted angularity as they immersed themselves in the booming prog scene of the early ‘70s.
Equally, Åkerfeldt points to two seminal Beatles records, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and The White Album (1968) as templates for progressive music in its purest, casually rule-breaking form.
“I think they were progressive,” he echoes. “If you listen to The White Album or something like that, it's like, ‘My God!’ You can't say it’s one genre, because they have avant-garde music on there, and they have blues. They have singer-songwriter folk, rock – almost hard rock [in “Helter Skelter”]. There are all sorts of things going on.
“I wouldn't compare us to The Beatles, but I think that we are one of those old school bands that blend styles, and we like to think that we don't have any limitations when it comes to composing music that's too far off,” he develops. “We don't spend too much time on time signatures and subdivisions.”
The PRS signature artist, who was recently bestowed a signature Martin acoustic guitar, isn't alone in making this connection.
Speaking to Prog, Yes frontman John Anderson argues that “The Beatles were the first progressive band.”
“There were other bands making adventurous music – The Beach Boys, Frank Zappa, and various others,” he accepts. “But The Beatles were doing it first – not just with Sgt Pepper, but before too.”
Notably, Sgt. Pepper came off the back of the band's sojourn to India, fuelling George Harrison's love affair with the sitar, although it was David Crosby who introduced him to Ravi Shankar's music. It paved the way for a more experimental Beatles era, with genre cross-pollination galore.
But as Anderson says, that lineage can be traced even further back. Steve Hackett concurs.
“‘Eleanor Rigby’ was such a groundbreaking song,” the guitarist enthuses. “It wasn’t a traditional pop song. It was this character portrait, this short story. And you can almost smell the dust on the old instruments that were being used. It had such an adventurous spirit, and you can trace that thread into Sgt Pepper.”
Meanwhile, Keith Richards had a priceless reaction when he caught the rest of his band watching the Beatles on TV in the early ‘90s.
