MESHUGGAH Guitarist Talks Upcoming Album

Brendan Crabb (a.k.a. Spiritech) of PyroMusic.net recently conducted an interview with guitarist Mårten Hagström of Swedish experimental extreme metallers MESHUGGAH. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

PyroMusic.net: "ObZen" received some of the best reviews the band has had in some time. A year or so on, is there anything you'd change about that record?

Mårten Hagström: Yeah, definitely, (there) always is. It's one of those things, when you look back on an album, when you start to get a little bit of perspective there's always stuff you want to change and I don't think... you're never going to release an album where you look back and say it's 100 per cent. But we got pretty close; looking at what we set out to do, we really got as close as we could expect so we're really happy with it.

PyroMusic.net: You mentioned getting back into writing mode. Where do you see the next MESHUGGAH album going?

Mårten Hagström: I really don't know at the moment. I mean, for us it's one of those things where we have some stuff laying around that we weren't able to get finished for "ObZen" and we might pick some of that stuff up, because there's a couple of things that feel like we need to just finish it and see where we can take it. But as far as writing completely new stuff, it's one of those new things where we really don't mess around with anything as long as we're in the touring mode and when we get back, we try to find a new, some place to lift off from, to start from, to get the ball rolling, so to speak. It could go anywhere, as it looks right now.

PyroMusic.net: For mine the last album was more progressive and melodic. Is there any possibility of heading towards a heavier, more abrasive album next time around or going even further down the progressive path?

Mårten Hagström: It could be either, or both. 'Cause I mean, it's one of those things that you never really know what you're going to end up with. For us, the most important thing is just to have an understanding together that, "Okay, here's a starting point, now we're starting to look at a new project." It kind of... instinctively when new stuff comes up and people try to write new stuff, it kind of, the body or the mind tells you what you're fed up with, with what you've been doing and what you want to explore a little bit more, you know? So I really wouldn't know. I mean, what I would like is actually an album that would span both of those; have maybe songs that differ a lot more from each other as far as styles go.

PyroMusic.net: Obviously performing your music live would take a considerable physical toll. Just how tired are you after you've finished playing a show? Do you need a lot of time to wind down afterwards?

Mårten Hagström: Well yeah, I guess so. What we should do, considering the way we play live, we should really warm up and really wind down and stretch and do all this stuff. But we never do, we just go out and play and then it's off and it's chill out for a couple of moments to have a couple of beers or whatever. Then it's hit the showers and try to deal with the rest of the day or the rest of the night. But the thing is that, the first couple of shows are always excruciating for the whole body actually. But you kind of get into it, you get used to pacing yourself on stage and knowing where you have to put your most focus in and really concentrate your effort. It's one of those things that we've been doing it for a long time and a couple of shows into every tour, it gets better. It's just trying to learn how to flick that switch, on and off and do it so you can live with it.

Read the entire interview from PyroMusic.net.