Today we received a visit from Fredrik Thordendal and Marten Hagstrom from Swedish math-metallers Meshuggah, who were in town to promote their latest offering, obZen. Upon arrival they each asked for a cup of black coffee and asked what we would be doing during the videotaped session, and I explained to them that we would be doing a Dear Guitar Hero interview that would be used as a video here on guitarworld.com and as a DGH in an upcoming issue of the magazine, as well as a riff lesson that would most likely be posted to our extreme metal site, MetalKult.com.

The boys were happy to oblige, though Marten pretty much carried the bulk of the Dear Guitar Hero interview…Fredrik seems to let his playing do most of his talking.

I snapped this iPhone photo before we got started to give you a sense of what our office studio looks like and how it’s set up. That’s Fredrik standing, and Marten seated next to him (wearing a nifty Celtic Frost Morbid Tales hoodie, I might add)…both with their eight-string guitars slung over their shoulders.

  

You can also see our two Sony HD video cameras (yes, we shoot everything here in big, glorious high-definition, even though most of it gets seen in a small window on the web or our CD-ROM) and the two Sony monitors, as well as our new Pro Tools rig on the table next to the monitors. Our in-house amps vary from time to time, but right now we’re using a 100-watt Marshall JVM and a 100-watt Krank Krankenstein. Most of our guests seem to be happy with the sounds they get from these beasts…although the lawfirm on the floor below us is never happy to hear gargantuan riffing at two in the afternoon!

While the Meshuggah guys were here, we had them sign our second office guitar, which is the MetalKult guitar. We tend to have the A-list rock stars who visit us, like Slash, Mustaine, Yngwie, etc., sign the Guitar World Les Paul Studio (which you can see here)—but when the extreme metal guys come around, we have them sign the MetalKult B.C. Rich W.M.D. Warbeast. Some of the signatures we’ve acquired to far are Gary Holt from Exodus, Max and Iggor Cavalera from Sepultura, Bjorn from In Flames, Eric Peterson from Testament, Mikael and Fredrik from Opeth and some others. Click the photo to see a larger version.

  

That’s it for today…later.

JK