Fredrik Thordendal
“Ithink prog has two definitions. There are bands like Yes, Rush and Dream Theater, who have a sound that’s prog. And then there’s prog where it’s a mind state of being progressive. I like that, and Meshuggah’s Fredrik Thordendal pushed metal into new worlds. His rhythmic vocabulary, his approach to super-choppy guitar parts being the foundation, that whole thing has been embraced by the prog and metal worlds. It’s even deeper than that – recording straight into the PA direct, they were one of the first bands
to do that. And everyone’s using multisampled drum sets. So when you record you can use software to emulate a real drummer. They pioneered that. Their progressive mindset is beyond their music and Fredrik’s at the very forefront.
“I discovered Meshuggah via Napster and I thought something was wrong with the download! It was Concatenation off of Chaosphere (1998) and I thought the music was skipping, but I liked it. It was relentless, almost inorganic. Tight. Alien. A lot of their musical choices were alien. Their vision is very specific. They’re not trying to do everything, they’re just trying to do what they do. And they’ve refined that over the years. I’ll always be reverential of them. That’s such a hard thing to do.
“Part of why they’re so heavy and brutal is because of how precise the musicianship is. They’re extremely exacting, but as I said, they do what they do. They’re not trying to make a ballad! [Laughs] Every once in a while they do something melodic or they do something dynamic and they allow you this brief glimpse in to something else.
“They’re one of my main influences when it comes to rhythm, then I have a whole other side of my guitar playing that’s influenced by shred guitar players and jazz phrasing. But Meshuggah, and Fredrik especially, are right there in my whole musical make-up.” JE