Episode #57
Misha Mansoor (Periphery) on Limitation, Meshuggah and 'A Pale White Dot'
Misha Mansoor founded Periphery in 2005 and helped define a sound he never set out to name. Recorded backstage at Jera On Air, this conversation goes back much further than that. He describes a childhood of being moved — Brussels at eight, Zimbabwe at twelve — and rebuilding a friend group from nothing each time. He talks about a strict religious upbringing, spending his bar mitzvah money on a drum kit, a guitar and a PlayStation, and walking away from it all. He is open about the two directionless years at the University of Toronto that ended in a breakdown, and about the conversation with his father, an economist at the World Bank, who told him he would statistically fail. Misha tells the complete Meshuggah story: dismissing them as noise, then the single remark from a bass player that made the whole thing legible. He explains what obsession means to him, why he only has two modes, and why experimenting with gear reliably produces songs. On 'A Pale White Dot', he is candid about the creative dead end that preceded it — a band that had refined its own formula to the point of boredom — and how starting with a title, artwork and a single theme of loneliness broke the deadlock. He also explains his long-held view that most albums, including his own, are too long. Also discussed: Nirvana's songwriting, Dillinger Escape Plan, Max Verstappen, and the difference between talent and work. Sixty Scales and the Truth with Niels Guns.
