Meshuggah Talk Perfectionism, Band Depression, Universal Fans & More

When a musician is listed as one of the fastest and most technically proficient drummers in the world by publications such as Rolling Stone, Modern Drummer and Ultimate Guitar, you would assume that their interest is such that they’d never venture too far from the kit

Not so for Tomas Haake, one of heavy metal’s most highly-esteemed drummers, of Swedish endurance vikings Meshuggah. Chatting from his lair in Sweden, Haake said too much time at “the kit” starts to feel a little one-dimensional and repetitive.

“If I play drums too much, you know if I do it daily, or a few days every week, I tend to get stuck going through the motions. You know, sometimes when you’ve been away from the kit for months on end, it sometimes changes your approach a little bit, and you come back and start kind of doing things differently.”

It’s a sentiment that is somewhat hard to reconcile. Haake is famed for his technical expertise and unrelenting dedication to his art form. His drumming, largely defined by a generous use of polyrhythms while maintaining a consistent 4/4 beat, is a signature feature of the band. The tracks ‘Elastic’ from the album Chaosphere and ‘Rational Gaze’ from 2002’s Nothing are examples often cited on the intricacies of Haake’s style.

The pressure on any performer is considerably jacked up when playing live to an audience of sweaty and loyal aficionados. Given Haake’s turn at a drum kit would be hard to flawlessly execute, even in relaxed isolation – surely he fucks up when playing live…

“Oh, definitely,” he laughs gently, immediately disarmed by the suggestion.

“Everyone was depressed after we played live, because we couldn’t stop self-scrutinising, and sometimes we’d even fight about the show we just did.”

“You know, every show there’s mistakes here and there. On a good night, it’s not something that the crowd is going to necessarily know, or hear. It’s definitely something that takes focus and dedication to get it to go how you want it to.

Haake continues that he’s had to learn the hard way how to pace himself through a live show.

“[There is] a fair share of challenges playing in a live situation, and when you play an hour and half too, you have to take that into consideration so you don’t completely wear yourself out after two or three songs. You have to hold back”, the drummer explains.

It’s with this insight that it becomes evident why Haake does not stress about time away from his drum-kit and actively includes breaks as necessities in his creative process. It is symbolic of a gradual lesson the whole band has experienced in letting go. Their music requires precision, but their solidarity as musicians doesn’t require the endless pursuit of perfection.

Anymore, that is.

“I wouldn’t say we’re perfectionists when it comes to live. I wouldn’t say we’re sloppy either, but we definitely let go of that a little bit. We used to really beat ourselves up. Everyone was depressed after we played live, because we couldn’t stop self-scrutinising, and sometimes we’d even fight about the show we just did,” the drummer recalls.

“I think our fans are global and pretty similar. They’re kind of unified in the way they see our music. It’s equally cool for us to go to Croatia as it is Australia, in terms of fans.”

“But you know with maturity you learn that we’re just people. You can’t be perfect on a nightly basis, and you’re going to make mistakes playing live. If it’s already happened, you learn to just forget about it and focus on the next show”.

Speaking of the “next show”, Meshuggah are touring Australia this month with American metal leaders Lamb of God, having spent the past eighteen months touring America and Europe after releasing the critically acclaimed album Koloss in March last year.

Australia remains an “exotic” place to visit for the five Swedish metallers, mainly because of the climate. But despite the geographical isolation, Haake insists their fans down under are representative of a global cohort of supporters, and that he doesn’t really perceive notable differences between their audiences.

“I think our fans are global and pretty similar. They’re kind of unified in the way they see our music. It’s equally cool for us to go to Croatia as it is Australia, in terms of fans.”

Saddled with a label like ‘endurance metal’, diehard Meshuggah fans certainly do have a lot to unite over. Fan worship is often rooted in a love of the band’s musical complexities and their conceptual, often esoteric and usually defiant lyrics.

Fans are clearly the focus for the band when assembling set-lists; a process that requires frequent and calculated on-stage instrument changes.

“That’s definitely something that we do put a lot of thought into. There’s so many things that can come into play. For example, the bass player (Dick Lövgren) needs to change the bass for certain tracks because they’re so different. So those songs are in consecutive order, right after each other, so he doesn’t have to change the bass the three times that he does it. And then, you want to please the crowd – so you want to start it with the right song and end it with the right song”.

While Haake doesn’t entirely agree with Devin Townsend’s cheeky lyrical suggestion that all metal bands “rip off Meshuggah”, he is proud of the band’s status as distinct, original, and enduringly pioneering.

“Absolutely, that’s what we aim to be. We aim to be different and we want to have an impact, you know to be able to keep having an impact with each album. That’s one of our goals as a band, to be a band that kind of sets itself outside from other music that’s around”.

For a band that has let go of the idea of attaining perfection, in the pursuit of the above objective, they have certainly succeeded far beyond measure.

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