Mastodon’s Brann Dailor has spoken to NME about their new album ‘Marrow Deep’ – their first record since the death of his mother and the unexpected passing of longtime bandmate Brent Hinds.
Arriving five years after their last record, ‘Hushed And Grim’, the new album will be out on Friday (August 28) and comes amid a tumultuous period for the band. Last March, they confirmed that they had parted ways with founding member, guitarist and co-vocalist Hinds – leading to tensions being high between the members and Mastodon enlisting guitarist Nick Johnston in his place. Later, drummer and co-vocalist Dailor revealed the death of his mother, and around that same time, news broke that Hinds had died following a collision on his motorbike.
At the time, the remaining members of Mastodon were already underway with work on a new record, but soon found themselves channelling the grief of both deaths into new material – leading to the new album centred around loss and heartache, as well the idea of holding on long enough to gradually see a spark of hope.
“It’s hard [to explain] the pain and the anguish of losing someone in those circumstances,” Dailor told NME, reflecting on how Hinds’ death impacted them. “This is someone we were so close with, and while we left on bad terms, we all thought that we were going to bury the hatchet at one point. I had hope that he was going to come back into the fold.
He continued: “When that [hope] had gone, it felt like the best thing for our group just to lean on each other during that moment and prop each other up with music. There was no scenario where any of us wanted the record to be about any of that stuff, and I’d trade every riff and every lyric to get those people back… but that’s not the reality of it.
“So the best thing that we could do for ourselves and our mental state was to power through and write about it. ‘Marrow Deep’ is the culmination of that.”
Check out the rest of our interview with Dailor below, where he told us about enlisting Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler and Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme for the album, whether Mastodon they ever considered calling it quits after the loss of Hinds, and why they believe it is “imperative as an artist” to be honest and vulnerable with fans during tough times.
NME: Hi Brann. What’s it like to be back promoting new music again? After going through such a challenging year, it must be strange to be talking about everything in such a public way?
Brann Dailor: “It’s been challenging, but it’s not something I’m unfamiliar with. I know my way around it at this point, and I’m just trying to be open and honest… or as open and honest as I can be without spilling too much about people’s personal lives.
“During the [2009] ‘Crack The Skye’ cycle for instance, I was confronted with talking about my sister’s suicide every single day, which is something I really didn’t care for. But over the years, I started meeting people outside of shows and having them be open and vulnerable with me in return. It started feeling like we had a connection, even though we didn’t know each other, because I decided to be vulnerable about something that I had gone through.
“I guess what we crave is personal connection, and people to connect through music. I just see it as hopefully the things we leave behind on this earth are things that may be helpful to somebody else. That, for me, is a lot more important to me than feeling a little bit uncomfortable for a moment.”
Mastodon have been through a lot of heartache lately, but you’re determined to say that this album is about coming out the other side stronger and starting a new chapter. Why do you want to emphasise that?
“I miss Brent. I want him to be here as much as the person who wants him back the most, but I’m also a human being who expresses himself through art and music and I have been putting every single thing I have artistically into Mastodon for almost 27 years. It’s the same with Bill [Kelliher, guitarist] and with Troy [Sanders, bassist]. There is no shortage of ideas and no shortage of passion. We still want to play live, write music and put music out there. Now if people don’t want to listen to it, that’s totally fine, but Mastodon is still very much alive.
“As much as we’re going through this grieving process, we also feel pretty emboldened because we feel like we still have something very special to say musically. I’m not going to stop playing the drums and thinking about riffs and thinking about cool heavy metal T-shirts ideas… and I still want all that stuff to be wrapped up in Mastodon, like I always have.”
The album is underpinned by grief, but you actually started work on it long before the loss of Brent and your mother. What was the mindset like when you first started out?
“When we first started writing these songs, it was just business as usual. Bill and I had three or four skeletons of songs in the back of our heads and we were sifting through them – it only took a while to come together because we did a 20-year anniversary tour of ‘Leviathan’. That broke up the momentum of working on a new album, but also we weren’t pressuring ourselves to get it finished.
“To be honest, I was hoping that during that time I could talk to Brent and have some heart-to-hearts with him. I wanted to be honest with him and tell him: ‘I want to write with you, dude. Let’s do this. Let’s get in the room or wherever we have to do’. But you can’t force anybody to do anything. He was also having a hard time. I think he was going through a break-up, and when he got off the Mastodon tour he went directly out with one of his other bands, so I couldn’t get him to come down and jam because he just wanted to go do his own thing, which is totally fine. I would’ve loved it if he wanted to come and do it, but like I said, you can’t force anybody to do something that they don’t want to do.
“I don’t even know if it was that he didn’t want to do it, it was more like he went wherever the wind took him, and the wind was not taking him down to the practice space.”
So that was when you introduced the new members (guitarist Nick Johnston and keyboardist João Nogueira) into the fold…
“Yeah, when Brent was no longer in the band we hired Nick to come on tour. Then we started showing Nick some of the skeletons of songs that we were building. It was around then when my mother passed away, so then the focus shifted to my mom, and then the turmoil with Brent [falling out with us] was happening at the same time.
“During that time, I didn’t want to do anything, but I was picking myself up out of bed, going to the practice space and trying to put everything I could into the new material. I wasn’t really in a good place, mentally. I’m usually the clown guy that tries to cheer everybody up, and I was really trying to still be that person but I just couldn’t do it. It was probably the most I’ve been depressed since around the time my sister died. I just felt this heaviness. And with the Brent turmoil before he passed, it just was very hurtful to see everything that was coming out in the press. It just sucked, and I hated it. Pair that with the grief I was having for my mom… I wanted it to be over.”
It must have been tough to keep on persevering with new music at that point. It wasn’t long after then you found out that Brent had passed away too…
“You get to a point with grief where you want to be done with it, but it’s not done with you yet. So we went on that anniversary tour and got pretty preoccupied with that, then we went to a mobile studio to get back to the album. I was writing a lot of lyrics just about my mom and dissecting how, for her whole life, she’d been through a lot and life was very unfair to her. So I figured that the album was going to be all about that… then as soon as we got off tour, Brent passed away. It just hit like a tonne of bricks.
“We went into the studio to start pre-production for the album a week later, and I really questioned whether or not [channelling the grief of Brent’s passing] was a good idea or not. But soon after questioning it, I thought ‘Well what else am I gonna do?’ I wanted to dig a hole under the house and lay there for a while, but I also knew that if I got up and went to the space and worked on this new stuff for eight hours, I’d feel a little bit better. It worked. It worked to just bash my drums for a little while and try to make these songs as good as they could be.”
During all of this, was there ever talk of calling it quits with the band, or going on a hiatus?
“No. Next to my most near and dear relationships in my life – including my mom, Brent, my wife and my dad – Mastodon is the most important part of my life. So if there’s any possibility that it can keep going, then I’m going to keep it going.”
What was it like trying to introduce new members into the mix under such difficult circumstances?
“Those guys were ready and willing to do whatever it took to make sure that the three of us were comfortable. They are two very empathetic human beings, they’re very artistic and they’re sensitive dudes. Which is what we needed.”
And you went for Nick Johnston, a guitarist with a very different style to Brent…
“Yeah, we picked him for a reason. He’s a very original player, and that’s what we would always look for. You’re never going to replace Brent Hinds. The guy was a musical genius and he wrote some of the most beautiful compositions I’ve ever heard.
“Brent and I had a very special relationship. I could always feel where he was coming from the most, and when we would dig in on a riff together, it’d feed my soul. Brent was one of my true loves in music, and the feeling was mutual. We both had an endless amount of respect for each other’s playing. I feel that with Nick as well, I just really fell in love with his playing and I know there’s so much more that we can do. This is just the tip of the iceberg, because he came in after the songs were already in motion.”
Speaking of new additions on the album, what made you want to enlist Josh Homme on ‘Snakes For Dinner’?
“I just heard his voice at the end there! That’s usually how we treat any kind of guest appearance. It just has to kind of dawn on you, like ‘Oh, maybe they would be good for that.’
“He was fresh in my mind too because we were in the airport before a show when we found out that Brent had passed, and in total shock. That morning, though, Josh called and just started talking to me about some type of food I recommended. He didn’t mention anything about Brent, but I knew what he was doing. He was checking up on me and he wanted to make me laugh for a second. I just really appreciated that. He’s a thoughtful guy.”
You also have Geezer Butler on the album. How did that come together?
“It came together because Sabbath was very informative of this album, and we were in a very Sabbath-y phase since we played at the ‘Back to the Beginning’ [final show]. It seemed like a big swing to ask Geezer to play a bass solo for us, but not completely out of the realm of possibility.
“I remember I said it out loud and everyone went, ‘Yeah, we also want free healthcare for everybody and gun control laws in the States!’ But I didn’t think it was too out of this world to ask for it, so we went got in contact with him, and he said yes! We love the song. It’s very different for us. It has that ‘Planet Caravan’ sound to it, so it just felt right.”
It feels poignant to have him feature on that song too because it tackles the grief of losing your mum, who was also a big Black Sabbath fan.
“Yeah, the song sees me really opening up about my mom and sister going out into the cosmos and becoming these two constellations… and my mom’s favourite Black Sabbath member was Geezer! She loved Ozzy Osbourne to death, but she was always like, ‘You know Geezer wrote the lyrics, man!’ So I thought Geezer being on that song in particular would have made my mom freak out. She just would lose her mind.
“She knew that we were playing the ‘Back To The Beginning’ show, but she didn’t get to see it. She knew that it was happening though and she was in tears when I told her. At least she got to have that one last proud mama moment.”
You mentioned earlier that ‘Crack The Skye’ led to you becoming a lot closer with fans because of the heavy topics covered. When writing this album, did you think about how it may be help fans in their own struggles?
“Not really. The lyrics I wrote were just things I had to get off my chest. Honestly, I was thinking about myself and the other guys in the room at that moment in time, but in hindsight, I’m hopeful that it helps others.
“I did feel some trepidation with some of the lyrics, and there were some moments while I was singing in the vocal booth that I had to stop and collect myself. Those are the times where you know that you’re tapping into something real – and that will always be relatable to somebody. I think it’s imperative as an artist that you offer up your true self. If you’re experiencing something delicate and raw, you should put it out there like that. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to run away from it, and it was difficult to bear it all like that, but I didn’t want to hide from it.”
You’ve said that you want to embrace a new era for Mastodon. What does that future look like?
“I’m excited to dig in with Nick and João. And I’d like at some point to start singing about mythological creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster! I had written this whole supernatural horror thing that I was going to use for this record, but then what happened, happened, so maybe next time. I’m hoping the next records can be a little more fun, but for now I’m looking forward to touring, playing a lot of this new stuff live and just seeing if anyone likes it.”
‘Marrow Deep’ is out on August 28 via Loma Vista. Visit here to pre-order.
