Meshuggah Have Apologised For Creating Djent

We've all been there and done things we've regretted in our past – but Meshuggah guitarist Mårten Hagström apparently feels bad for creating an entire music genre…

Speaking to Rauta, the shredder joked: “First of all, we’re very sorry for creating that genre; we didn’t intend to – our bad. No, but it’s actually… I think it’s a misconception, that djent thing. I think it’s kind of hilarious.”

He then went on to explain how it came about in the first place:

“It’s our lead guitar player, Fredrik [Thordendal], being drunk back in the day, talking to one of our old-school fans, trying to explain what type of guitar tone we were always trying to get, and he was desperately trying to say, ‘We want that ‘dj_,’ ‘dj_,’ ‘dj_,’ ‘dj_.’ And that guy was, like, ‘What’s he saying? Is that a Swedish word? Must be.

Sounds like dj_, maybe ‘djent’? Maybe something like that.’ And that’s where it comes from. A drunk misunderstanding, as always with Meshuggah.”

So, how would Mårten describe the band's sound?

“Heavy, experimental music… I don’t care if it’s progressive or not – it’s heavy. And that’s the most… But the thing is, trying to define things… Either it gets into that math-metal, djent subgenre type of thing, that’s for other people to decide. We play aggressive, experimental music, and that’s basically it.”

Watch the full interview below: