Meshuggah

Three years after the experimental Catch 33 album (even for Meshuggah's standards) the influential extreme metal band release their new masterpiece. Any true Meshuggah fan will have been waiting for 'obZen' full of anticipation and he/she will definitely not be disappointed: the album can be seen as an overview of all the technical skills the band acquired over the years plus some extra tricks and fine-tuned musicianship. This and a lot more is reveiled by drummer and spokesperson Thomas Haake:

Q: At first listen the opener 'Combustion' contains some of the most straightforward stuff you have done in years. What kind of signal did you want to send to the listeners?

Haake: Actually we spent a lot of time trying to figure out which track to start the album with. Trying to come up with the set list for the album is usually very hard. At first we did not think of 'Combustion' as the first track, but the more we did think about it the more it made sense. That track is kind of a homage almost to the old school stuff like the Bay Area thrash that we grew up with. In that sense it is kind of related to our first album. At the same time you can hear from the riffs that it is very modern, but as you said for Meshuggah it is a very straightforward song. There was no real intent for that track to be straightforward. It was just something that Fredrick (Thordendal, guitars RG) wrote and we thought it was cool.

It is kind of neat to go out on a limb sometimes and I guess that for Meshuggah that means doing something straightforward. But overall we almost see the album as some kind of a sample platter of the stuff that we've done over the year. The first track kind of relates to the first album, the riffing of the next tracks is kind of related to the 'Destroy Erase Improve' era, after that it is more like 'Chaosphere' and the last track is more like Catch 33. So it is different samples from different time periods in the history of Meshuggah. When we were piecing the album together we noticed that the material could be ordered in that way.

Q: For the previous album Catch 33 much was said about the experimental way of recording it and using programmed drums. But you did not go about things in this way for 'obZen' right?

Haake: No, this time we used live drums again and the whole recording and writing process was very different from Catch 33. On this album the tracks are written by different people whereas Catch 33 had all of us sitting around the computer brainstorming. That one was also written in more or less the same tempo, as it was only one track. But for 'obZen' we definitely wanted more diversity and in that sense we felt that we needed to do things separately in order to get that diversity.

Q: So how did it feel to work in a more traditional way again?

Haake: It felt good man! Absolutely. When I started tracking the drums for 'obZen' I hadn't really recorded any drums since 2004 for the I EP as far as live drums are concerned. And that was only an EP, so it goes as far back as 2002 since I actually recorded a whole album and that was about five years ago. It felt a bit awkward at first, getting into it, but it all worked out pretty well. I did spend a lot of time practising the new tracks of course, before we went into the studio. So by the time we started tracking I was pretty comfortable playing the drums, but when you hit the record button, it always changes you know. You kind of cramp up, maybe that is because there's always a few years in between recordings, as I do not really record with other bands and you never really get used to being in the studio because you do not do it often enough.

Q: Meshuggah has always been about the experiment, always trying new things finding new extremes. With the last album you obviously found a lot of new extremes, how difficult was it to look for new challenges and opportunities for the new album?

Haake: I don't think it was really difficult. Just time itself and the fact that we did two special projects like the I EP and Catch 33 had us gathering up all these ideas for when we were going to go back to more shorter songs and other song structures. So it was not really hard in that sense, but of course it seems that with each year and each album that passes by that you scrutinise everything harder and harder. You really want the track and each part of a track to really make sense. That is something that is probably part of growing, evolving and getting better at what you do. In a lot of ways that is not just about learning how to play your instrument better, but also about the song writing, the structures and utilising the other tools that you have at your disposal.

Q: What does the title of the new album mean? It seems some kind of combination of obscene and the mental state of Zen.

Haake: Yeah that is absolutely correct. It is not really a concept album, but there is some kind of overall theme that runs through all the lyrics to a bigger or smaller extent. Of course the lyrics for the title track are the most tightly tied to the theme and the artwork. Zen is in this case only used as a metaphor, we have no religious motives whatsoever. But with this title we kind of suggest that mankind has found its harmony or balance or equilibrium in bloodshed, violence and warfare and that is basically what the lyrics are about. We are partly criticising this, but we are mainly observing and questioning this.

Q: You must have noticed that Meshuggah is widely recognized as one of the most innovative and influential metal bands. That is despite the obvious inaccessibility of your music. How do you explain this strange phenomenon?

Haake: I do not really know why that is man. To some extent I can understand it a bit more from the perspective of the US. Maybe it is a stupid theory, but the way I see it that if you look back to the 60s and 70s, all the progressive bands like King Crimson, Yes, Rush and Genesis, they always did really well in the States, but never made it that big in Europe. So there seems to be a heritage over there of being a bit more open to music that is based on rhythmical aspects. Even though we also have a lot of recognition over here in Europe, the standard consumer over here is a bit more into the melodic aspects of things. I think that is kind of visible through the popularity of power metal and things related to that.

Q: What does this recognition mean for you? What is more important recognition by the press or recognition by fellow musicians?

Haake: Well yes and no. It is important because it helps us to get money and because it helps us get good tours and it enables us to go out and play. It is definitely important on the financial side of things. But as far as for our own sake, it is not that important. I really do think that we would still be doing what we are doing even if we sold only five thousand copies. We would still be trying to do something that is unique, even though we would not have the same resources from a label to spend as much time in the studio as we do now. Even though the situation would be different, I still feel that we have some kind of urge to get our ideas out there, because we have a very strong belief in our music and its inherent uniqueness.

Q: Do you think Meshuggah can still grow in popularity? Do you think that at some point each and every twisted metal head will have gotten to know you?

Haake: [laughs]I hope not! There are of course still a lot of people that have not heard of us yet and there are also a lot of people that are tilting towards liking the odd stuff. We see that we gain both in fans and in sale for each album and I think we can still keep that trend going for a lot of years.