Opeth mainman Mikael Akerfeldt has exclusively told Classic Rock that his long-mooted project with Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree is now well under way.

“I got together recently with Steven at his house, and we wrote a new tune straight away,” says Akerfeldt. “Of course, with the two of us involved it was 10 minutes long. And it came out so well that we started working on a second one as well.”

However, it now appears that Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy will not be involved, as was expected.

“To be honest, there’s just no room for drums on what we’ve done so far. I called Mike up, and he was cool about it. He’s got so much going on anyway, and I’m sure we will work together in the future.”

It’s still early days for the as yet unnamed project, but expect an album next year. And that’s also the plan for Opeth.

“Right now we’re on a break. But I’m writing new songs, and we hope to have an album out in 2011.”