Their biggest album, their longest tour yet – Mastodon hit their prog stride with 2009’s Crack The Skye, emulating their 70s heroes with an astro-political conceptual masterpiece. In 2010 drummer Brann Dailor told Prog about how their fourth album came together.
It may seem a little odd now, but when Mastodon started out in 1999, most people believed they were a metal band – nothing more. It was only when the conceptual Leviathan album was released in 2004 that everyone noticed they actually had a lot more sophistication and complexity to their musical aspirations than could be accounted for by any abiding interest in metal. It’s a point that drummer Brann Dailor, is keen to make at once.
“For us, the most important era in music – the one that really inspired what we do – was the early 70s. It was all about bands experimenting, taking risks, without thinking about the commercial problems they might be causing for themselves. It was the artistry that mattered.”
When Dailor names the specific bands with whom Mastodon feel most associated, you appreciate that they’re a progressive act who happen to have metallic elements, rather than a metal band who’ve indulged in other types of music.
“We embrace the spirit of early 70s prog as being the way that you should always approach music,” Dailor says. “When you listen to the fantastic albums made by King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd... we’ve wholeheartedly taken on their ethos. They taught us that you didn’t have to dumb anything down to make your point. On the contrary, it was – and is – important to stick to what you believe in.”
![Mastodon - Divinations [Official Visualizer] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/RTSbcPeV5yA/maxresdefault.jpg)
He should know what he’s talking about – it’s mainly down to him that Mastodon took their current musical path of making concept albums. “I plead guilty to that, which means you either buy me a drink, or poison me, depending on whether you feel it’s something Mastodon should be doing!” he laughs. “I was reading Moby-Dick when it struck me that it could make a good storyline for an album, and that’s how Leviathan happened. Since then, we're just far happier working within a conceptual idea.
What he doesn’t mention until pressed by Prog is that he’s also the person charged with coming up with the initial concepts. “I’m the one who has the first thoughts along those lines. I can get inspiration from almost anywhere, but what I might put forward to the others [guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds, guitarist Bill Kelliher and bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders] isn’t anywhere close to the final story.
“All of us play around with the ideas, until we work them into a shape that makes some sort of sense to us. I always try to ensure that what I first propose is something I know the others would appreciate: after all this time, I know them well enough to reject anything I believe they’d hate without even thinking.”
Dailor has already come up with the basic concept for the successor to 2009’s Crack The Skye. And Mastodon are already working on the songs to bring this fresh story to life. “I don’t want to give away too much as this stage, but like everything we’ve done so far it is partly mythological in structure. Does it have anything to do with Crack The Skye? To some extent there’s a connection, but it’s a loose one.
“It’s what keeps us going: the opportunity to go further than we’ve ever done. And this time there’s a lot to live up to. The music is still heavy in parts – that’ll never disappear – but there’s also a groove that I’d describe as being close to mid-70s Led Zeppelin.”
![Mastodon - Oblivion [Official Visualizer] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Qpu5QMa9xCQ/maxresdefault.jpg)
Dailor is more than happy with the commitment made to Mastodon by current label Warner Bros. “This is the last album we owe them under the current agreement, but I hope they decide we’re worth picking up for a contract extension. We’ve enjoyed working closely with them.
“And it’s not their fault we haven’t had huge sales. It’s the times we live in. Someone recently told me that if you took into account all the illegal downloading that goes on, then the 350,000 sales we had with Crack The Skye probably equates to over a million copies in earlier days. How do I feel about it? It’s hard to have an opinion, because that’s going to change nothing. I’m just happy we have a career.”
However, there’s one disappointment as far as Crack The Skye is concerned. Such was the visual potential and breadth of the storyline – taking in Czarist Russia, astral and time travel, wormholes and religious beliefs – that the band hoped to turn it into a movie. Dailor admits they’ve had to let such ambitions drift away to join so many other dashed dreams.
I just love the fact that each year seems more full on than the previous one
“It’s something we really did wanna do,but in the end the cost was just against us. We spent all the budget we had on getting the clips done which were used as backdrops for the live shows; I think that was money well spent. Right now, the only hope we’d have is if the four of us took time out to write a treatment for the proposed film, and then one of us gets all done up in business clothes and tries to sell the idea to a movie studio in Hollywood. It might work, but that’s not what we’re about at all. So we’ll put this one down as the ambition which got away.”
Although their new album right at the core of plans for the coming months, there are also a series of summer shows coming up. There’s just a possibility that they’ll debut at least one new song. “The problem is that every time we’ve tried this sort of thing before it’s gone so wrong. We’d have to be really careful to choose the right sort of track. In all honesty, we might chicken out.
“I just love the fact that each year seems more full on than the previous one. Someone, somewhere always appears to have plans for us!”
