#fredrikthordendal #meshuggah #rockfile
Fredrik Thordendal (born February 11, 1970) is a Swedish lead-guitarist of the metal band Meshuggah.
Along with Meshuggah's rhythm guitarist Mårten Hagström, Thordendal was rated No. 35 by Guitar World in the top 100 greatest heavy metal guitarists of all-time.
Thordendal began his career when he formed "Metallien", a heavily Metallica-influenced band, in his hometown Umeå in 1985. The band later changed their name to Meshuggah and released their first LP Psykisk Testbild in 1989. Beginning as a thrash metal band, Meshuggah's music gradually evolved into a more progressive sound. Various members of the band coined the term "Djent" in reference to a commonly-utilised technique of playing heavily muted, extended powerchords found within Meshuggah's music. Thordendal has been widely recognized in the metal community for his work with Meshuggah.
Under the name Fredrik Thordendal's Special Defects, Thordendal released a solo album in 1997 titled Sol Niger Within with Ultimate Audio Entertainment. The album was remixed and re-released by Ultimate Audio Entertainment and Relapse Records in 1999 under the title Sol Niger Within version 3.33. The re-release contains two bonus tracks but omits several parts of the original version. Thordendal also featured on several tracks for drummer Morgan Ågren's Mats/Morgan Band.
As a guitarist, Thordendal draws attention with his clean, complex lead-playing, inspired by jazz fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth, and complex rhythm-playing featuring prominent polymetric passages. These characteristics are augmented by his use of seven and eight-string guitars. He has a large contribution to songwriting, as well as providing backing vocals for some songs during live performances. He also writes the basslines and performs electric bass in the studio, Dick Lövgren covering these parts during live performances.
Fredrik has been quoted as stating that Metallica and Tool as influences on Meshuggah. Interestingly, Meshuggah supported Tool during their U.S. tour in the fall of 2002, where drummer Tomas Haake even guest appearing, playing "Triad" with the band.
In an interview with Guitar World in 2011 Fredrik states "My dad always listened to jazz, and I guess that influenced me to learn about improvisation. An improvised solo sounds so much better than a written one. For me, there's not much thinking going on at all, only a reaction to what I'm being told from the inside. And no, I have not had any formal training. When I record my leads, they are usually based on feel and totally ignorant to all laws of music theory. This, of course, is because I just play whatever comes out. There are no rules. But on certain songs, I do have to figure out what scales I need to use to follow chord changes. Since I'm not very good with all the scales, I sometimes have to write parts down and plan things ahead. I usually improvise the first part, then insert the written part and continue to improvise until the end of the solo. It's a very confusing way to do it, but I do whatever it takes to make it sound like I know what I'm doing".
source: wikipedia
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