"In many ways that entire album feels like we were rebelling against ourselves." How Mastodon overcame moments of self-doubt and rebuilt themselves from the ground up on The Hunter

Few bands in the 21st century have been showered with as much acclaim as Mastodon. Each of their albums, from 2002's Remission to 2017's Emperor of Sand, has been a landmark in its own right, each pushing the boundaries of metal further in terms of complexity, musicianship and mind-melting concepts, raising the bar ever-higher in the process.

By 2011, the band’s upwards trajectory was more or less unstoppable. At least that’s what it looked like from the outside. In reality, the Atlantans were in a fragile situation as they prepared to write their fifth album, The Hunter. The intensity of the recording and touring cycle of its predecessor, Crack The Skye, combined with ever-increasing external expectations, had conspired to add a degree of fraughtness to inter-personal relationships within the band. The four-piece were determined that they wouldn’t put themselves through that again.

“We’d obviously had a tough time so we just wanted to make it as fun as possible,” says drummer Brann Dailor. “Having just come from a place where we’d been arguing with each other every day we all made a conscious effort to not do that this time.”

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Part of the problem was a growing sense of frustration that their music was becoming predictable, at least in the sense that there were certain tropes that reoccurred on every album they made. Chief among these were the grand lyrical concepts that had been a staple of their records since 2004’s Leviathan. This time around, the band elected to park the overarching theme and write a set of standalone songs.

"I had written a concept on my own,” says Brann. “I had it mapped out and I knew what it was going to be and where it was going to go. But when we got together to start putting it all together i could feel from Brent [Hinds, guitarist] that he seemed exhausted by the idea. he said to me, ‘Do we really have to do another concept?’”

Brann considered the question and decided that, no, they didn’t. That proved to be the starting point of a process that found them recalibrating everything from the ground up.

Musically, the songs they wrote were a world away from what they had done before, swapping the crushing lengthy progressive metal for a tighter, tauter, more melodic and more, dare we say it, easily digestible set of hard rock bangers, as embodied by the single Curl Of The Burl – the closest Mastodon have ever come to a straight-up, radio-friendly rock song.

Mastodon - Curl Of The Burl [Official Music Video] - YouTube

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“We were working on something really early on and Brent turned to me and said, ‘I know it’s only four minutes long, but it kind of feels like it’s done,’” says Brann. “And I said, ‘Fine, then it’s done.’ If it is done then let it be done!

"In many ways that entire album feels like we were rebelling against ourselves. Like, ‘People think we’re that now! And if people think that then I don’t wanna be that!’ I genuinely don’t think it would have worked out very well for us if we had tried to do Crack The Skye again. We never want to be what people want from us."

The Hunter may have been driven by Mastodon's underlying desire for reinvention, but there were still bumps to overcome. Brann admits admits that he was plagued by flashes of self-doubt.

“I worry about the release of every album,” he laughs when asked about his thoughts on whether he believed the more palatable material would see a potential backlash from Mastodon’s more hardcore fans. “I obsess over it, and I chew it over in my mind and I can’t sleep.”

There was a more immediate issue to deal with, however. Guitarist Bill Kelliher had been struggling with alcohol problems for several years.

As Mastodon prepared to start work on The Hunter, Bill told his bandmates that he needed to get sober.

“Just when i thought we were ready to go, bill came to us and said he was going to rehab,” says Brann. “Which we obviously supported, but we had these songs and we were ready to go, so we very tamely had to say, you know, ‘We’re going to record these songs. We’d love you to be there with us.’ That was probably the most trying period of the record.”

The changes in methodology that had sparked The Hunter into life were reflected in the album’s cover art. Where previous Mastodon sleeves had featured artwork by Paul Romano, this time the band elected to use a surreal wood carving titled 'Sad Demon Oath' by US sculptor AJ Fosik.

“All the things that people thought were our rules were things that we were never married to,” says Brann.

Mastodon - Black Tongue [Official Music Video] - YouTube

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The Hunter was released on September 26, 2011 to rave reviews. It gave Mastodon their highest chart placing around the world yet, hitting the top 10 in the US Billboard chart.

The album’s title track was inspired by guitarist Brent Hinds’ brother, who had been killed in a hunting accident while the band were making it, while death also haunted the delicate closing track, The Sparrow, which was dedicated to the late wife of the band’s accountant. But overall the mood was more uplifting, and songs such as Curl Of The Burl, Black Tongue and Octopus Has No Friends swiftly became highlights of shows that were now being played in front of increasingly bigger audiences.

“Commercial concerns have never been something that enters my head,” shrugs Brann. “But we did start to realise that these were songs that did work in these kinds of venues. that was never why we did it, though – it was just a happy accident.”

Today, The Hunter sits comfortably in the firmament of modern metal. For many, it acted as an entry point into Mastodon’s weird and wonderful world.

“I feel like the UK really went with us on that album,” says Brann. “And I'm not sure the rest of the world did. I actually feel like a lot of people shit on that album because they heard Curl Of The Burl and assume we went pop or whatever. I can’t remember when I last listened to the album in full, but I heard Blasteroid recently and I thought it sounded really good. I really like the drum sound I got – it sounds like me on drums, it sounds like Brent on guitar, it sounds like Mastodon. So, I'm quite taken aback that this is the record of ours that has been picked, but you know what, I'm actually delighted that it has been."

This feature was originally published in Metal Hammer issue 319.