Mastodon thunders across the United States on strength of The Hunter

Over the past decade, Mastodon has established itself as one of the premier forces in American metal. Among critics and fans, the Atlanta-based band has become as huge and monolithic as its name suggests. In 2009, Mastodon showed once again that it had brains equal to its brawn with the release of Crack the Skye, a soaring concept album (in a string of concept albums) in homage to drummer Brann Dailor’s sister Skye who took her own life when she was just 14. Crack the Skye was lauded by critics, and the accolades translated into sales as well. The album debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard Top 200 and also afforded the band the opportunity to tour Europe with Metallica, hit the road with grunge icons Alice in Chains as well as conduct their own headlining tours here and abroad. How would Mastodon follow up the success? Shake up the establishment, of course. They hired a producer better known for hip-hop than progressive sludge metal and ditched their penchant for high concepts to create their most straightforward and accessible album to date, The Hunter, released on Reprise Records Sept. 27, 2011. For those afraid that Mastodon may have Bob-Rocked themselves like their aforementioned European tour mates, fear not. This is not the Mastodon you know and love, but it packs just as mammoth a punch.

You won’t find a lot of math for math’s sake on The Hunter, but Mastodon’s sound is unmistakable. Opening track “Black Tongue” is the Mastodon you remember, just condensed into a roughly three-and-a-half minute burst of ferocity. From there, the album takes a sharp turn into “Curl of the Burl,” where Dailor and crew ditch the intricate progressions and time signature manipulations for heavy-riffed southern-fried rock. What follows is space-age weirdness (“Stargasm”) seated at the same table as beautifully wrought metal epics (the title track). What becomes apparent from listening to The Hunter is that Mastodon are as capable as ever, even when they’re not going out of their way to flaunt their impressive chops.

Submerge had the opportunity to interview Dailor while the band was in preparations for their upcoming headlining U.S. tour, which kicks off Oct. 25, 2011 in Austin, Texas. Dailor says that the band will be unleashing perhaps “the longest set list that we’ve done” at stops on the tour.

“We’re probably doing six or seven songs off the new record, and then a whole bunch of other ones,” he says. “I think we’re doing 23 or 24 songs total.”

Now five albums deep, Dailor says that the band has a lot of material to choose from making the decision of what makes the cut live more difficult, but the band doesn’t just take themselves into account when they hit the road. He explains that he and his band mates keep tabs on fan chatter on message boards and elsewhere to see which songs are getting the most reaction.

“When we’re writing an album, that’s for us,” Dailor explains. “We just try to concentrate on what we like. I feel like the show is more about the fans. It’s about us as well, we want to play the songs we like, but we make sure that we love the songs first and foremost when we put them on the record, but what people are responding to, we make sure to play those live.”

Mastodon will bludgeon through Sacramento on Nov. 2, 2011. In anticipation of the upcoming show, Dailor took some time to converse with us about The Hunter and gave us some insight into the making of it.

I wanted to take it back to 2010 when you guys did the Jonah Hex soundtrack. I read in an interview that you said that was the first time you tried a spontaneous recording process like the one you tried with The Hunter. You said that it gave you guys the confidence to work that way. Why did you go more spontaneous with the Jonah Hex project as opposed to what you’d done in the past?
We didn’t have time to do anything but. We had two weeks in Los Angeles, in a studio, and we were just going in there every day and seeing what we could come up with. That was the plan from the beginning with that, because we really didn’t have time. We were on tour…we were in Europe for three months with Metallica, and we were pretty much fried. We had three weeks off between tour, and those three weeks were supposed to be us going home and chilling out because we’d just run ourselves through the wringer in Europe. Instead, we headed to L.A. … There wasn’t a lot of time to sit and work stuff through for six months. It just wasn’t that type of thing. It was a lot of fun doing that, because you get used to doing things a certain way, and I don’t know if it’s superstition or whatever, but you get used to it because it’s worked in the past. We wanted it to be something that we dug and were proud of, but when you’re writing for a movie soundtrack, it’s not something you can get married to, because it’s not your decision if it gets used or not. It’s a different thing. You have to sort of write music and let it go. We were providing some riffage for their movie and handing it over, so to speak.

So it definitely wasn’t the same mindset you’d go into the studio with when you make a Mastodon record?
No, and that’s not to say that we weren’t going to put our stamp of approval for it, because we did enjoy some of the stuff that came out. But it wasn’t the same thing. A Mastodon album is a different thing. Even though I talked about the new record being more spontaneous–and it was, and I think the Jonah Hex thing did give us some confidence in ourselves that we could just write stuff on the spot and have it come out good–but it wasn’t the same thing. A lot more work went into The Hunter, obviously.

Some of The Hunter was written on the road with Alice in Chains. Was that something new for you guys?
Yeah, kind of. It’s happened a couple of times before. There have been some things that have been written that have come together in sound checks and stuff like that. Somebody will start jamming something and someone will start playing along, and we’ll all say, “Hold on, what’s that? Let’s make sure we don’t lose that. Are you going to remember that? Maybe we can record it real quick, because that’s awesome.” But this time wasn’t the first time, but it seemed like it was happening a lot more often. We had road crew that would go and grab the practice amps and set them up, and they’ll just be back there with a guitar plugged in ready to go… When Brent [Hinds, guitar/vocals] or Bill [Kelliher, guitar] wander back stage, and there’s a guitar and an amp set up and ready to play, they just pick it up and start playing. That started happening every day. I’d pick up my iPhone and hit record if I heard something cool, if I heard something worth our while. If it wasn’t for the iPhone, this record wouldn’t have come together so quickly.

A lot of artists expressed remorse for the passing of Steve Jobs. Was that something that affected you at all?
Absolutely. It’s sad. I feel bad for his family. It’s always sad to lose a loved one when you feel like it’s too soon. His mind, he was one in a million, one in I don’t know how many millions, but we all lost a great thinker and idea person. There just aren’t enough idea people, you know?

The Hunter was dedicated to a couple of people the band lost during the recording of the album. The title is a nod to Brent Hinds’ brother Brad who passed away. Other than the title, did that play into the writing of the album?
I think it did in the aspect of the way the record sounds, the way the record came together. Brent and I were going down there every day. There were a lot of things happening not just with Brent, but with the other members of the band that were really stressful. Where in the past, making a Mastodon record was a really stressful thing, we were banging our heads against the wall trying to fit all this mathematical craziness into the middle of a song. It could be six months of fine-tuning and going in there and getting frustrated and all that stuff. I guess with everything that was going on on the outside, we really wanted the practice space to be a fun place to go and be the one place you could go and close the door and leave everything outside… I think that has a lot to do with the way the album sounds. It’s kind of stripped down. We would write a straight-up rock song like “Curl of the Burl” and be done with it and not care what anyone would think.

We dug it, it was fun. I think it had a lot to do with just the lightheartedness we wanted to approach everything within the practice space. We knew everyone was a little fragile, a little hurting inside, and we didn’t want to make the practice space the stressful place it can be because of all the other shit that was going on outside.

Mastodon will play Ace of Spades on Nov. 2, 2011. This is a stacked lineup that will also feature Red Fang and The Dillinger Escape Plan (fuck yeah!). Be sure to buy your tickets in advance. They can be purchased through Aceofspadessac.com for $28. Doors open at 6 p.m. for this all-ages show.

American Metal Maestros Prepare for Mayhem

With countless tours and five releases already under their belt including their 2006 major label debut, Blood Mountain, Atlanta’s progressive metal outfit Mastodon are gearing up for a busy next couple months. They recently started recording a brand new album with producer Brendan O’Brien, who has worked with everyone from Pearl Jam to Rage Against the Machine to Bruce Springsteen, and in early July they will embark on the first annual Rockstar Mayhem Festival tour that will bring them to Sleep Train Amphitheatre on Friday July 11 alongside Slipknot, Disturbed, Dragonforce and a shit load of other bands. Submerge recently spoke with drummer Brann Dailor about recording the new album, performing at Bonnaroo, their main stage spot on this summer’s Rockstar Mayhem Fest and The Boss.

How long was the writing process for this record?
We’ve basically been home since last July I think now, for about a year. We were on the road for like around 14 or 15 months, something like that, a long time.

When did you actually start recording for the album and not just demoing songs? And what stage is the record at currently?
We started like two weeks ago. We got five songs pretty much done. But nothing is finished until we are totally finished with everything, you know? We’re taking a week off of the studio, so we’re doing everything in smaller increments so you’re not in there like the whole time.

I’ve read that you are much more comfortable in the live setting. What do you do to adjust when all of a sudden you’re cooped up in the studio for months at a time after being on the road for so long?
We’ve been writing for like eight months so we have been home just kind of hanging out and going down to the practice space every day. So we’re kind of used to being home, and this time we are doing the record here at home and the studio is like half a mile from my house. So it’s really close and this is like the easiest record that we’ve ever done so far, you know, simply because of the fact that we are home doing it. The overall mood of the whole band is just a lot better. Everyone is a lot more excited to make the record because everyone is just kind of refreshed everyday. You sleep in your own bed and you get up and go down to the studio and it’s like, “Yay!”

I read somewhere recently that you said the record has a “creepy, spaced out feel,” can you explain what you mean by this a little?
I don’t know. It’s hard to describe, you know? That’s like the best I can describe it.

And there is a 15-minute jam song? Will that make the final cut?
I don’t know if it’s a jam song. Everything is locked in; it’s not just like were going off on a tangent, you know what I mean? It’s just a 15-minute-long song. I think that was just some previous journalist’s words, he decided to call it a jam song. There are lyrics and everything; we made it into a real song.

I saw a picture on your Myspace of Bill [Kelliher, guitar, vocals] tracking with a nine-string guitar? Who influenced you guys to use that?
I think it’s influenced by that band The Fucking Champs. They had nine-string guitars that they had made, and I think Bill had always wanted one since we played with them. But, also I think also its probably influenced by Matt Pike [of High on Fire]. Those guys are really, really close friends of ours, and Matt is an extremely talented guitar player. That nine-string sounds pretty bad ass on the new record. We’re using a lot of different guitars in the studio, there is a ton of cool ones down there that Brendan has.

How did you guys come to be working with him?
You know I can’t even believe that we didn’t think of him. It just didn’t even dawn on me. Matt Bayles [producer of the last three Mastodon records] used to work with him; he assisted Brendan on a couple records in Seattle. There is just a lot of ties that make sense, but he just wasn’t on our radar totally until really recently. Everything came together really fast and we were like, “What about Brendan O’Brien?” Then we met him like the day after we said that at the Bruce Springsteen show.

Yeah, I saw a photo of you and Brent with The Boss! What is that all about?
We met him through Max Weinberg, the drummer from the Conan O’Brien show. We know Max because his son is a big music fan and they come out and see us whenever we are in or around New York. Max invited us out to see them play and we came out and met Brendan there and we met The Boss. That was pretty rad!

Break it down for me: Is Bruce Springsteen a Mastodon fan?
[Laughs] Oh, I don’t know. It was like a handshake and a short conversation. But I was thrilled to meet the guy. He is a legend.

So how has it been working with Brendan? Are you guys feeling it?
Yeah everything is great, everything is awesome. Brendan is real easy and he just knows what he wants, he knows how to get what he wants out of us. It just sounds really incredible. We are all really, really excited about the sound of the record. If no one likes the record, we know we love it and we know that it sounds incredible.

Is it still yet to be titled? And I know it’s a concept album, but what is going to be the theme?
We’re still kind of keeping that stuff under wraps. It’s got a title, and it’s got the whole story. The story has been written for like a year. So, we have had the story for a long time, but we’re not ready to divulge that information.

You guys just played Bonnaroo, how was that experience?
It was great; it was a lot of fun. There were a lot of people there. It was a really receptive crowd and it was fun we played three new songs, which might have been a mistake, but we did it anyways.

Did you guys get through the new songs OK?
We got through two of them really well, the first one we screwed up at the end.

It probably wasn’t even noticeable for the crowd, don’t you think?
It probably wasn’t but you know it was the first new song that we’ve played, and at the end somebody who I wont name went into the chorus too soon or something, it was just one of those brain-fart moments and I was like, “Oh god!” So I think it kind of ruined the confidence to do the other two but we ended up doing them anyway. The other two went fine.

Are you worried that when you play these new songs live this summer people will try to decipher the concept of the new record? Wouldn’t you say someone is bound to post something on YouTube and get all your fans talking?
No, I think it’s cool to tease people like that and have people start trying. It was posted like 10 minutes after we got done playing.

Are you looking forward to the upcoming Rockstar Mayhem Festival tour? Do you prefer huge tours of this sort with tons of bands and different stages, or do you enjoy the smaller tours with a couple bands? You know, getting out on the road with friends.
I don’t know they both have their good points about them. The cool thing about this big tour is that there are so many bands that it kind of takes the pressure off of a headlining gig where you got to draw all the people and worry about ticket sales and all that. With these kinds of shows, you are pretty much guaranteed a lot of people are going to come out just because it’s a big summer festival. A lot of people are just looking for something to do and with Ozzfest gone you got all these people that are like, “Well what big rock concert am I going to go to this year?” This is probably the one that they will go to. It will be like a summer camp kind of thing, you know? There will be so many bands and so many people. It will be fun; we have toured with Slipknot before so we’re already friends with them and the Dragonforce guys and Machinehead and The Red Chord. We’re looking forward to making friends with new guys.

How long of a set will you guys have on that tour?
We are opening the main stage, and there are four bands on the main stage. Probably 45 minutes, maybe 40 minutes I’m not sure.

Will there be material from the new album sprinkled in there?
I don’t think so. I don’t know I’m not sure we haven’t discussed that yet. We’re still talking about what we’re going to play this Saturday at the Iron Maiden show.

Yeah that show seems cool, how did that come about?
Yeah they just called us and said, “Hey!” So I’m going to go up there with my wife we are celebrating our fifth year anniversary the day before on Friday.

Oh wow, congrats! So you’re like, “Happy anniversary babe, I’m playing with Iron Maiden!”
[Laughs] That’s right! Yeah so that will be fun.

With the Mayhem tour coming in early July, what will happen with the record?
We’re going to go in [the studio] on the 23rd [of June] and we’re going to track like five more songs I think. With these 10 songs there are a few that are pretty long. I don’t know it kind of just turned out that way. There’s not a lot of three minute ones, you know? So with 10 songs it will be too much for a record I think, so we’ll see what happens. We are just going to track it. Then probably in late August when we get back home, we’ll go in for a couple weeks and just put the finishing touches on it and it will be done.

We’re kind of hoping during the time we’re doing Mayhem we’ll continue writing, because you just never know. If we come up with something that’s super rad then when we get back we will have the time booked and we’ll be able to go in there and be like, “Dude we got these two songs and we love them and they have got to go on there!”

How do you record new songs and ideas while on a tour bus?
We have a laptop with Pro Tools. We’ll bring some mics and stuff and set up a little mini studio. Maybe set up the drum kit in the dressing room and track something. Then you know, e-mail the demo to Brendan or something. He can open it and check it out while he’s doing the new Pearl Jam record.

Do you have a relative time frame for the release?
No we don’t know yet. We’re hoping before the end of the year. The most important thing to us is that we’re going to take our time and make sure that every single song and every single moment on this record is the best that it can be. I don’t totally 100 percent feel like we did that with Blood Mountain, so we want to remedy that situation and make sure that this record is something that everybody in the band is 100 percent happy with and make sure that this is our best record. This is a big record for us.

How tough is it knowing people are expecting certain things from you guys at this point in your career? Are you feeling any pressure?
No, no, no. I feel confident, you know? I hear this material and I think it sounds awesome and I really am super proud of it. We’re just excited to play it for people. I’m sure there is going to be a lot of people that aren’t going to like it but that’s just the way it is with every record.