MESHUGGAH Guitarist Apologizes For Creating Djent: ‘We Didn’t Intend To’

MESHUGGAH guitarist Mårten Hagström recently sat down with Rauta to discuss various different topics. One of the things he reflected on was how his band is credited for pioneering djent. He said: “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.”

“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.”

Asked about how would he describe his band’s style, Mårten said: “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.”