FasterLouder recently had the opportunity to chat with Swedish metal act Meshuggah’s drummer, Tomas Haake, about the band’s latest album ObZen and their upcoming tour.

Meshuggah are touring Australia this month, to promote ObZen, an album that is as striking visually as it is aurally. Never one to dive into the utterly conventional take an on interview, I asked Haake what it is about being with Meshuggah that he digs the most. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he told me that it is the excitement and challenge of writing music with the band.

“I guess, just, you know, always striving to do something unique and that, at least to ourselves, is something that is new and fresh and intriguing for us. You get the feeling when you’ve done something that you had no idea three months prior that it would come out like this. It’s not only intriguing to you, but it’s also challenging on a musical level.”

Unlike many bands of a similar level of fame, Meshuggah don’t tend to jam anymore when they’re writing. In fact, since they started using computer programs to help them map what they want to play, it’s very rare for them to jam ideas up together.

The notion of the band sitting in front of a computer to write their stuff might be a bit odd for a fan of the band to come to terms with. The reality of it is, though, that the type of music, and the extended ideas that Meshuggah come up with is difficult to come to when you’re jamming; besides which, writing is a far smoother process for them in many ways since they’ve been using the technology available to them.

“It’s an easy, smooth way for us to work, being able to get it all on print first. Once we sample the drums and sounds we use it makes it sound so good already that we don’t have to record demos to hear how it’s gonna come out,” Haake explained. “I think to some extent it comes with the type of music too, even though once you’ve learned this music, to go out and play live is not too hard. But to come up with it would be kinda difficult. It’s easier to move forward nowadays.”

Using such a process means that Meshuggah don’t tend to find themselves over-writing for their albums, although Haake admits that they can find themselves overwriting particular tracks. “When we get into the studio getting things tracked, you track the guitarist and bass, and it really kind of becomes a finished track. Sometimes you notice those things, when taken away, change it. So yeah sometimes you feel it’s overwritten to some extent, but still doing things that are really cool.”

A band like Meshuggah has played a huge amount of festivals and shows throughout the world, many of which would be awesome. For Haake, the best Meshuggah show was as opening band for Tool. But it was slightly surprising to hear that he’s not a huge fan of playing big festivals; mainly because the sound is shite.

“We’ve done a lot of great shows opening for Tool, playing arenas. A lot of shows were of course, great! Then again, we’ve played festivals for 30, 40, 50 thousand people. That’s really cool,” he enthused. “But I’m not a big fan of festivals. All the sound disspates and you don’t get any sound back, so that’s a hard situation for me to play in.”

Meshuggah keep tight rein on their music. For instance, the band does everything themselves; not a band to use a producer, they retain full creative control in terms of the production. While this is great for them, it can also make them incredibly weary of the entire process.

“When we’ve just released an album you’re always kind of, you think about it and you don’t always feel good about every aspect of it. there are a few tiny aspects on this one, too, not that I could mention one in regards to mixing or a certain note you’re hitting you wish you’d changed. That’s the case for any album,” Haake went to pains to explain. “I don’t think we felt this good about an album once released and it’s got a lot to do with how the production came out. We get insecure as to the final outcome because you lose track after a while, just coz you put in too many hours a day.”

It’s a huge amount of time, from writing through recording, and then producing it themselves. While the band knew what they wanted to achieve, actually hearing that the sound on ObZen was as fat as it is as well as that the sound was clear, for all elements, spurred them on. It turns out that the balancing act of hearing the elements clearly plus retaining such a fat sound is a challenge that Meshuggah often face. “It’s a hard combination to achieve, so we had to do a lot of different mixes for this one.”

The band are heading out here in October for a round of shows, which has made fans of the band wet themselves with excitement. Those fans will be chuffed to know that the band will be playing a good mix of tracks from all the way through the band’s history, except perhaps Catch 33 – on which they haven’t decided.

So what can people expect from the shows? Haake was enthusiastic. “A good mix of tracks and a high energy show!”

Meshuggah play these headline shows.

12 Oct – The Arena, Brisbane
13 Oct – UNSW – Roundhouse, Sydney
14 Oct – HQ, Adelaide
15 Oct – The Palace Theatre, Melbourne
16 Oct – Club Capitol, Perth