EUGENE ABDUKHANOV On MESHUGGAH's Early Days: 'People Didn’t Get It Then'

Summary

• Eugene Abdukhanov says people didn’t get Meshuggah in the early days, but he knew they were onto something big.
• Calls Meshuggah a band that ‘changed everything’ in modern metal, from riffing to production.
• Says opening for Meshuggah at Download Festival was ‘something special’ despite missing most of their set.

Eugene Abdukhanov isn’t new to giving credit where it’s due, even if it takes the rest of the world a couple of decades to catch up.

Sitting down with Forever Loud at Download Festival, the JINJER bassist pulled no punches while looking back on what it was like watching MESHUGGAH rise from being the metal kid no one invited to the party, to becoming the very sound system (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

“I remember the days before [2008’s] ‘ObZen’, before even [2002’s] ‘Nothing’, when there wasn’t such a band yet, such a big and massive [band] with such a heritage. And for many people, it was really hard to accept them,” Eugene said. “But I kept saying that, ‘No, this is a really big thing. You will see in the future.’ And I think I was right.”

Spoiler alert: he was.

Meshuggah wasn’t built for casual listening. They didn’t hand out catchy choruses or jump-the-fuck-up moments. They offered math problems that hit like sledgehammers, and in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, that was a hard sell in a scene still hungover from nu-metal’s rap-rock frat party.

While most bands were either chasing the ghost of Pantera or trying to fit in on Ozzfest lineups without peeing themselves, Meshuggah were out here rewriting time signatures like pissed-off scientists.

Back then, people didn’t get it. Of course they didn’t. Meshuggah sounded like your CD player skipping while falling down stairs, until you realized that was the point.

It was mechanical, it was cold, it was brutal, and once your ears adjusted, it was completely addictive. And Eugene? He was already there, arms crossed, saying “told you.”

“They changed the whole approach to the sound, to riffing, everything,” he said. “In many respects, they created the whole scene which we have now.”

He’s not exaggerating. Try to find a modern metal band that doesn’t owe Meshuggah at least a couple riffs and a whole lot of breakdown envy. Jinjer included.

Eugene’s not shy about that either, he calls them one of his favorite bands, and not in the half-assed, “we’re all friends here” way. He means it. With teeth.

That’s the thing about Meshuggah: they didn’t just arrive ahead of their time, they bulldozed their way into it. And folks like Eugene, with an ear for chaos that actually adds up, spotted the blueprint while the rest of the world was still trying to figure out if Fred Durst was serious.

Yeah, people didn’t get it then. They weren’t ready. A lot of them still aren’t.

But Eugene was. And if you’ve ever nodded your head to a riff that felt like getting body-slammed by a robot, you probably were too.

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