Mastodon On Their Long Awaited New Album ‘Marrow Deep’

‘The five of us right now, we’re super aligned. Everyone is so happy to be there, whether it’s at band practice, recording or playing shows. We just returned from a thirty five day trip playing European festivals, and every show was just incredible, and we were just having a fucking blast. Having everyone on board, aligned, sharing the same drive and desires, it just keeps breathing great energy, you know, that bounces off each other. There’s just five people on all cylinders firing.’

Troy Sanders, co-founder and bassist of Metal merchants Mastodon, is pumped up for the band’s new album Marrow Deep, out on August 28, the band’s first as a five piece. The album is based on the tale of the Three Fates of Greek mythology which, simply put, is the beginning, what’s in between and the end. In this interview with Troy, we also dabble in the beginning, the in between and the end.

‘Our drummer, Brann Dailor, has been in the driver’s seat as far as feeling and finding the overlying theme or the actual concept of our whole discography. He’s very aware of the inner workings of our band, history, the now, the future, and everything in between. So, he’s spearheading all the art, all the direction. He’s the Lars Ulrich of Mastodon.’

‘Number one, we’ve always been into cool mythology, and we haven’t really incorporated that in the last album or two. The three sisters, to me, it also represents the three core members of Mastodon, Bill Kelliher, Brann Dailor, and myself. Yes, it’s about your birth, your destiny, and your death and it means more now than ever, at least for us within the band because we keep plowing forward and nothing’s for granted. We just appreciate and are digging in and trying even harder than we ever have before.’

‘So, it’s a great analogy of our perspective at this point in our career and a lot of similarities with the three sisters, the three fates, the three core members, and kind of reflecting on the beginning, where we’re at with this, this journey, this destiny that we’re on, and always being aware that that thread can be cut at any time.’

It already becomes clear there is so much to talk about with this album but with the clock literally ticking, we dabble in the beginning, and specifically last years Back To The Beginning show the band did for Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath, for a major guest star on the new album, Mr. Geezer Butler.

‘I was recently asked, speaking of just solely on the bass guitar, “What’s the highlight of this album for you on bass?” I said, “Well, the highlight wasn’t me,” and it’s really cool to say that. What a cool moment.’

‘We were lucky to tour with Black Sabbath in 2005 on the Ozzfest’s in the States. Geezer name dropped us in his book that he wrote two years ago and that blew our minds. Then to be invited to ‘Back to the Beginning’ last year was an absolute dream come true. So, we reached out to Geezer to see if he wanted to collaborate in any capacity, and he came back and said yes!’ For all of us, go back in time and say, “You know, the guy from Black Sabbath that writes all the lyrics, he’s gonna be on your album.” Not just my head would have exploded, but all five of us!’

On an album that flows with textures, sonically, vocally and lyrically, in all different directions, the band enlisted a charcutier board, if you will, of guests to add their flavours to the opus.

‘Any time we reach out to one of our friends to collaborate it’s because, number one, we’re inspired by them, number two, we’ve befriended them along the way with touring and crossing paths at festivals and whatnot.’

‘If we’ve been inspired by you, we write a part that sounds like Neil Fallon from Clutch. His voice could be there, let’s ask him. Or here’s another part that maybe Josh Homme could do something cool with. Reach out and ask him. It’s a great compliment when we reach out, ask a friend if they’d be willing and able to collaborate with you, and they say yes. They take time and energy out of their own lives and schedules and go to a studio and knock something out and send it back. It’s one of the greatest compliments actually.’

Josh Homme was already announced on the single Snakes For Dinner and Geezer Butler announced recently on the epic The Vanishing. Neil Fallon is a newbie, so who else is there one wonders?

‘Nate Newton and Ben Koller from Converge. Ben played some percussion; Nate did some gang vocals. He led the way with the gang vocals. Randy Blythe from Lamb of God does a gang vocal on there. We got Neil Fallon, our dear friend from Clutch. Of course, Joshua Homme. This is the second time he’s worked with us, and that’s always a real treat because that man doesn’t seem to do anything wrong musically. Who else? Geezer, our buddy from Birmingham, England. Oh, uh, Joe Duplantier from Gojira, he does vocals on ‘The Vanishing’ as well. I don’t know if I’m missing anybody, I think that’s everyone!’

From the highs to the lows. One person not on the album is recently departed Brett Hinds, a stark reminder of the third fate. We respectfully don’t dwell too much on the subject.

‘There will never be another guitar player like Brent Hinds, and we were lucky enough to jam with him for twenty five years on thousands of stages around the world. There’s no way to deny his impact and legacy on not only Mastodon and our growth and our career, but to the world of heavy rock and roll. You know, he’s huge, super unique, amazingly talented, and there’ll never be another one like him.’

This album features Nick Johnston on guitar and the keyboards from Joao Nogueira, as well as a subtle new bass sound as Sanders tried something different by playing the bass through a Marshall Guitar amp.

‘It’s tucked in there. It’s definitely nothing brand new, Lemmy has played like that for his whole career. Other bass players have run through guitar amps as well, but I just never had tried it. But man, when Kirk Ballou suggested we try that, it just ripped my face off and it was just badass!’

‘Within the layers of Mastodon there’s always a clean tone of bass and a dirty tone. The dirty tone that’s layered in these songs is the gnarly Marshall guitar amp and it sounds great, but it’s never really in the forefront with our band because we’ve got two wizards on guitars. The drummer behind me, he’s playing like a maniac. There’s lots of synth and keys and vocal patterns going on, so there’s a lot. It’s not a bass forward band, never has been, and I’m okay with that. But it was cool to experiment and be excited about a bass tone, you know, the simple things!’

For the keen eye Mastodon fans around, there is gap in the band schedule around the same time a certain festival is on, I cheekily ask the question.

‘To my knowledge it’s not ’26 unfortunately. We’ve had the same booking agent for many, many years and we always remind him on a new touring cycle of, “Hey, don’t forget we love to play Australia.” Always have, always will, and I think we’ve been lucky enough to go there seven times if I’m keeping count correctly. My point is it’s always been great to us there, and we absolutely wanna come back, and we mentioned to our booking agent again, like, “Don’t forget Australia, Australia needs to be a priority.” So safe to say that we’ll be there in ’27. I just can’t promise it ’cause everything for ’27 is coming together now. But we gotta do it. We love it there.’

Interview By Iain McCallum

Pre-order/pre-save Marrow Deep here: https://i.mastodonrocks.com/marrowdeep