MESHUGGAH Drummer Discusses Forthcoming 'Alive' DVD

Zooindustry recently conducted a short interview with drummer Tomas Haake of Swedish experimental extreme metallers MESHUGGAH. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

Zooindustry: Without sounding presumptuous, what took so long to get that DVD "Alive" done ?

Haake: To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why it took us so long. It's just one of those things that we've been thinking of doing for a bunch of years, but never got around to doing. We were approached by Ian McFarland/Killswitch TV about this after he had done the "Bleed" video for the latest album ("obZen"),and his excitement over the whole project of doing a live DVD was kind of what finally got us into gear. So we owe it to him for really pushing us and also for how the DVD came to look/sound etc. He did a phenomenal job with it. I think this kind of scenario is really common among touring bands, in the sense that you got touring, writing and all that on your mind and in the "off" periods, instead of planning for all the coming things, you tend to want to spend that time on your family and "home life" (that's a good thing, of course). So, a lot of times, I think, bands need that push by "outside" people/management or whatever it might be to get things started. That's how things usually are for us at least.

Zooindustry: What brought you to choose Ian McFarland to direct the DVD?

Haake: Ian directed the "Bleed" video and we really dug his work on that one, so when approached by him to make this DVD happen, we knew he was the right guy for it and we knew we'd be in good hands, as he understands what we're about and he knows what will and what will not work as far as how we and our music/live shows are portrayed.

Read the entire interview from Zooindustry.

"Alive" will be released in the U.S. and Canada on February 9, 2010. Produced and directed by Ian McFarland of Killswitch Productions, the DVD is comprised of live concert footage of the band performing tracks off their Billboard Top 200-charting 2008 release, "obZen", and their time-tested career staples shot during MESHUGGAH's 2009 North American tour and 2008's performance at the Loud Park festival in Tokyo. The result is a visceral, visual abduction into the band's metric insanity-in-action. Gracefully interlacing the live tracks are behind-the-scenes vignettes shot in black and white that give "Alive" a concert film feel that is unlike many of the live DVDs currently on the market.

Contents of the "Alive" concert film include:

DVD:

01. Begin
02. Perpetual Black Second (Tokyo)
03. Twenty Two Hours
04. Pravus (Tokyo)
05. Dissemination
06. Bleed (NYC)
07. Ritual
08. New Millenium Cyanide Christ (Montreal)
09. Cleanse
10. Stengah (Montreal)
11. The Mouth Licking What You've Bled (Montreal)
12. Machine
13. Electric Red (Tokyo)
14. Solidarius
15. Rational Gaze (Tokyo)
16. Moment
17. Lethargica (Toronto)
18. Communicate
19. Combustion (Toronto)
21. Straws Pulled At Random (Toronto)
20. Humiliative (Montreal)
22. Straws Pulled At Random (Toronto)
23. End

Bonus Material:

01. "Bleed" Music Video
02. The Making Of "Bleed"
03. Micha's Guitar Tour
04. Tomas Haake's Drum Tour

Live Audio CD:

01. Perpetual Black Second
02. Electric Red
03. Rational Gaze
04. Pravus
05. Lethargica
06. Combustion
07. Straws Pulled At Random
08. New Millenium Cyanide Christ
09. Stengah
10. The Mouth Licking What You've Bled
11. Humiliative
12. Bleed

Commented MESHUGGAH guitarist Mårten Hagström: "So we finally got around to making a live DVD. People have been asking us to make one for ages it seems, so we guess it was about time. It was quite a different experience to have all those cameras around for those shows but in the end, we feel it really came out great in a 'not so flashy but more toward the gritty' type of way. More true to what we are about. Capturing what a MESHUGGAH show is like. For real... without the trimmings, so to speak... just the way both us and Ian wanted it. Enjoy!"

View the official trailer below.