Meshuggah’s Mårten Hagström on Djent: “We’re Very Sorry for Creating That Genre”

Shame on us. While we’ve been worrying about Nazis and sex offenders and murderers and thieves, the greatest crime perpetrated by a metal musician has gone unaddressed. A crime so foul, so heinous, so unthinkable by most sane minds, that to even type out its name gives me pause.

I’m speaking, of course, about djent.

For a decade now, this ridiculous non-genre has terrorized our community, assaulting our ears with a seemingly endless parade of chunky, palm-muted riffage, resulting in scores of metal fans who have had their intellect stunted and their passion undermined. They are, truly, a lost generation, and someone needs to be held accountable.

Kudos, then, to Meshuggah’s Mårten Hagström. In a new interview with Rauta, the guitarist bravely takes responsibility for his band’s part in this most grievous and immoral of sickening offenses:

“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.”

How brave of Hagström to stand up and say “I did this and I was wrong”! Hopefully other musicians follow his example and apologize for the genres they accidentally helped to create. Looking at you, Korn. You have a LOT of repenting to do.

[via]