Fredrik Åkesson is a
Swedish
heavy metal
guitarist. He is a current member of
Opeth. He is also active in
Krux,
Monsters of Metal and
Talisman.
Fredrik has been playing guitar since the age of 12 and his early
musical influences include Michael Schenker, Uli Jon Roth, Yngwie
Malmsteen and George Lynch.
Marcel Jacob, founder of
Talisman,
did some auditions in 1992 to find a new guitar player, because
Jason Bieler left them to play with Saigon Kick and he finally
decided to hire Fredrik who was 19 years old at the time.
He spent almost four years with
Talisman and after five records he decided
to leave them to go into a heavier outfit. With the help of Mats
Levén, John Levén and Rickard Evensand they formed a band called
Eyeball who would later change their name to Southpaw.
In 1998 his name is part of a couple of releases: the Southpaw's
debut album and Clockwise's Naïve. He also recorded with Clockwise
a version of the Journey's classic: Send her my Love to be used on
a Tribute album that never saw the light of day.
In 2003 he returned to record and tour with
Talisman. He recorded 2 new studio efforts:
Cats and Dogs (2003) and
7 (2006) plus a live CD called
Five Men Live (2005) which has also
been released as a DVD as World's Best Kept Secret.
In 2004, Åkesson filled in for
Tiamat's guitarist
Thomas Petersson on tour and was part of
the release of
The Church of Tiamat DVD, released in 2006.
He also recorded with Sabbtail their second album called Night
Church, again with Mats Levén.
Then he co-wrote with John Norum a couple of tracks that Norum used
on his
Optimus album: Nailed to the
Cross and Forced, where Åkesson played some guitars too.
He also played with
melodic death
metal band
Arch Enemy from 2005 to
2007. He was recruited to Arch Enemy when original guitarist
Christopher Amott took an 18-month
break from music, from September 2005 until his return in March
2007.
Åkesson also played on the
Krux album
II, released in 2006.
In 2007, He played on the
Sweden
Rock Festival with the band
Krux featuring
Mats Levén, Peter Stjärnvind, Jörgen Sandström and Leif
Edling.
On
May 17 2007, the
progressive death metal band
Opeth made an
announcement that they would be replacing
Peter Lindgren with Fredrik
Åkesson. His first tour with the band was during the Progressive
Nation Tour with Dream Theater and Between The Buried And Me.
In 2008, Opeth released their latest record,
Watershed. All the songs were
written by
Mikael Åkerfeldt
apart from "Porcelain Heart", which was co-written with
Åkesson.
Endorsement
Fredrik Åkesson had an endorsement arrangement with
ESP Guitars which continued into 2007. He also
had his own signature model.
[295886] Since joining Opeth, Åkesson switched
to
PRS Guitars with Marshall JVM 410
amps and cabs.In the "Porcelain Heart" videoclip he can be seen
using a PRS Mark Tremonti Signature guitar.
Discography
- II (2006)
- Live (DVD) (2003)
- Krux (2003)
- Church of Tiamat (DVD, 2005)
With Sabbtail
CD singles and promos With Talisman
- Frozen (CD Single) (1995)
- All + All (CD Single) (1994)
- Todo y Todo (CD Single) (All + All Latin American market
release under nickname Genaro) (1994)
- Colour My XTC (CD Single) (1994)
- Doing Time With My Baby (CD Single) (1994)
- Time after Time (CD Single) (1993)
- Mysterious (This Time is Serious) (CD Single) (1993)
With Human Clay
- Closing the Book on Human Clay (2003)
- Human Clay (1996)
With Southpaw
With Clockwise
External links
Wikis
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