OPETH KLUB
Kristian and Benjamin Mølgaard share their mission to unite Opeth’s fans via their Denmark-based online club.
Father and son Kristian and Benjamin Mølgaard are totally inseparable musically. When Benjamin was just eight, Kristian took him to an Iron Maiden gig, then to an Opeth concert in their native Denmark the following year.
Now aged 52 and 17, they’re both drummers and write for a Danish metal magazine. Just over a year ago they founded Opeth’s fan club, which they’re now planning to expand.
“When Benjamin turned nine, I was going to interview Mikael Åkerfeldt so I asked Opeth’s tour manager if I could bring my son to the gig,” recalls Kristian. “We met them again six months later at a Hamburg gig where keyboard player Joakim Svalberg made horns at Benjamin because he was wearing red earphones. We met them outside afterwards and he said, ‘Hey, that’s the boy with the earphones!’”
They developed a bond with the band; and when they interviewed guitarist Fredrik Åkesson at the Wacken Festival in Germany in 2019, the idea of starting a fan club was mentioned. They were also invited to Opeth’s backstage party at the Danish National Theatre in November 2019 – the final gig of their last tour before lockdown began.
“Fredrik loved the idea as did all the band, but we had to do it the right way,” Kristian says. “We have a great relationship with the band, who contact us regularly… apart from Axe [drummer Martin Axenrod], who lives in the woods!”
They now have an English translator and dedicated webmaster onboard to help them realise their plans “to be bigger than the Iron Maiden fan club.” Says Kristian: “It has been difficult up until now due to the coronavirus and because it has only been available in Danish. Now we are in the spring, this is the right time to do it.”
With Benjamin at upper secondary school, Kristian is undertaking most of the work. “I have never pushed Benjamin to like the same kind of music as me, but luckily, he loves metal too,” he says. “This is a club run by fans for the fans and we just want to create more possibilities for members, giving them a unique insight behind the scenes, like the ones we have been so lucky to have.”
“We have a great relationship with the band.”
For more details visit the fan club (in English): www.opeth-fc.dk/en/