Guitarist Fredrik Thordendal of Swedish extreme metallers Meshuggah will sit out the band's summer tour with Megadeth. His temporary replacement will be Scar symmetry's Per Nilsson.

A message on Meshuggah's Facebook page offered no specific reason for Fredrik's absence other than he would be out "on a mission to explore some interesting stuff."

The message reads:

“So...we had to send our interdimensional Kazoospecialist Dr Thordendal on a mission to explore some interesting stuff. He's been asking for this assignment for quite a while and it seems now is the time to realize his aspirations. This would however leave the rest of us unable to deliver our usual tonal obscenities for quite some time... and obviously we can't have that!

“So we put our five blocks of wood together and came up with a brilliant plan that we thought would be productive, intelligent and artistically mature.

“We took some rolls of duct tape, a black hood, a sock with a cue ball and some rope and drove north from Stockholm in a sketchy van to fetch ourselves the prey we wanted, to fill the Kazoospot for a while. We won't get into the messy details but we can now proudly present our interim Lead Kazooist for the duration of "The Thords" hiatus: PER NILSSON!!

“MAN he knows how to Kazoo!! You will meet him first time on our summer run in North America with Megadeth and be all the better for it!! Honestly, we could just send Per by himself but we decided the rest of us will tag along for moral support

“*End of transmission*”

Meshuggah's run of U.S. dates with Megadeth will kick off on June 23rd in Big Flats, New York and end on July 11th in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Also appearing on the bill are Tesseract and Lillake.

June
23 - Big Flats, NY - Budweiser Summerstage
24 - Montebello, QC - Amnesia Rockfest *
25 - Boston, MA - House of Blues
27 - Philadelphia, PA - Fillmore
28 - Portsmouth, VA - Portsmouth Pavilion
29 - Silver Springs, MD - The Fillmore
30 - Columbus, OH - Express Live

July
5 - Windsor, ON - Caesars **
7 - St. Charles, MO - Family Arena
8 - Oklahoma City, OK - Zoo Amphitheatre
9 - Houston, TX - Revention Music Center
11 - Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE
13 - Oshkosh, WI - Rock USA *
14 - Chicago, IL - Chicago Open Air *
15 - Cadott, WI - Rock Fest*

* Festival Dates
** Megadeth and Meshuggah only

Megadeth will then join Scorpions, one of the most iconic and influential hard rock bands of all time, as special guests on their Crazy World tour. The tour kicks off on September 14th with a month-long run of dates including stops in New York, Dallas, Toronto, Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles, amongst others, with more dates coming.

September
14 - Reading, PA - Santander Arena
16 - New York, NY - Madison Square Garden
22 - Toronto, ON - Budweiser Stage
25 - Denver, CO - 1st Bank Center
26 - Salt Lake City, UT - Venue TBA
29 - Spokane, WA - Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena
30 - Seattle, WA - Tacoma Dome

October
3 - Reno, NV - Grand Sierra Resort
4 - Oakland, CA - Oracle Arena
7 - Los Angeles, CA - The Forum
8 - Phoenix, AZ - Talking Stick Arena
11 - San Antonio, TX - Freeman Coliseum
12 - Dallas, TX - Pavilion at the Music Factory
14 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL - BB&T Center
15 - Tampa, FL - Amalie Arena