Meshuggah guitarist apologizes for creating djent: “a drunk misunderstanding, as always with Meshuggah”

The popularity with many metal subgenres can be compared to the consistency of a rollercoaster – It moves in all directions, for better or worse. With that said, who can forget djent? Whether you’re a fan or not, experimental metal giants Meshuggah are considered the father of the genre and guitarist Mårten Hagström has apologized for creating it. The guitarist revealed this news in an interview with Rauta at last month’s Tuska open-air festival in Helsinki, Finland, stating:

“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.”

Later, Hagström described what he believes Meshuggah sounds like:

“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.”

It’s no secret how popular Meshuggah has gotten over the years. You can witness this for yourself at their live shows. However, during this interview, the guitarist responded about the group’s commercial acclaim:

“It’s not mainstream music — it’s music not made for everyone. It’s not something you hum along to. It’s not something that sticks in your head straight away; it takes adjustment. I mean, it’s not music for casual listeners going to the gym, drinking their smoothies at five in the morning going in to crunch numbers at a bank. We’re not that type of band. We’re not Avicii, we’re not Madonna— we’re not even the equivalent of us in metal. So I would say that I’m amazed at the success we’ve been having. I mean, our last album came in… I don’t know… [No.] 12 on the Billboard[chart] in the U.S. And for this type of fucking music, I would say that’s way more than we expected.”

Watch the full interview below: