HardLore - Bill Kelliher: MASTODON, Losing Brent Hinds & The “Rebirth” of The Band

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

Split your lungs with blood and thunder…We’re joined by MASTODON co-founder and guitarist Bill Kelliher on the eve of their newest album Marrow Deep.We dive deep into the origin of the band, the recent loss of Brent Hinds after his dismissal from the band, Bill discovering extreme music in Rochester, NY and linking up with Brann first in Lethargy & Today is the Day, Mastodon’s humble but competent beginnings, and we break down the entire Mastodon discography and accompanying tours and tales in between.Featuring special guest co-host, engineer & producer Taylor Young of God’s Hate, Twitching Tongues and more._______________HardLore: A Knotfest Series, fueled by Monster Energy.Shot, edited and mixed by ⁠⁠Steven Grise⁠⁠ Title sequence by ⁠⁠Nicholas Marzluf⁠⁠ • Join the ⁠⁠HARDLORE PATREON⁠⁠ to watch every single weekly episode early and ad-free, alongside exclusive monthly episodes• Join the ⁠⁠HARDLORE DISCORD⁠⁠ • Get 15% off ⁠TIMELESS COFFEE⁠ site-wide and grab a bag of my favorite beans and the best vegan cookies I’ve ever had• Get 10% off ⁠⁠⁠⁠MILLS VINTAGE⁠⁠⁠⁠ site-wide with code HARDLORE.____________00:00:00 - Bill Kelliher00:00:36 - Bill Reflects on the Loss of Brent Hinds00:05:24 - Healing And What Comes Next00:06:20 - "Your Ghost Again" / MARROW DEEP00:13:14 - Snakes For Dinner00:20:09 - Finding Extreme Music00:29:30 - Favorite Fret00:29:55 - Meeting Brann & Joining Lethargy00:37:21 - The Origin of Mastodon00:41:50 - MASTODON DEMO, Evolution of Live Production00:47:40 - Touring On The Demo00:52:05 - REMISSION00:56:27 - Ideal Music Production (Turnstile Glow On)01:01:08 - LEVIATHAN: Why Moby Dick?01:04:09 - Exercising Restraint In Songwriting01:07:41 - Touring on Leviathan01:10:25 - Features With Scott Kelly01:13:17 - BLOOD MOUNTAIN01:20:25 - CRACK THE SKY01:29:17 - Death Magnetic Tour01:31:43 - THE HUNTER01:38:24 - ONCE MORE ‘ROUND THE SUN01:41:18 - Building A Set List01:46:40 - Game Of Thrones01:48:39 - EMPEROR OF SAND01:52:47 - “Clandestiny”01:57:07 - Remembering Nick John / HUSHED & GRIM02:04:35 - Leading up to Brent's Exit From Mastodon02:10:45 - Performing With Ozzy02:14:14 - Top 4 Hardcore Records

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Visit Ancestry.ca for details. Terms apply. Hey everybody and thank you for joining us this week for this episode with Bill Kelleher from Mastodon. Just hours before the release of their brand new album Mero Deep and the first one without the late great Brent Heinz on guitar, we truly dive deep into all things Mastodon, including this episode immediately starts with Bill's thoughts on the passing of Brent, how they pushed forward as a unit into this new record Mero Deep, and then we go back to the beginning and get into Bill's origin. in extreme music, joining Lethargy, meeting Braun, moving to Atlanta, meeting Brent and Troy,

and then we walk through the entire Macedon discography. By far, the longest and most comprehensive interview Bill has ever done. Also, there might be a lot of new people joining and watching the show right now. Welcome. We're happy to have you. You know what I never ask people to do is like and subscribe. Far more people watch the episodes than are subscribed. And I'm guilty of that, too. Just hit the button. You know how helpful it is? When you hit the, hit the like button on the video and it says hype, you hit that. It does so much. I never say that. I literally never talk about it. I probably won't for another six months. If you could do those two things, it would be great. Enjoy. It's Hardlord Time. How you doing, Bo? This is a very special week on the show. We've got an

incredible guest, an incredible conversation ahead. First, I must introduce my co-host for this evening. If you watched our show before, you know him, you love him. He's my brother, Taylor Young of twitching tongues, God's hate, dead body, formerly of nails, much more. To my right, please join me in welcoming the Grammy Award-winning co-founder and guitarist of Mastodon, now of burnt by the sun, formerly of lethargy, Bill Keller. Hello. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. How are you and the band doing these days after such a difficult year? I mean, to be completely honest, you know,

maybe it just hadn't really sunk in to me, but, you know, Brent's departure was from the band was kind of something that was, it had been a long time coming. I just don't, you know, I don't want to go into too much detail about the whole situation, but, you know, like a marriage, 25 years being in a band,

being married to someone, you know, you have your ups and downs. And I just don't think that he was 100% healthy, and 100% into being in the band anymore. I mean, I think he liked, I think it was hard for him to say, I don't want to do this anymore because of who he had become

because of the fame and stardom and whatever you want to call it. But, you know, I just feel like that kind of got to him a little bit. And he was a tortured soul, you know, and after he was let go, because, like I said, they've been a long time of coming.

And when we finally parted ways, it was a big relief because I've been doing most of the writing for long, you know, long, long time. And he wasn't. And he was such a great songwriter, guitarist. But he just wasn't really showing up anymore. So a lot of that was on me and Braun writing together, which we've always had a, we've always had that spirit. Braun and I work really well together. We've been in a lot of bands together today's day Lathorgy a band that was

became burp by the son Nurse Ratchett a long time ago so brought my work really well together and when you know Brent wasn't involved anymore it was just kind of like now I can finally just

I don't have to worry about him not liking the stuff that I write so I can just be free to write whatever I want which I kind of already was and I was just like here if you're not going to write anything and I'm gonna we're gonna

we can't stop working. This is my life. I have two kids in college. I have, just like anyone else, we have bills, and this is my career. This is like,

I can't sit on my laurels and just wait for anyone to do anything. And I learned that a long time ago, you know, so it's kind of a weight off our backs when we made that decision and we got someone in the band. It was awesome and as lucky as we are,

Nick Johnson, who's a wonderful human being. fantastic guitar player. And he wants to be there. You know what I mean? It's just obvious that he's enjoying it. And he's just a great addition to the band. So, you know,

unfortunately, we kind of had that feeling that what's Brent going to do. So that's what kept us from, like, letting him go before. I was like, well, what's going to happen to him if he's not in Macedon? And he's your friend.

Kind of first, you know, he's our business partner. He's our friend. It's like you're married to the guy, but it's like, can't sleep in the same bed with someone who doesn't want to be married to you. It's hard, but it's hard to break up, you know, so. I mean, I think anyone who has ever loved or worked with a complicated person understands your decision. And I think it showed more courage than

continuing kind of as is and prove that you did want the best for him. Yeah. It was a very hard decision. And we had tried to kind of, we had, we had, we had been talking about it for a long time, just because I was like, he just doesn't want, he's not showing up. And now it's really obvious. We were having terrible shows. And I was like, dude, what are you doing, man? He's just letting things get the best of him. And we all tried to help him. Like, dude, let's get sober.

Let's not drink. Let's put those demons down, you know. But to each his own. So unfortunately, he got in the motorcycle accident, you know, and, you know, say he said in the press, there was some shitty things or whatever. But we always thought that it would eventually mull over and we could come back together and hug it out and be like,

man, let's just put. bygones be bygones. So to you, the door was left open. I mean, I don't know. Anything is possible. You know, I'm not one to just say, fuck you. The door is shut. It's just like, you get your shit together, of course.

We never wanted to break up the four of us. You know, I was very proud of it. It was the four of us for so long. But, you know, being in a band for one year. Yeah, it's tough. Together is hard. But for 26, almost 26 years, that's quite an achievement. So anyway.

Yeah, the band's doing great now. We're, you know, I feel like we just recorded the best record of our lives, our career. I'm very excited for it to come out. We've been touring a little bit here and there, and the shows are just getting better and better. I feel like it's a rebirth of Mastodon. It's like the band I've always wanted to have. How do you guys first go about healing and approaching what comes next? I mean, I'm the kind of guy that I wrote 10 riffs today already.

You know what I mean? I'm always writing, and I'm just riffing. and playing guitar and I'm recording them in my phone or whatever. So there's no shortage of intellectual content. It's just always pouring out of me, especially now. I don't know. The past few records has just been pouring and pouring and pouring out. It's wonderful.

And I should, you know, I'm trying to grab it all. And be like, okay, I've got enough material for the next, like, five, six records, really. I mean, it's all over the place. And I need help putting it together. But I, the way to answer your question is I'm just continuing to do what I've always done, which is just when I get home and grab my guitar and I just keep on playing. Every day I'm working from Asadon in some shape or form of another. It's my business.

It's like at the top of my list of things to do. Your ghost again. Talk a little bit about putting this song together and finding a way to convey the band's feelings about Brent's passing in song form without spiritually, even if he wasn't writing entirely with you in the past few records, fully without him for the first time. So that, Your Ghost again, that song, it started as a completely different song. So usually when I'm writing, you know, I had this riff for years. And finally it made Braun and I started working together on Morrow Deep.

And I was like, I got this sick riff and it was the opening riff. And then he had, well, then we had, like, part A. And then part B was the verse. So it's the intro of the verse. It's like an A, B, A, B, C, D. That's kind of how we, I always write kind of like punk rock style, like pop format almost. You know, it's like, oh, we got to shit. Yeah, verse, verse chorus, verse chorus, bridge, solo, outro or whatever.

So keep it simple. The third verse in the streaming era is like, it's a waste of everybody's time almost. When you guys do it, it's tasteful. We usually shorten, we usually have a longer verse in the beginning. And then the next time it comes around, it's shorter, and it gets right to the chorus. Don't bore us. It started as, the opening riff was different.

And then Braun came in and he had the chorus riff. So that's usually a little hum it to me, and I'll translate it to guitar and figure it out. We started piecing it all together in my studio at home in Pro Tools. And he's like, we should have a bridge right here. And I was like, and a ban on a ban on a ban on an an anon-dun-a-binner-dun-dun. I came up with that like right on.

a spot and I was like wow that's and I recorded it and I was like okay I want to double that how the hell did I play that and I couldn't remember how to play it and I was trying to so it was very difficult part yeah by the time we were done and brought it into the studio and Patrick Berger had come in the producer from Sweden he was like he didn't like nothing he didn't like it but he's like that riff the hard one he's like that is your part a I was like really that's really hard to play I don't want to play that more than once It only happened once in the song and then we moved on. Oh, okay.

Because then I went back to the break. It's still there. It's still where it was, but now it's also the part A, B, A, and then it's the bridge where Nick does a little solo thing over. Anyway. And then you got that like, yes bridge. Yeah. Before that. I was like, it needs another.

Like, this is the kind of song. It needs something. And I started working on the band. Beal, ban on the band. and that was an instance where I kind of laid the groundwork. I mean, I've written most of the entire record, like my riffs, you know, but Braun and I together. And I was like, we got these, I never took any lessons or no theory or any of the stuff,

but I'm like, we got these schooled musicians, Nick and Joan, please keyboards. And I was like, here, here's the idea, you guys make it great. And I come back 10 minutes later, and they had the, they had the whole thing. I was like, cool, that's exactly what I was going for. So there's a lot of that going on. But yeah, so the part A originally, we had taken every part of the original song out, except for Braun's chorus, and replaced it with other things.

So that song is a, now we have the original song back and be on the next record. Okay. So it's interesting. Yeah. It's very interesting. Let's see. Did Kurt and Patrick have, like, very separate jobs as producers? Kurt was more of the engineer.

But when you're an engineer, you can't help but put your ideas in. Yeah. You know what I mean? You should try this. I file, I file Sonics under production to a degree, you know? Someone who helps you with the way things sound. Absolutely.

Yeah. Not just, you know, push and go. Right. And Kurt's a great writer. So it's natural to be like, hey, that's a good idea. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I mean, I've wanted to use Kurt as a producer or engineer.

I just wanted him to get the guitars and sound is great. I mean, I can get my guitar to sound awesome. And I own a studio, and I've always been interested in recording. I'm not the greatest at it. But I always find that, like, when you, as a guitarist, you spend your entire life getting, look, you got a million amps in here. You try every fucking amp, and you tune them up, and you put a microphone in front of it. Sounds great right at the speaker.

And then by the time it runs through all that upward gear and goes into the desk, it doesn't not sound the same. Sounds like cheap and chinty. I'm like, don't want that. What the fuck? And I try to go to the, every time I go to the studio, like, dude, listen to that and listen to the speakers. It doesn't sound the same. It sounds shitty.

I've worked my entire life to make that sound. Yeah. Make it sound like that. There are a lot of variables between the speaker and the, that's why when I record, I fuck all that shit. I don't plug in any of that. I go straight from the microphone into Pro Tools. That works most of the time. The thing is that if you're getting it.

right on the speaker, you will get that. And that's what a lot of people... I've learned a lot over the past years of building studios and recording and moving microphones, moving microphones, moving microphones, especially. I'll get you. Trying different microphones, different speakers, different impedances and just moving, like, you know, it's just me at my studios that they'll run into the other room and move them. I know they make those automated ones.

Yeah, those are cool, but they're like $10,000 bucks, which I do not have money for that. But that's what I've been, I was doing, because a lot of the guitars that you hear, especially in the ruins. I was not happy, even with Kurtz sounds. I was like, that sounds as good as my demos. I record all the demos and pre-production at my home in my studio like this. The idas, the demoitis.

Yeah, I'm like, dude, I try not to get demoitis, but I'm like, there is something magical about the way that that sounds. He's like, you're right. And I'm like... Sometimes you just use it. Yeah, but we'd also change tempos and stuff like that. We always speed things up and slow things down. So anyway, I...

We're in the ruins. I'm like, I'm just going to do it at my house. I'm like, give me the multi-tracks, and I spent days and days, like, moving mics and different amps, all kinds of different combinations. And basically just straight into the board. Right now is not even a board, straight into the box. And I got, that's where you hear those guitars on that song, especially.

I did, I over, I did a lot of my overdubs at my own studio at home by myself. It's rewarding when you nail it. Yeah. But I had to send him all to Kurt because I wanted him to approve. And at first he was like, I still hear like these little crackles. And I'm like, all right, cool. Move the mics again and try it again.

And finally I got it right. He was like, that sounds great. Like, cool. Snakes for dinner. Tell us about putting this song together and having Josh back for his second Macedon feature. Again, the chorus of that song I had had for years, which is just a very simple couple different. you know, big chords.

It's kind of strummy stuff. And I was like, that song was kind of like a bunch of riffs that I had that were, you know, when I'm writing and I have riffs all over the place, I just have a good tendency of like, if I have one, and I put a click track down first,

and I'm like, I have to forget about the riff that's there when I'm coming up with the next one almost. I get to push it away because I don't just sound too similar. If you can play the same drumbeat to the next part, then you're not trying hard enough. Like a song like Sultan's Curse or something. It's like, I like to have a song that's in one-time signature,

but it's still to the same click track, BPM, like 135, I think it is. And then the next part hits you, and it takes you away from that, bampan-a-pan-pana, bampana, like the snare is on the beat. And the next part... So you're not thinking about the tempo changing because everything else is changing? The tempo is the same. Tempo not changing, I mean. Yeah, the tempo.

It was the same, but it sounds like the song slows down because it's in a, I don't know, I'm bad at like telling you what time signatures are, but it goes, say it goes from like 6-8 to 3-4 or whatever it is, which in math, that should be the same, but it's not. True. Or 7-8. I don't know. It changes is all I know in the drums are like halftime and they're, so that way you take away that catchy.

It's the punk rock kind of, of course, theory. you give somebody repetition of this you pound them with the same riff that okay now I just got it in my head I can back my head oh now it's like you're in a department store and you're in women's lingerie and you're like cool women's laundry I like this

and you get in the elevator and I'll send you're in sports and you're like whoa I like I want to go back to down there and I'll sudden the riff that you know comes back and you're like yeah there's it's when I do that there's that fucking cool riff again yeah so that's that's the trick to me to writing a perfect song. You can

give somebody something cool and then you take it away. I mean, not that the next riff isn't cool, it's different. Yeah. And when I'm songwriting, it's like I would write something like like, like Sultan's Curse. And I'm like, that's a fucking badass riff. And it's set the bar up here. Now the next riff's got to be even cooler than that. But that's when you hit a brick wall.

You're like, I don't know how to make it fucking cooler than that. It doesn't have to be cool. That's where a lot of people go wrong. It's like, don't make it more. complicated or heavier, just make it different. I put it in a different time signature. But it's all in the same groove. And that's exactly what I did. And I feel like, well, maybe that's why I won a Grammy.

I don't know. Maybe not. But I'm just, I never intended it. You know what I mean? It's like, okay. Yeah, did that matter to you? No. Okay. It's a paper white. Sure.

No, I mean, it's cool. Be like, hey, look, I got a Grammy. I did it. Me. How to fuck I got a Grammy. It was a pretty stacked category that year, I remember. Yeah. Well.

You did good. Yeah, thank you. I just put it on my resume now. I'm out shopping for jobs. So we were talking about snakes for dinner. Yeah. And then when I came up with the part before, I was editing it in my home studio.

And I remember taking the bass out because I was like, this riff is cool. It's not like anything else we've ever written. Like, what if we take the bass away? because I like doing that. Sometimes I'll take the drums out and Braun hates that. I was like,

you don't have to play it all the time. You have dynamics. You know, or the song is just like that the whole time. Or the record is like that the whole time. Yeah, I took, so I took the bass out and I'm like,

what if we like kind of bring all the guitars and the drums quite little and then when it kicks in, it's a dynamic thing and it worked. And I think the outro riff, but then I had another,

there's the keyboard. section, which was another riff I had that I kind of grabbed from somewhere else, like, will this fit in this DPM? And it did. And somehow I have that, a knack for remembering, like, oh, yeah, that's, that riff is on this, this disc over here. Yeah, cool. And the last riff, the one that Josh sings on was one of bronze riff, I think. Hard riff. Yeah, very hard. And he's good at that. I mean, it's him and I, he'll hum it and I'll translate it into it. Yeah, can he play it Or is his writing just going, Dan it to Dan an it to Dan an it to Danana.

Yeah, but he's like one finger very slow. And it's like I have to believe in it. Like I know that Braun is very, he's fucking great at writing these songs. But it's like I have to, like for instance, Blood and Thunder, and he wrote that. It was like, when he showed it to me, I was like, man, he wrote like Iron Tusk,

I am Ahab. Those are bronze. Wow. Me and Braun working together, but it was mostly him. that's all one finger one mouth one finger you know and I'm like but blood and thunder I was like dude I don't get it it isn't it's not that exciting

well because it's 7 57 57 5 7 5 7 5 7 well here's the thing which is the dream well here's the thing he I wasn't understanding it because he comes from a percussive mind sure he hears things much differently and I tell this to everyone out there

in TV land don't throw away all your riffs don't don't think that your riffs are trash because sometimes you just have to find you have to play it on the offbeat or the onbeat because when I was I was like bannett Bennett and he's like no no it doesn't go like that he's like just it goes bent Ben and I'm like okay what's the difference and then he's like just play it like that

and I'll come in with the drums where I'm supposed to come in I'm like bent and he's like and I was like oh yeah now now I see the light this is my life now I was like this riff rules and that that riff that song's got us that's that's like our ace of spades song yeah big time I was gonna say it's your smoke on the water so I said yeah I'm You can say that too. Like it's a million kids' first riff. Yeah. It's like you have, is it?

Oh, yeah. It's like we have to play that every night, you know? Yeah. And Brent hated that song. He hated playing that. I'm like, well, dude, I know you hate it. He's like, it's a great song. I'm like, well, it's not about you.

It's all the fans. They want to hear it. It's no longer a song. It's culture. Yeah. Yeah, you can't go to see the Ramones and they don't play Blitzkrieg Bob. Can't go see Metallga

and they don't play fucking Master Puppets. Yeah. You would be pissed. Yes. You go see Massa and they don't play Blunt. Don't you be pissed. 100%. I'm glad that you're aware of that. Of course.

Because a lot of bands don't do it, you know. Jimmy 8 World ain't out here playing the middle every night. Jimmy. Is that true? Oh yeah. That's insane. They play sweetness, though. Let's go back to growing up in Rochester and initially discovering extreme music.

Bands and people you connected with early on. I can go back pretty far. So when I was growing up, I was begging my dad for a guitar. My dad is an immigrant from Ireland. and he had a high-fi business for about 35 years in New York. And so we always have nice turntables, Macintosh amps, tube amps, clips speakers, everything, you know. And the very first like Betamax he had,

and I remember pausing Empire Strikes Back. And there was a million lines through it, but I couldn't believe that I was in control. I could stop the television. You know, I was like, oh my God. Yeah. Call him my friends over. And he had the first CD player,

which is not this big. It's a Denin. And it just had one CD that went in. It weighed about 400 pounds because we're talking in the 80s. Because my mom still had it like recently. I'm like, Mom, this is a fucking anchor. Throw this thing away. It was not worth a fucking, maybe in a museum. Anyway, my dad and I were not that close, but he did tell me,

don't go into the music industry. Because I wanted to go into recording when I was about 18 years old to community colleges in Rochester, but that didn't work out. I remember that advice he gave me. And I never meant to, I just played guitar. The more I played it, I got into bigger bands and never in a million years expected I'd be here on the hard lore show. If you would have told me this when I was that age. Sure. But at 15, all my other guy friends were playing guitar. I knew nothing. I grew up in a little tiny town called Victor, New York. It's right outside of Rochester. Lake Ontario, Finger Lakes.

Very homogenous farmland, white people, not a lot of culture. My wife's from Greece. Really? Yeah. Yeah, my cousin. Yeah, big Shailers family. You know?

You Shailers guy? Long Pond Road. Okay. Greasedel Mall, you know? So anyway, so Braun is from there as well. But I didn't know Brawn, I didn't grow up with Braun. Sure. So all my friends, you know, the only thing that I, the only thing I knew of music that was

like hard and heavy was what was on the radio, W-CMF, which is like, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Boston, a lot of foreigner, Lou Grams from there. So a lot of foreigner, you know, the shit they play on, they still play a million years later of classic rock, whatever. And that's Zizi Top, you know. And I just thought that's what all music was, Eddie Van Halen, Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen. I loved all that. So I was like, oh, this is great.

All my friends trying to play eruption, every guy doing that, the all the guitars that looked, and my first guitar was a Star Force, $100 guitar. are that look like the Kramer that Eddie played. Could you erupt? Can you erupt? No, absolutely not. I'm not. All the boys are trying to erupt. I can't. They're trying to erupt. And I was like, I can't do this.

And I almost gave up. And accidentally, one of my closest friends, Matt Mickelson, in our high school, there were like two punkers, this guy Spencer and Mike Pickering. There was a couple more. But they were the weirdos. But they're cool. I didn't know them. They were upperclassmen.

And we always hung out in the art room, even when I, you know, I was just a young, 15-year-old kid. And I remember going, we're hanging out in the art room. And my good friend Matt, he's like, dude, they must have left Frank and Christ, the Dead Kennedys record, in the tape player. And he's like, you've got to listen to this tape. It is the worst, oh, worst music I've ever fucking heard. And I was like, okay. And I went home with it. and I fucking loved it.

I was like, what the fuck is this? It's so bizarre. But I love surf. I was really into like surf music too. Like ventures and Link Ray and stuff like that. And that's basically what Dead Kennedys were. It was a punk rock surf band. Yeah.

With a voice like no other. Yeah, with the really, you know, his voice I didn't love. But the politics and all that stuff was like, no one talks about this shit. This is so cool. and I had to secretly buy their records like out of state when I would go travel

and hide them from my parents I didn't God we trust I'm like my parents are not going to see this because they would fucking burn it yeah what's wrong with a little fresh fruit and rotting vegetables

any mom would love that but the in God we trust with the Jesus crucifix and the money behind it it's like no way they're not going to see so if I had not been accidentally given that tape

I would not be here I would not be in Mass I would not be a guitar player I know it because fantastic me and my friends we went totally separate ways I started getting more into this punk rock thing which became friends with the punkers in my school they turned me on us of music but it was so much fun because it was like uh you're you're on a quest to find it like yeah it's just before the internet

it's 80s 86 87 because then but then you have to find it locally and have it become a community thing how does that happen so I'll get to that because when I really when I got the same when I finally went through all the bands and found the Ramones and was like wait a minute this kid this when I hear the Ramones it gives me the same boner feeling is when I see Eddie Van Halen because I was in Van Halen and I saw them you can like both bands and I saw them play right after David Lee Roth left on the uh what was that 50 150 on that tour. And Eddie was just like,

smiling and Jam was like, I want to do that. That guy looks like he's having so much fucking funny. Smoking his cigarette. Not even looking at his guitar, just smiling. Everybody wants to be that guy.

I was like, I want to be that guy. It's so much fun. But I thought you had to go to music school for a million years. You have to not go to music school. Exactly. I didn't know. I was a little fucking ignorant

kid trying to interrupt. The suburbs. So, when I saw John I mean, I didn't see the rumors. I just heard them. I was like, man, this guy just wrote like 600 songs

with the same three barcores. It's not all about this crap. It's about rhythm. I started a cover band immediately in high school. Met my wife in high school. That's awesome. Started this punk rock cover band and we started playing.

We played wherever. And I was 16, 17 years old. And I had like, I'll show you pictures, but I was spiked hair and ripped up jeans. and I'm just a skinny little guitar player dude, black duct tape all over my guitar, and the sex pistols, like, I could play that. I was like, this is fucking rules.

And I was like, all the other guys, none of my guy friends went into music. They all can still play, I think, but like it was me who I took it seriously. And so I eventually made my way into the big city of Rochester and discovered this whole, there used to be a lot of punk rock clubs. and like the exploited would come through

and we'd sneak in the Ramones, I would sneak out to see the Ramones and tell my parents, I went to go see them in Albany. He was four hour drive. Long story, my parents, like, found out that I'd snuck out of the house, they were not happy. But went to the Ramones, the Southern Rones, like, five or six times.

And I was just like, this is what it's about. There's infinite amounts of rhythms. There's only so many notes. Yeah. So which one is it? Okay, it's about your rhythm. Because these guys are playing the same three, I only knew a power cord like this.

And I was a couple of years in. And then I discovered Metallica and Slayer. And I was like, I didn't like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. They were too polished. I like punk rock. I like the aggressiveness, the out of tune. And so do Metallica and Slayer? Yeah, fuck yeah.

But they, but when I saw Metallica and Slayer albums, because back then you didn't hear that shit on the radio. You'd go to the record store and flip through the records. and I still live by the Credo if you want the album cover to represent what's inside the music so I see these Slayer records like this is fucking evil

some evil Bosch painting is like this shit's evil in here so I'd like take that home but I the reason that got me into what got me into Metallica is like looked on the back cover of Master of Puppas he had a misfit shirt on and Jeff Haniman had a Dead Kennedy sticker on his guitar

and I was like buying this buying that I was like this is like what is this This is like Mozart put to metal guitars. Like Metallica. I was like, this is so sick. Now I must have an explorer. I must have a Marshall Amp. That's what took me to the next level.

And I just never took any lessons. Just started playing in bands. But when I'm then I finally moved to Rochester, there were all these underground. There was a place called a Citadel House, which I felt like a fly in the wall. I was like, whoa, I don't belong here. There's all these punkers and all these local bands.

I just got into that scene. I started playing with them. And I was, you know, there's a time in my life where I was in five or six bands in Rochester, just not going anywhere, but just playing. I was like, this is great. I love this. I go to work at a factory every day and go out to the bars of the night and drink, and then I would go play with my bands, and I was happy.

And it just led to one thing led to another, you know. What's your favorite fret? A favorite fret? Yeah. This is, serious. Favorite threat is the first fret. when you just do that half step, I think. It's the most evil answer.

Yeah. Yeah. You got both options there, you know? Yeah. It's not much of a change, but it's definitely, it's right there. Oh, yeah. It's a big change. Great answer.

Love that answer. What would you consider your first real band? I think lethargy, because we would practice a lot. And it was, so here's the thing. Like, how does that come to be? How do you meet Braun? Okay, so when I moved up to the city, I started playing in a band. It was called Lunch Lady, and it was with some really great... Lunch Ladies?

Lunch Lady. It was before the Adam Sandler song, too. It was way before that. I don't know. We were dumb. Rochester's sense of humor. Stupid. I'm called Lunch Lady, and we were five-piece, and we were like hard rock band, kind of little metal and punk. And we played out a lot, and it was really fun. We'd open up for, like, uh... You know, we're like the band open up for like the local, like Alice Donut would come through or whoever. You know, we were that band that opened up. But there were a lot of bands in Rochester. Anyway, I remember going to see Lethargy. Lethargy was a four piece, but one of the guitar players had either quit or been fired. So there were a three piece at the time.

And I went to go see them. My buddy, Big Hair Todd brought me. And I was like, Bhti. Yep. I was like, who the fuck are these guys? Where are they from? He's like, they're from fucking here, dude. And what do you mean?

I don't know. never fucking heard of them. They always play at the arcade by the lake. And they were so... Penny Arcade, yeah. They were so fucking good. I was like, I can't believe these guys are local. They're amazing.

And I got to No Bronn and Eric Burke was in, you know, Eric Burke played in Bruttle Truth as well later on. And Adam. And then I was in, I was in a band called Butter Slacks, which was a term coined by the singer from Lunch Lady. He was like, smooth move, butter slacks and I was like dude that's so fucking funny it was like butterfingers and x slacks together i was like that's that's my nickname okay oh you were butterslack i'm billy butterslacks but the band

was called butter slacks so you know when you're in a band you're like bill it's bill massadon of course bill lethargy's bill matt bill butterslacks that was my name just flows off the tongue yeah anyway so that was that was my band like I was writing everything for that lethargy was not like when I tried out I was trying out for the band and my roommate uh Rob, who was in Butterslacks with me. I was in my room with their cassette tape,

and I was trying to learn that if you ever heard Lethargy, it's super technical, crazy, slidey shit. And he was like, what are you doing? And I was like,

I'm trying enough for this band. He's like, good luck. And I was like, I'm gonna, dude, what? I practiced and I got the gig, you know? And we,

but it wasn't really my band. It was Burke's, Burk and Bronze Band. Sure. We played out a lot and we did a, we didn't really tour, but we did play a couple times like in New Jersey

with human remains. That's how I got to know Dave and Teddy. Were you a human-orans guy before that? Not as much as... I never really knew who they were until those guys turned me on to them. Them in Times Up, which was John Atabata, who was in...

And I was like, man, these guys are really fucking good, my God. We would play with them once in a while. And so that's kind of like I thought was my first real band, because we were pretty serious, I guess. But I wasn't in control of the band. And we never really, it wasn't, the ambition wasn't now, like the ambition wasn't there.

Like it, like I learned. And do you and Braun become fast friends in this process? How did that work out? So we were friends. The Rochester was a pretty small city. So we'd hang out. We'd practice a lot and we'd see each other at shows and we'd just like, we, yeah, we became friends. I wouldn't say fast friends.

We became friends. We were a band from like 90, it's like 94. I think I joined in 94, 95, 96, and then now 97, I was like, all right, I'm moving to Atlanta with my wife because she was, she was like, I'm out of here. I'm not going to live in fucking Rochester. I'm way too smart to be here. You're right. You're right. Move down to greener pastures.

I'm going with you. So I moved down there, quit the band, and then Braun and me stayed in contact before cell phones, you know. So I was, somehow we kidding. I don't even know how you can call anybody back then. Ravens? Yeah, pretty much. Smoke signals, but he was like, dude, you gotta come back. I was missing playing so much because when I moved to Atlanta,

every dude was a guitar player and every dude look like rockabilly guy. And I was like, you're out of number. Like rockabilly? What the fuck? Unless you're fucking Brian sets or like, don't you attempt to play, okay? Unless you're as good as that guy because you look stupid. You look at the hairdo and everything. You look cool, but you can't play a guitar like him.

Don't do that. It's like dressing up like Eddie Van Halen and going out there and being like burp, Burp Burt. So I just thought that was, I was like, that's so yesteryear. Why would you do that? Like,

I'm playing all this modern crazy metal stuff. And like nobody was there that's like, what the fuck is that? Northern boy. And I was like, I don't know, that's what we play up here. And I really miss playing because that was in part of my life.

I was a big fish in a small pond. I moved down there and I was a nobody in a big pond. Sure. And nobody wanted to even fucking look my way. I'm handwritten, put flyers up all over all over all the practice places. and I'm good. Yeah, I didn't say.

I was like, I'm into like clutch and caius and punk rock and all the stuff. And I tried out for a couple bands. I was playing lethargy riffs. I'm giving them the lethargy city. And I was like, what planet are you from? Like they wanted to be like, beep beep, like B-52s or something. I'm like, nah, that's already done, man. You got to do this shit.

This is cool. And I was like, that's when I realized I have to bring Braun down here with me. But Braun was like, dude, please come back. like we're going to take it serious this time. We're going to record some new songs and we're going to tour. We do all the stuff the bands do. And I moved back up there to Rochester.

My wife is going back to school for her master's degree at Emory. And you're thinking I've got to keep doing lethargy. I was just thinking I just missed playing. I was like in love of my, she was my wife at the time. She was my girlfriend. But I was like, I love you. But like, I got to play. And I don't know.

So I moved back. up there, I quickly realized that, like, the lethargy thing, we did record like a bunch of new songs, but it just wasn't the same old shit. We just wasn't a lot of ambition going on to do anything. And it wasn't my band.

I was just kind of like, I can't take control and be like, come on, we're going to go, go ahead and know back then. I thought record companies come to the local bar you're playing at. And be like, here you're your Warner Brothers. We're going to sign here. Here's a million dollars. I had no clue. Sure. I thought that's how people think. Still, it's the opposite of that. You know, you have to fucking work your

ass off. You don't even have to be good. You just have to be working, making money, and they want some of that money. So they fucking, you know, you know, it works. So then Braun joined Today's a Day. Witty got in the gig. And I was like, man, I just saw those guys in Atlanta. And I was friends of Brent when I lived in Atlanta. So, long story, but I ended up joining Today's a day. And it was a nightmare. It was not. It's a whole other thing. But that was a good record. Great record. Yeah. But it was a nightmare working. with and under those conditions man what were the conditions yeah it just wasn't tyrannical rule okay trapped in a closet yes pretty much um

this was like this is not for me whatsoever and i'm playing bass i need to be playing guitar okay so when do you meet uh brent and troy so i would fly every time we had any time off from tour i would fly back down to atlanta and stay with julian my girlfriend and i would i saw brent with I'd seen four hour foger his band right as I was leaving Atlanta to move up to Rochester back to Rochester and I was like

who the fuck are these guys? Like what the fuck is this? This is amazing these guys are great. So when I'd come back I think I went to see, I went to some some party and Brent was there and he was like, hey, you're a dude in today's today right? And I was like, yeah, I fucking love those guys. I'm like, I'm not going to be, I was like, it's like the very beginning at today's day. I'm not going to be in this band very long.

I'm not, I'm going to move back here. You already knew? And I'm going to bring Braun. Yeah. Fuck yeah. I'm going to bring Braun with me. And we'll start a band. So I kind of, you know, I'd see Brian every time I came in town.

I'd see him somewhere or whatever. And when we left today's day, I drag Braun. I'm like, let's go to Atlanta. Do you come with me? Even if you don't play with me, there's nobody like you down there. There's nobody like you anywhere. But like, you'll, you'll get a gig, trust me. It's such a big thing to ask of somebody.

Yeah, but he didn't have, he was like, he didn't have anywhere to live. I didn't have anywhere to live. And I was like, we have a, my wife or my girlfriend has a place for us. She got one extra bedroom at this place. Like, you got a place to live. I can get you a job because I knew people in Atlanta. And we ended up driving down there. And immediately I was like, we're renting a room at this place called the Black Box.

Because I knew, I knew some, you know, I knew Atlanta. So I was like, we're going to rent room here. I'm going to put flyers for a bass player and a guitar player. I know this guy Brent. Brent showed up, first practice, completely shit-faced. And it was like he could barely, barely stand, let alone play a guitar. We tried out a bunch of people. Braun was like, what the, why did you, why did we bother with that guy?

I'm like, dude, I've seen him play. He's really, really good. Sure. Like, I have no idea. I should have been assigned back then. But even, I feel like even in that moment, do you feel, like, he was a very charismatic guy? I knew that he was charismatic. Yeah.

I knew that something was like, this guy's, he's good. I know. I know he drinks a lot, but he's really, I didn't know to what, I drank a lot. I didn't know what to extent, what extent that he, the very next day, he comes knocking at my door. Hey, guys, what's up? You want a jam? I'm a jam. I was like, dude, honestly.

And I barely, I kind of knew him. And I was like, uh, it's kind of turned off by yesterday, dude. Like, you were, you almost beat up the guy that I work with. I just got in a job at a Mexican restaurant. You try to fight, like, my boss. almost got me fired. You showed up to the practice and you were just totally out of it. And he grabbed, like, I had a guitar in the living room and me and Braun were staying. And he just started fucking crazy on it. And Braun's like, where was that guy yesterday?

He was really proficient. Sure. And then he introduced us to Troy. He's like, I got a bass player. Because his band for our fogger, Gary Lindsay, the singer was moving away. And they didn't like the drummer anymore. He wasn't that great to them. So. they were like, let's play with you guys. So the half of their band and the half of me and Braun, we just started jamming at our practice pad that we had.

And the rest of history, basically. How fast does this turn from guys who happen to be playing with each other to kinship and feeling like a real band? Pretty quickly. Because Troy had a van. And Troy knew all the logistics of like back then, you know, still no cell phones.

And then we had one computer in the house. And Troy all of a sudden just kind of started living on my couch. Like he just lived with us. And Brent, like, lived in his van. Like, they were, like, homeless guys. And looking back at it, I'm like, hey, these guys are homeless. But they ripped. Yeah, but they're great.

I didn't care. I was one girlfriend away from being homeless. Yeah, right. You know what I mean? So. Classic. Classic musician. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we started just hanging out all the time. I mean, we practiced like four or five nights a week and drank at every practice and partied together. And they had some songs that be, and me and Braun had some songs. We had like four or five songs. And they had like three or four songs from their band. And me and Bronin had written together, which became the new, yeah, the nine song demo. Okay. So five months after your formation, you self-released a nine-song demo that is to this day so much better than it has any right to be.

just being considered a demo. It helps you immediately understand kind of why you guys are where you are today. I think just the quality of the music right away. The original vocalist Eric Sainer, was he from, did he lives in Rochester now? He's from Rochester. Okay.

He doesn't live there anymore. He's just another Rochester guy? Yeah, he was in a band, Death Between Seasons. He was sexually the singer and the Nurse Ratchet thing that me and Ed about were doing as well. But now I think I remember that. It never really, we never played any shows or anything. It was just kind of a basement jam kind of thing.

And most of the songs became burnt out of sun. Okay. Are you guys still close at all? You still talk? Not as much, no. Does he know that it's one of the most historic bag fumbles in history, perhaps? We would not be the same band. Right.

He was not in a good place. Okay. Back then, he, yeah, it just wasn't. It wasn't the right time. Sure. You know what I mean? Everything happens for a reason. And we were pissed, though, because he, we were about, we got a tour with B-Y-O-F-L,

book your own fucking life.net, which, you know, networking for a tour. And he quit like the day before we were leaving for a tour. I was like, bro, what are you doing? So then we had to become singers. We had to sing live, which we didn't have any lyric. He didn't ever run any lyrics for anything or song titles. I was like, what are you doing? You know, so it just, it was good that it didn't work out.

I mean, he's much better now as a person. I know that. but he's like a tattoo artist tattooed yeah yeah do you guys immediately feel like you have something here with the four of you and the demo okay yeah we were like man this is really cool and here's the other thing when we were playing with today's day

we got to know all the guys at relapse and when today's day fell apart we were still friends with all the people at relapse and like hey whatever you and brawn decide to do like give us first writer refusal I was like yeah because we're gonna start a fucking band and we're gonna be fucking good we're gonna do something so

So that's exactly what we did. We recorded that, sent it to relapse. They came to see us in Philly in a basement show where I couldn't even stand up straight. It was so short. And they were like, man, we want to sign you guys. I'm like, okay, cool. Siked. Is there a moment or a song in particular that as a unit you guys first felt that

that feeling on the demo? I'm just being like, oh, yeah, this is real and this is good. I mean, every song had a special, and that's how we write, you know, No song is like filler. Yeah. And I think we've always been like that. We just can't do, I can't be like, we need one more song.

Here's some fucking lame shit. It's like, I can't do that. It's like everything, every riff, every note. It's got to have, it's got to make me tingle somewhere. Like, oh, I love when this part comes in this song. There aren't many. There are a lot of songs we haven't played a long time, but that's going to change. Do you ever break out demo songs?

No, but I really want to break out welcoming war. And what the fuck's the name of the first song? Shadows that move. I'd love to do that sample from One Fleur of the Cuckoo's Nest talking about my life and just burst into that. I said a tape deck player that would push play on a five minute cassette tapes. And that was sometimes I forget to rewind them

and cue them for the song. I'm like, oh shit, hang on everybody. I sit here and rewind this fucking tape deck. Because I run all the samples and everything and the band always have. To this day? Yeah. But now I have like more modern stuff.

like an RC 600. You guys don't have a guy doing that way? I'm the guy. That's what's up. It's easy. It's just not a, I have it all programmed into my foot controller. It's an RC 600 rolling.

It's a looper. But I use it. It has eight separate outputs for each. We have a click track going on. We might have like a little percussion. Some songs might have like a little, I don't know, fucking plastic fruit or a little woodblock or something going on.

We can't produce live. So that comes out of one. Once in a while there might be a guitar strum. or something like on Steam breather, there's an acoustic guitar in the back, very low in the background of the chorus. I was like, I'm going to put that in there. Why not?

Why not? I can. Was somebody going to tell me I can't do that? Fuck you. So no laptop backing tracks? Fuck no. Fuck a laptop. No laptop backing tracks.

No, get the RC 600 by rolling. That shit. Everyone's trying to tell me, you need to have a redundant computer. I'm like, fuck, I'm not using a computer. That's your brakes down. I need something I can step on my foot and turn it on and off. and make it easy.

And it is. It's been working for 20 years like that. I mean, the RCCC is new. You'd be ripping a set no matter what. Exactly. But a lot of the stuff since Cracked the Sky, there was like, you know, Brendan O'Brien brought keyboards into it.

We didn't have a keyboard player. I was like, well, we got to have the, how are we going to play this about a keyboard player? I don't want to get a higher keyboard player because then it's another mouth to feed, another hotel room and another bunk on the bus. It's like, we don't have the money to have another person. And it's only like four songs.

Sure. You know what I mean? I was like, what if that's when I figured, I can put it on my loop station and I can just come out there. So we have, we have keyboards that go out with, you know, click track, a guitar, percussion, and a keyboard. Are you guys all on ears with the click? Yeah. Okay. We weren't always.

That's a whole other beast. Yeah, it is. But it's, we had to because there were a lot of, Bronplay is really fast. And there was a lot of songs, like crack the sky on that record, divinations. Like, say when you go into one part, when it comes around at the end of the song, he was playing like double time. I was like, bro, you can slow it down. Literally impossible. Yeah, so we put it all to click, and now we don't have any problems with anything.

It's just perfect, knock on wood. Yeah. Don't have any problems with anything. I can't believe I just said that. We'll cut it. Never happened. Pardon this interruption, but I've got to tell you about the two important sponsors for this week that made this episode possible.

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We are one. This is one beautiful thing here now. Just check out the site. If you like hardcore music, metal music, punk music. music at all. Hats, shirts, hoodies. He's got it all. MillsVintageUSA.com. Code, hardlore, 10% all site-wide. Back to the episode. Touring on the demo and the dynamic in the band at that time. What was that like? Do, do... Well, the very first tour, me and Brank got this fight, but that was... Oh, perfect. That was, you try to pee on me inside the... We had the van, we had a van, and it was just

the two front seats, a little tiny space for like a flip-and-fuck futon. And then we had a cage with all her equipment in the bag. It was like a 15 passenger or something. We didn't have a lot of equipment with us and our merch and whatever, but it's just the four of us. And we just toured relentlessly up and down the East Coast constantly. And yeah, you know, he got up as we're driving down the road. He's like, don't zip at his pants.

And I'm laying down next to him on my futon. He's about to pee on me. And I was like, bro, do you? Stop. Stop. Brun. Bro was driving. Cops came. And we were like, take a swing.

He started swinging to me. I'm like, dude, what the fuck? try to piss on me. So he's fighting you while still having that piss, which is... I don't know. He never, he didn't piss on me. Okay. He held it.

He just started taking his shit out. Sure. And the cops were showing, because Bronp pulled over into a gas station. It's like two in the morning. We're driving to the next venue. And we're both probably pretty buzzed, but he was sleeping. And I had like a little codec film container, the black one with a silver top, fill a weed. And I was like, dude, stop.

We'll fight later. Eat the weed. because the cops are coming. And we ate the weed. Later on, he apologized. Like he always did. He said, oh, I'm sorry, dude. Because he's like, I've been waiting a long time

for this old man. And I'm like, what? I'm not your dad. Old man. What was your age difference? Like three years or something? He was younger than me. But yeah.

On your demo, he had been waiting for this a long time. That's what he said. That's awesome. So that kicked things off. But I don't know. How was the response? Like, do people share? The very first show, our very, our very first show was

in New Orleans at the Dixie Tavern and now I know better but the guy from Dix Dixie Witch or weed

No, it's Dixie Witch I think Anyway, the guy that worked there he was also in the band I was playing and he was like, man y'all are messing on you got his headline and were like, okay, sure first show.

It's three in the morning or something. Pallets really creaky flage. It's moving New Orleans. It's a shithole. It's dirty. And it's like these palettes. We set up in the pallets. We go into, I've never been to New Orleans in my life. It's like, we go into, uh, we go into the French quarter. It's in the still daytime, the band. And we had a guide or like a friend who's like, I'll take you over there. We'll have some beers and get some food. Brent just disappears. He walks into, he's like, I got to take piss. He walks into like the abbey or whatever. We wait for him. Like, where fuck is this guy?

Go into the bar. He's nowhere to be found. Like, we gotta go back. I can't wait around for this guy. This is our first show. We go back to the Dixie Tavern, which is a car ride away. He's not there. And it's like 11 o'clock at night, 12. We're going on at like 2 in the morning, 3 in the morning, something like that.

That was ridiculous. Sourvane. That was the band, Troy Medline. He worked there. But he put us on last because he was like, I'm not playing it 4 in the morning. I'm like, you guys play it for in the morning. You guys are green. Yeah, good bit.

We're about to start playing without him. And all of a sudden he starts walking up and he's got his arm around some dude fully tattooed face like two guys and drinking already drunk. And I was like, dude, where the fuck have you been? What the fuck? And he was like, you guys left me. I'm like, I didn't leave you. You disappeared. Okay, whatever.

Foreshadowing. Yeah, for sure. So then we get out, we play the show and it's fucking amazing. And we just continue. First show amazing. Four. Yeah, it was great. Wow.

I don't know if it was four. It was late. I want to say it was four. It was fucking late. It was like, but every time we'd go to New Orleans, we would all wait. We never missed a show unless we played New Orleans. The next day, we'd always miss that show. And you know why? Because we'd son have be coming up. Like, Little Rock. We're so sorry, Little Rock. We missed two shows and two different tours. Little Rock. Like, oh, we can't. We're just not going to make it. We're too drunk and we're still drunk. And the sun is up. And it's the same day as a show. And we've been at the John. There was a bar there called the John. We had friends everywhere. We had friends everywhere. I want to just. free drinks and drugs and whatever. It's like, God, but we're having fun. It's great. In 2002, you release your debut album, Remission, via Relapse Records.

What first comes to mind from this time and putting this record together? Remember we were working with Matt Baylis. For a while, right? For a long, many records. Was it Matt Bayless? Yeah. Because we went to Zero Return Studio, which is, they were using two-inch tape, and that was Rob from, Manor Astor Man, that band from Athens or Atlanta area, just down the street from my house. And I was like, wow, it's really cool. We got a budget. We got like, two-inch tape.

But there was something, I remember something wrong with the two-inch tape machine. He couldn't punch in on it. There was some weird latency. Well, this is, we're talking 2002, you know. Some weird latency thing is like, I can't work with this. This machine is not calibrated. It was a big deal because we only had two weeks to record it. We'd be touring, touring, touring, touring, touring, touring. Okay, I read a record, you got two weeks to record it, go back on tour. That's all we didn't know any better. That's what we do. I'm like days off. We don't have days off. We play every night, of course. But we had to switch studios and somehow we got it done,

but it was a lot of good songs back then on that record. And I don't know, we got it done. And it's kind of a minimalist record, I guess. It was very sludgy. And I mean, I remember being like this is really cool and I like our songs and everything but there were a lot of I just remember there were a lot of people that were fucking freaking out they're like this is really I'm like is it though is it that great was it because it was less technical than lethargy that you're yeah because here's when Braun and I were when I was brought in our forming Macedon I was like let's not be in a band like lethargy like we've done that and nobody gives a fuck but the only guy people that care about that are the guys in the audience yeah they're like it's like watching uh Joe setriani or something

it's like this boring there's no groove. There's ball guys jacking off. Yeah, it's like, I don't want to be, and it hurts. I want to play some fucking easier shit. I can just like, put my guitar down a little bit lower. And just play some simple, catchy meat and potatoes type of riffs. So that's exactly what we were doing.

Interesting. Yeah. But then it just started getting really not that. Well, Braun is no, is neither meat nor potato on this record. No. He doesn't stop for one. He does not stop. No, he doesn't.

And that might be. it's technical it's tech in disguise kind of you know yeah it's a vibe that didn't really exist at the time like sludge tech sludge sludge sludge with energy well what is sludge with energy it's charged sludge yeah i don't know i said it it's hard for me to see that through the trees or the forest through the trees you know what i mean i was like i don't know i was like because yeah i guess you're right coming from lethargy was very technical and super hard shit to play and now i'm going bang, neck and down, knick and down, we're tuned down to drop A. And I'm like, is this that great?

But you got what you wanted. Yeah, I did. But then... Monkey Paul. But every... But then, you know, Leviathan was a total different vibe. Now we're starting to... There's a lot of meat potatoes on that record, but it's evolving.

Because now we're getting to know each other. I've read so many stupid comments from people who think they know everything. They actually... They don't. And like build their best record was remission. I don't know why they ever veered off from that. I was like, dude, that was like 24 years ago. You're going to grow, yeah.

I've grown as a person. I've got to, I've just gotten better at guitar. I don't know. I can't write the same record over and over. It's like, oh, we already did something like that. Let's keep evolving. I don't know. It's just.

The vibe is also still there. That's just people being the first reaction is the only reaction. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you put like, you know, I always say this, you put that record next to even Hushton Graham or Emperor Sand, like they're totally, you'd be like, that's the same band. You can tell, yeah, because there's still that soul in there, that vibe. If you listen chronologically, it makes more sense. Yeah. If you're doing a deep dive and you go in order and it's like, okay, see how they got here. Yeah. But yeah, clearly two very different ideas. But it's, you know, we never were like this kind of band. It went straight up and then.

It was gradual. And we're still, you know, we're still climbing, evolving, yeah. And the latest record is proof of all. 100%. What kind of, I'm curious because production for MassDOT is also evolved. I'm curious what you look for in a record that you like in production. What's like a perfect sounding record to you? You know, like Stonerwitch, Houdini.

That turn, that glow-on record turns out. Oh, wow. God, it sounds so good. Glow on does sound great. That is a great sound. guitars are like chooka-chook I love I called Michael Elizondo because he did our Hunter album I was like dude what are these guys playing I was afraid I was gonna like that I was like everyone's like dude you heard that new turnstile record I'm like who I listen to

our old stuff like eh it's not for me that's like little kid music you know then I put it on and I was like I could not I wore it out I just was singing along I was fucking great the sound of that um times of grace it's amazing um this is a this is a wide spectrum that you're here. Yeah. What stopped you from working with Joe Brissy if you love the way of Stone or Rich and, uh, who did you sound? See, I own it. I built a studio and we had done, we had done hush and grim at there. I'm like, I know the studio sound. It's proof is in the pudding. It sounds awesome. It's come more comfortable to be at home. I built this. I don't have to look at the fucking clock. I can pull out a

fucking nine string left-handed kazoo and fucking play it if I want to try something because it's my studio. It's not going to feel bad if it's like, come on, man, just hurry up, like, let's get this stuff done. We're to talk. So it's a matter of comfort now. Comfort, but, you know, we did talk to Joe Barisi.

We talked to him a lot. He was in the list of guys, but I was like, I want to work with, I've been saying this for years. I want to work with Kurt. That's another perfect pairing. I would say Joe and Kurt are like the ones that people dream. Yeah, that might have worked out well.

But I think Joe told us that his, he's like, I could work at your studio. I think his mom was sick. He was like, I need to stick around here. I don't know. It's hard to choose. I'm sure he would have made the records sound great as well because he's definitely in the, you know. I don't even mean for this record in particular, it's just general. You know, you got 25 years of band.

I mean, it would have been a spot. There's tool records that sound incredible. there's have you heard the Igor? Yeah. Oh my God. That changes everything. That changes everything.

Even though I wanted to work like with Kurt who not so polished. I wanted to sound more like you close your eyes and you can hear like okay Bill is on the left and whoever else is on the right and like you can hear the, it's like you can see the band with your eyes closed

and it sounds like you're actually watching a band play really, really well. It sounds live, you know what I mean? Like, it really sounds raw and real. And I always wanted that. But the record companies are like, Kurt, who? Who? Who's that? You know, we're on these giant record companies.

They're like, they don't know who he is. The Kevela top records. Are you at the point now where you have to care about their input, you know, the record companies? Yeah. Really? We didn't, we didn't with Warner Bros. Because they didn't ever look at us twice. But now we're with Loma Vista.

It's the same guy, Tom Wally, who signed us to Warner Bros. But he left and signed us again to his new labor. but they were like this is very important like who you use but he was when Patrick Berger came in produce and he okay he was like yeah Kurt he's great and they were like okay we'll take your word on it

because Kurt got the greatest guitar tone he got my tone that I want I'm like this is how my guitar sounds and I know you know how to get that another great record when I heard Generation of Vipers the guilt shrine record you know are you familiar with that

oh my God I fucking lost my mind I was like this is and then I realized Kurt did this we had already hired hired Kurt we hadn't started

recording it but I didn't know I didn't know that it was that he had recorded it I was like it sounds so fucking good he's an underappreciated master he's really he's really he's on the spectrum when it comes to

he's on a couple spectrum he's like you have to be on the spectrum to do any of this you have to yeah you really got to have a special mind for detail and I have sort of a special mind

for detail too because I'm I get into it in depth when I'm recording when I'm writing all that shit so from remission and on what is touring like from Astonon any highlights or low lights and where do you go from there you're talking about like after leviathan yeah or pre-leviathan yeah because I want to I want to get into leviathan but from remission to leviathan leviathan is obviously this big explosion it was a chance well once leviathan came out everything changed because they were like wow these guys aren't just fucking cavemen banging on shit like they have a brain like they read books moby dick it's a concept that's why why moby dick because brawn had gotten married in um hawaii okay and on the flight home he zigzagged all over

the place long flight and we were we met him he met us in europe for the tour and he when he landed he was out of his mind and we were all sitting at the bar in belgium waiting for him and we're pretty drunk and he was like guys this is a great idea of the next record call it Leviathan and it's based on Moby Dick and I'm like okay

I haven't read Moby Dick like since high school or whatever but he's like and he just pitched like elevator pitched it to us in between drinks and I was like yeah that's the fucking white whale holy grail like we're in a white big white van and we're chasing

the dream and it's not about catching the whale, it's about the journey is how I interpreted it. Okay. And there's all kinds of symbolism. And he's like, no, no, no, no, you don't understand it. It's literally Movida. It's not, though. It's just you know, there's a lot of symbolism in there and I related to it. I was like, man, that sounds fucking great.

There's a lot of imagery to be used. And when we're working with Paul Romano, the artist, I was like, man, this is going to be really cool. And all of a sudden, we're like in the New York Times. We're in Rolling Stone. And then the record label started chasing us. That's a whole other bag of worms.

This is the first record with a kind of the thorough balance of melody and scream in the vocals. Does this, does the inclusion of melody feel like a natural evolution? Is this something you wanted on remission, maybe? Yeah, because honestly, you know, if we were to go back in time and redo remission, I probably would change, you know, I'd probably do a lot more things. Did you have time? Did you want to at the time? I think so.

It's hard to, you know, I was so new to it. I mean, I'd recorded records before, but like, this was a whole other thing. But it was, we did it in like two weeks, and I think the guitar part of it, because we did the drums, but then we had to switch studios

and like, give more time. We had to because of the tape machine wasn't gonna. I think we did the drums on the tape machine. But the punch in for the guitars or something like that, Matt was like, we cannot work here. It's gonna take me,

we're going to get another machine. There's no other machine in Atlanta. And it was like, yeah. So we were right. I think I probably spent two days like recorded my guitar tracks. So but I was also that was the that was the record you know I mean it wasn't I was I was It was a long time ago and I probably was just like okay. These are the songs I mean I did some harmony double tracking on a lot of that stuff, but

I'm just saying if I were to go back and do it I'd probably fix a lot of things and make things a little bit Harder is never finished. Yeah you know you have to know when to put the paint brushes down Yeah do you how often do you exercise restraint in making music? Lately, you know, on the new, it's kind of part of the maturing as a musician, I think, as an artist, because with Mero Deep, here's the thing. It's like, because I write a lot, I mean, a lot of the riffs, and I record them, and I have, you know, my demo studio, and I have my Studio Studio. It's like, we do the vocals and the lyrics come last. Because we never started off

as singers. You know what I mean? We're just, I'm like, I'm going to sing. I'll play guitar. Right on this. So with Kurt, he, he comes in and he goes, I want to do things a little bit different. Like, let's do drums and guitar, just the basic guitar tracks. We're not going to go overboard because he's like, you guys layer so much fucking stuff. I'm like, that's probably because we put the vocals on last. And we feel like we got to build up. all this stuff. He's like, I want more dynamics. I'm like, I'm listening to you. That's why we hired you. I wanted to use him for so long. I'm taking his word. I'm like, you know how to make records sound great, so let's go. Yeah, we do that. We put the basic guitar track down. We

don't put any solos down. Then we put the vocals down. So we got drums, guitar, vocals. We do that in that order. And wherever the gaps are, now you can add the keyboards, layer some guitars. Genius. Now we know where the solos are. Yeah. where the spaces are where the solos are. And we've never really done it like that before. We just kind of, because when Braun and I worked together, we were writing,

we kind of get the song, like the demo. Solo here. Like this is where it's going to be. But there were a lot of songs, like oblivion. Because even though Brent had written, like,

most of crack the sky, it was just a big blob of homogenous riff. But you all saw collectively. So Braun and I would spend most of the time together, like, I had like a little four-track task cam, a digital recorder, and we would, like, we would learn all his riffs, and Braun and I would, like, put it all together. And for the song, Oblivion, I remember when I wrote the, the middle section, the bridge, and like, Brent soloed

all over. I was like, I don't, that's not where a solo goes. And he wanted to, he was on to put the solo where we were like, like, a colony of birchman. He wanted to put it at the beginning of the sun, like, no, no, no, no. We had to talk him out of, like, so many times. Like, he doesn't go there. Don't do it there. But. After listening to it, like Oblivion, I'm like, no, that's where the solo goes. He was right, you know. That's the maturing where I'm like, I can never judge a song until the vocals, because I hate it. Not that I hate it.

I didn't like Oblivion. It was my least favorite song on that record. Really? Because there was no vocals on it yet. And once, and Brent or Brian was the same way. He's like, yeah, I'm not sure about this song. Interesting. But then Brent, and Brendan's like, Brent, what do you have in mind to sing here?

And he's like, oh, no, no, no, no. And he's like, oh, my God, this is awesome. You know what I mean? It's easy to forget that vocals are like 90% of the song, especially for a riff-based thing. And then when Braun sings on the verses, I was like, oh, my God, it's like Gary Newman or something. It's like this.

We never sounded like this. This is incredible. It was my favorite songs. Great song. So I learned right then and there. Don't judge anything until, it's like if you're making a soup, you haven't added all the ingredients you don't try it and throw it out because it tastes good

it's like you put all the ingredients in it then you try it let's go back to Leviathan era touring around this time is this an instant drastic change are you still in a van uh yeah you're doing this unholy alliance tour with

slayer lamb of god and slip not we were still in a van yeah we did not get a tour tour bus until 2005 when we did the Ozfest and once you go to a tour boss you don't go back to a van if you can help it. What is doing something like that in a van

like this unholy alliance tour? The one in Europe? Slayer Lamb of God Slipknot. We did, okay, we did the same thing in Europe with Slayer and Slipknot in a splitter van because we're still on relapse and they wouldn't fork over

the extra thousand bucks or whatever to either have a tour bus with a dedicated driver, and we were partying our asses off. So I remember in a splitter, the splitter van, there was like a big table in between, and the seats are going this way, and then you're sitting right across and people facing this way,

and all our stuff is in a trailer behind us. That sucked so bad, because me and Troy would always be hung over, laying on the floor under the table, under people's legs trying to sleep, and we'd get hotels, but they're always long drives, and it sucked.

But we're opening for Slayer and Slipknot. in Europe. This is incredible. Yeah. You've been a band for four years. Yeah. And somehow unholy alliance, those words apply to you, you know? I'm trying to remember that in the States. I don't really remember it. Or just realizing in real time that these are like your peers now.

Yeah. What is that like at first? I always kept my cool. I was just like, wow, I can't believe like I'm talking to Carrie King right now. This is wild. Would you consider Lamb of God to be amongst the closer of your peers in terms of when you started and how similar your career trajectories have been? Yeah, absolutely.

High on Fire. Lamb of God, Baroness, Kailasa. But like, Lama God was never, like Pantera, I hate to say this. They were never like a band that I listened to, and I don't really listen to Lamb of God either. It's not that I don't, I love those guys, and they're a fucking hell of a band. We've played with them so many times. But I'm like that with a lot of that kind of extreme metal. I'm just not a, I don't listen to a lot of it.

I'll put it on once in a while and like I mean I've got a new appreciation for it now I put on Pantera like this is really fucking sick but at the time I never was like because people would be like you know that new fucking pantera

I'm like I don't listen to like Lama God from Rochester I only live in the South yeah I'm from Rochester although I listen to foreigner no but for real it was like they're my friends

like they're my peers you know I'm like we've toured them all I don't put their records on I just don't um Aqua Demand Venture features the band's first of six features from Scott Kelly of Neurosus. How do Scott and Neurosus fit into the Macedon story? They were just high.

You know, when we all met, Neurosus was like the common denominator for our for our tastes and music. I'm like, dude, whatever there. Like, I want a band that doesn't go up there to tune your guitar and like talk to the crowd. Like Neurosus doesn't talk to the fucking crowd. I want to be that band. I want to fucking come out and just.

rush every fucking song like the romones just one two three four down that to get that just don't or or fucking zeke i saw zeke recently in in germany in hamburg like two years ago god damn it this motherfucker they had drinks they didn't even touch their drinks and they didn't even tune their guitars they played like 30 songs in 20 minutes back to back nonstop and i was like i couldn't take my eyes off them i was just hanging out with them before they went on they're all like fucking tired of beer anymore. You know, it's like being in Europe for fucking over three weeks. I just want to go home, sleep

in my bed. And they went out there like never even drank his beer or tune to guitar or change guitar. It's like, that is impressive to me to see that. That's like a triathlete. It's the same thing. I mean, that's cardio you can't teach. Stage cardio? But yeah, fucking neurosis. They were the kings of that.

And that's for like the samples and the ethereal background sounds and weird shit. I was like, I'm stealing all this. What they're doing is cool. But we're totally different band. 100%. We knew Scott. Well, we knew all the neurosis guys very well

because when Braun and I were in today's day, we toured with the Voivod and neurosis all on the same tour bus for like six weeks in 99. In Europe. It's the coolest tour I've ever heard of it. Huh? It's the coolest tour I've ever heard of it. It was pretty fucking cool.

But that's when it's, as they broke up halfway through, but Braun and I stuck around because we were like, we're not going home and hang out. I was Piggy's guitar tech for the rest of the tour. Okay, there you go. And we just became really good friends of those guys. And we were like, man, why don't you come sing in our record, dude? It'd be great. Because the part was so chuggy and heavy. Like, this would be perfect. This is a neurosis riff. Yeah. Let's Scott sing it. And are you writing it saying, let's do a neurosis riff. And that's got some. And that didn't stop. Yeah, no, it really didn't. I mean, and how heavy was dealing with kind of

the loss of this extension of your band in a way from his public mishaps. Yeah, I don't know, man. It's just, I don't know what to think. It's like all of us. We got our demons. We got our issues. We got medications to take correctly. You know what I mean?

I mean, you guys had a full set list worth of songs together. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. 2006, it's time for album number three. Blood Mountain opens Lombardo-esque in the... to this like Prague hardcore song. What comes to mind first for Blood Mountain? Like right now?

Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, just... I don't know. What, if I say the words, Blood Mountain, what's the first thing you think? I just think of the cover of the album and the colors and, you know, this is very different. It's almost a negative of Leviathan,

like blues and whites and golds and now we're reds and greens. Is that intentional? No, I mean, maybe by Paul. But like just again, great artwork. The songs, very much Prague-oriented, you know what I mean?

Like Siberian Divide, Blade Catcher, Capillarian Crest. And again, this crazy journey of Braun's doing of the storytelling concept album.

And it's... He's past Movedic now. He's got his own. something like really weird shit. I'm making cool videos. Colleenian Burstown, one of my favorite songs. And the video for that, we had to go to Ruby Falls, which was down a half mile inside of a mountain.

We had to carry all our equipment down in this elevator shaft after they closed. I mean, they let us do it. Ruby Falls was, do you know anything about Ruby Falls? So it's in Chattanooga. It's like Lookout Mountain where you can see like five. There's always signs near when we're going up to Tennessee. It's like, oh, you can see five states from up here. But there's, you can go into the mountain.

And the story is that there was a guy who was rock climbing and crawling through these cave splunking or whatever, but like in the 1800s maybe. Maybe, I could be wrong. But that. No, I think there was a hole. He was a farmer and it was like a hole in the earth. And he like crawled in or some shit or splunked into there and found these falls underground that are pretty tall. I don't know. They were maybe 30, 40 feet high.

I'm not sure. We found them. I mean, he named him after his wife, I think, Ruby. But you have to go through, like, they call a fat man's squeeze because the rocks are really close together. And we're carrying, like, Laney cabinets and heads and guitars and amps and beer. Wow. It's a half mile down and then like a mile walk through all that. And then there's, they have all these, like, different colored, like, lights on it.

So it's beautiful. Whose idea was doing this down here? It's a tour, I mean, a tourist trap kind of place. Yeah. But it's awesome. I think it was bronze. Because he comes up a lot of the concepts. Guys, this has to be dangerous.

Yeah. But it's open, I mean, it's like a public, you can go there. Sure. You can pay to do it. It was after hours and we get there and it was just like, wow, this is fucking cool. I'm making a video under this mountain. Yeah. Like a half mile under the earth.

This is still crazy. And the song was incredible. And we got Josh Hami singing on it. And I was like, this is really cool, man. Our band is awesome. It's so great. And then you play this song on network TV for your first song. Yeah.

And then also, we're playing on like David Letterman and shit. How was your experience? experience for you. You played on Conan, right? We played in Conan. Okay, so when in 2006, my son, like two days before, I almost, we did, okay, let me back up. My wife was pregnant with our second child. Harrison was born in 2004 when Leviathan came out. 2006, Conan is about to come out. He was born in October. We got an offer to go to Europe right after Blood Mountain came out with Tool for like six fucking weeks. And I was like, the dudes were like, dude, we understand.

You're about to have a fucking baby. I know, but Tool never, they hadn't toured in like 12 years. And they'd just come out with 10,000 days. Yeah. And they asked us to tour. I was like, because we were kind of friends with them. And I was like, I called my wife and she was, because we learned of it when we were on the road. I remember I was sitting in a bar restaurant in Denver.

and we were all having the conversation. And they're like, you make decision, but you don't want to do it because you've got to have a baby. That's fun. We were booked to play November 1st. We were booked to play Conan O'Brien. So I talked to my wife and she's like,

this might be a really big opportunity for you guys. It will be. What a gal. She's a great woman. So I was like, you know what? At first I said, we're not going to do it. But then I was like thought about it. I was like, we should do this, honey.

Like this really, this really could make our band. She's like, I'm cool if you do it. So, she had that, we were home, she had the baby. Two days later, we go up, we play Conan. My son's name's Conan. Wow. We get on the Conan O'Brien show. Not, not, we did not name him after Conan O'Brien.

That came later. Barbarian Destroyer inspiration. So, I mean, we play the show, so nervous. We play the show, and at the end of the show, and you meet him, and he'd shake his hand. I was like, I got to tell you something, man. And he's like, seven feet tall. I was like, just had a baby three days ago. His name's Conan.

He's like, oh, it's a wonderful Irish name. It's like, yeah. It's not after you, unfortunately, but. And then we went to Europe for six weeks with Tool. And when I came home, my son was a month and a half years old. It was fucking wild. He could talk. You could talk and drive the car and buy beer.

Amazing. Sleeping Giant specifically indicates you on lead guitar. Yeah. Was this a special one for you? Yeah, for sure. Um, because, you know, Brent, Brent wrote, he wrote that. And in the beginning, it was all this, like, he was playing all the rhythm stuff. Uh, bow now, no, no, no, do do do do do do little do little.

And he was, and I was like, hmm, both of us are playing that. Let's, that's got, I say, it's got to be something here. And I just started messing around. And I was like, oh, man, that sounds really, you guys like that? And everyone was like, yeah, that's fucking sick. You go from touring with Slayer on Leviathan to Against Me and Curseve on this record. Oh, yeah. Is that a natural fit or is this you guys just being like, Massadon can do anything?

You know, I feel like when we're such a dynamic band that when we tour with, when we go out with Slayer, we break out like the heaviest songs and we go out with cursive or against me. It's like, let's play some of our like maybe more hits, maybe not so heavy. But because when you got to see a band, you don't want to see three of the same fucking band. No, you got to keep you. You want to see Metallica and then a band sounds just like Metallica. And then a local band sounds just like the band that sounds like Metallica. It's like, it's the same three things.

It's like, it's boring. And we learned that from like European festivals, you know, like going to Roskilde, whereas like you can have Slayer and you can have Macedon and you can have. And at Ross Gilda, it'll be like Barry White's on Wednesdays. Yeah, or whatever. Steve Wonder was playing while we were sitting there. Yeah, and that's cool, because people are music fans. Nobody wants to see the same exact three sounding bands.

So we tried that, and it did really, really well. It was great. 2009, Crack the Sky, a monumental, hyper-focused epic with noted inspiration from King Crimson, Pink Floyd, and Braun sharing lead vocal duty for the first time. We talked about Cracked Sky a bit earlier. This is Brent throwing crazy idea after crazy idea, you guys dissecting it and molding it into this massive, another kind of just like monumental

evolution. Yeah, well, that was our first time working with an actual producer and I was very nervous. Like, I was this guy going to like, but it wasn't, again, it was mostly very Brent heavy. You know what I mean? Even though, well, Brent had been knocked out in Vegas and he was in a coma and we had no idea what was going to happen to him if he's ever going to come out of it. So Braun, myself, and Troy were busy practicing writing our own Crack to Sky record. So there's a whole other bunch of riffs out there. And I was recording them all on my little Fostex 8-track digital recorder or whatever. I listen to it now.

I'm like, you know, one of those, one of the songs became Floods of Triton. Wow. The band, kibana. That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, how often, how much is there of like mass, mastodon and the ether that you? you can pull from still. Just demos that didn't make the cut.

Well, I don't know, man. It's interesting because we used to just write the seven songs that were going to be on the record and that was all we had. We didn't have enough time. It's like, here we go.

These are the songs, like Leviathan. Ahab came in the studio. We had all the songs except for Ahab and Brahms like, I got this idea for a song and it was like, you know, Ahab. I remember Brent was like, we don't need any more songs.

want to learn any more songs. I'm like, dude, come on. We're just sitting around here all day. It's like, let's, it's a great song. Let's do it. Crack the sky was just no different. But then, like, just the records after that, we started having, because I just started writing and pouring shit out. So I,

we would write, like, Hush and Graham, I was like, having like 25 songs. And we were only going to put, I'm like, man, I don't want to do a double album. It's our last record with Warner Brothers. Who fucking cares? Yeah. But we couldn't cut any of the songs. Like all these songs are awesome. They all go together.

It's like there's a theme going on. There still were songs that were left over. Wow. They were the demo songs. And we, but we don't, we haven't played them. We're just like, eh, we just move on. I just keep writing more and new shit. Sure.

And the same thing happened with the last record. So there were songs left over from Morrow Deep that are still good songs that we will use, I think. But I've already blasted past that. I've already written like a whole other, you know, it's just the fresher. But like you said, sometimes for the floods of Triton, a lot of times there's like, oh, we need an extra song for a Japanese release, make it special. We need a German release, have a,

or we need a song for a video game. And lately we've been writing just proficiently. Sure. We have more than enough songs. You guys are writing your own crackless sky, then Brent just comes up with this madness. And do you just abandon that, or does it all become one thing? No, we just kind of abandoned it.

Wow. But it was completely different. It was more hardcore. There's some cool shit. Oh, I think one of the songs from that, the song that we did for Deathbound, you know, the song Deathbound. It was never on a record,

but we did a video with all these puppets and they get murdered and they're killing each other. They're like little puppets. There's Mr. Rogers in the beginning. Braun plays Mr. Rogers. That song. That song was in those sessions. That song and the Ruiner song.

So they make it sometimes. make it through. Yeah, they do. But this batch of Brent's stuff just felt like it all felt like it was cut from the same branch. It was like, this is all, this is like really, because he was stuck at home, the doctor was like, you can't, like, you need to heal your brain. They don't smoke weed, don't drink. You sat there with a cussic guitar and he wrote all that shit.

And like, you need to do that more often. This is some really good stuff. Yeah. And was the difficulty of managing Brent's habits and behavior rearing its head at this point? Or does the VMA's incident feel like an early rock bottom kind of thing? We thought that that would kind of wake him up a little bit. You know what I mean?

Like, oh man, maybe I got a good thing going here. I could fucking die if I'd act like this anymore. And I told him from the very first tour, I'm like, you should not drink. But he would just be able, you should not drink. I'm like, yeah, I know I shouldn't. But you end up on handcuffs every night. I don't. I've never been arrested.

Sure. you have they won't let you in Canada I have a clean record like you gotta don't do that but it's yeah and after kind of leveling up with each release banger after banger after banger do you guys feel any internal pressure yet by crack this guy I'm just like

fuck man I just remember when crack this guy when we were recording that I was nervous not nervous but I was like I didn't know what to expect from Brennan O'Brien because here he is, he's Bruce Springsteen's guy. Yeah. But he also did like Blood Sugar Sex Magic. He worked with, what's his name from Def Jam, Rick Rubin. But he had a lot of good records under his belt.

He had Stone Temple Pilots and the Chili Peppers and Bruce Springsteen and Soundgarden, maybe. But everyone's like, he puts keyboards, he plays keyboards in. He can put keyboards all over your shit. And I was like, no, he's. not. I mean, don't worry about it. He's going to, it doesn't matter. He's a producer. He's not going to, like, make it sound like Bruce Springsteen. So what the fuck are you talking about? So I'm like, just keep in mind. But that guy, I love that guy. He's a really, he's a, the definition of a producer. He did a great job, clearly. He's in the room every day.

We would say, we're looking for this kind of 70s. He's like, I got, I got it. He'd walk in the other room and grab a couple things. Like, this is what you need. Play that. And here's a pedal. Tune it like this. And he'd be like, here it like this. Watch. He's so proficient. on the guitar. He's great. And he's great. He's like, let me go out there

and play some piano. And that's when he started adding the click tracks and samples. There's piano there. We didn't have a pianist. And this is all Brendan O'Brien playing it? Pretty much, yeah. We had some other guest appearances

by other local friends and stuff like that come in. The Tsar, a four-part epic, inside an epic. Tell me about writing this. Does this start as one singular idea and evolve? I remember with Hearts Alive was originally two songs. And I think it was me, who was like, I mean, this ends an E,

and the next part starts, why don't we try that? So it might have been two songs, maybe three, I think it's three parts. Yeah, there's like a 15 second part. Oh, is there? Yeah, yeah. The spiral. The third one is like 18 seconds long,

and it's the end right before. You know better than I do. I'm going to read. Usurper, the spiral, the something, the end. Okay, yeah. So that might have, you. you might be right but i'm not 100% sure because it was long time ago but i there were there were

songs like we did that too yeah i was like hey why don't we like make this longer i'm always into doing that you know if it's like we're ending an e when i'm the next part starts at e i was just try it and see what happens yeah i know it's fucking 17 and a half thousand minutes long but who cares yeah making records it's only like nine minutes right yeah yeah something like that's a long i mean it's I think it's long. This might be 11. It's still. It's long.

It doesn't feel like. And then the last baron, that song is a really, that's like 12, 12 minutes or something. That's what we like. But it doesn't feel like it because you get those, all the different parts. Exactly. It's a journey. It's hard to write a 12 minute song that you've got to take it on a journey. It can't be like, it's like, boring.

Yeah. You headlined Sion Rock Fest this year. And I remember the Sion stuff I think back so fondly on because it was such a wacky world. Yeah. Where some fucking guy in marketing just realized booking free shows was more effective than making a commercial. Did you guys play many of these Sion things? No, I think when they played the one. It was like Baroness, Neurosus.

Like everybody was there high in fire, converge, I think. It was awesome. And then everyone got snowed in Atlanta and no one could leave Atlanta. Like, neurosis was there, which is awesome. And Scott's Anglos. Did you get a pair of the socks, the Sion socks? You remember this? I don't think I did.

Oh, man. But Primate played a couple of Sion things. They gave us a car to use and everything. The Scion X-B? I think so, yeah. Been there. Did you do a Scion record or single or something? No, I don't think we did.

They were kind of probably on the way out by then. Who did the Sion record? Was it high on fire? There were a bunch. You guys did the Death Magnetic European tour. You guys have done a lot of cool shit in your career, but getting the Metallica cosign, where's that sit? That was incredible, except we was in the round, and we didn't have any years then. and we didn't we didn't we didn't we're not prepared to be in the round it means there's you know there's monitors all

in a circle it's a giant stage it's a circle yeah and we don't know where to set up because we don't know where the doors are that people are going to be coming in and we didn't get a sound check oh everyone's like yeah you sound like shit I'm like well yeah because they're metallica they want to even though they're our friends they invited us to they don't need us but they wanted us to be there and I was like can we please have one sound check like what the fuck you know they would sit there and be hitting that damn pizza box snare drum for like two fucking hours bat bat all in the every day we're just standing there waiting to go on the stage like this sucks and we get up there and we start playing and then people start coming in like behind us sometimes getting in the bleachers

and like this sucks me and me and brent trying to run around we barely just got in like wireless guitar packs and we're like trying to run around the stage and act like we then you can't hear shit you can't hear because they don't have any ears and brent hired this woman who is his friend to do to do in ears and she's like, I've never worked a digital board

and I was like, oh my God. So sometimes we started using in ears and they did what they just were plugged your ears. They didn't work.

I was like, Diane, what the fuck? It was a mess. He was crying. Okay. I was like, oh my God.

I think cabs have to go off stage. Is that what? No, we had the cabs on stage. How does that work? I think now that's they're off,

yeah. Well, it doesn't work if you don't have in ears. And the answer is, were they aiming out you or out? They were just like

but there was a circle, but in the middle it was open, like a donut. Oh, I see. It was a great, let's not. Tour was great. Tour was awesome, because a lot of people were like, man, I saw you guys. Same thing with the Tool Tour, we never got a sound check. I was just like, come on, guys. But people were like, yeah, but I never heard you guys until I saw you with Metallica or Tool.

So it was beneficial, obviously. Sometimes you just got grip it and rip it. It doesn't matter. Yeah, no, I wasn't complaining that. I was like, this is great. But looking back, I was like, man, that was dickish of them. Sure. We always allowed the, we'd go up there.

do our sound check in like five minutes and they were like opening bands do whatever you want you have the rest of the fucking night till doors do whatever you want. Thank you for your service. You're welcome. We have the opening bands. Appreciate it. 2011. The Hunter, you guys initially described as being stripped down,

but it's still pretty insane to a guy like me. Recorded and started, you recorded part of it in Sound City and Van Nuys? How was your experience in that room on that legendary console? It was great. so that console I'll tell you a story about this so we did that record

I was in rehab and I had written I was writing more by then I started to write a lot more songs on that record out of necessity or out of

I don't know I was just getting I was just like getting like Brent wrote kind of like half of it and I wrote me and Braun wrote the other half like black tongue

spectrelight heavy lifting so the first two single right black tongue spectral light uh what's the other uh curl the burl yeah is the other what else is there black blastroy was brent stargaz yeah i mean that's side a you know yeah so we we kind of more of a it was more like this you know correct the sky was all of us like really working in the same room but then it was and also i went to rehab kind of unexpectedly and then as soon as i got out there like we're going to the studio like next week i'm like

like I'm not ready to go in the studio. I haven't been jamming in fucking six weeks, guys. But they were like, we have to. We got to go in the studio. I'm like, fuck. So I had to bust my ass to like write all the stuff. And we got there. And it was great.

I called Dave Grohl, he had his phone number. I'm like, hey, Dave. Or I text him. I was like, yo, dude, I know you have a studio in it, 606. And it's like right down the street. Like, we're at Sound City because there was a Nirvana had done,

never mind there. And there was a record on the wall. I go, dude, I took a picture of it sent him. He's like, oh, my God, I haven't been there since we that record. I'm coming right down. So he comes down. He's telling us all these crazy stories about when they did that record, how they were fucking with some hair metal band poison or somebody who was in Studio B. And they were like, oh, Kurt, Kurt would fuck with them and fuck with their food because they shared a, it's not a big studio. It's just like a little

shitty fridge over there. Left side A, B side B. Yeah. And he's like, oh my God, do they still have that Neve console in there? Holy shit. I was like, yeah, check it out. Well, we were the last band to record there and then Dave bought that and then he did that documentary yeah about him getting that he didn't even fucking mention us once like dude you I told you to come down that day why don't you at least say a mess one wow he didn't so whatever well I don't think we did we got to we did we did we use that six oh right true this record is Hook City and another interesting authentic evolution is there any consciousness in doing things different, or is this just what happens to pour out musically?

And the hunter? Yeah. Well, the hunter also, let me preface it, like Brent's brother died unexpectedly, a hunting accident. That's why it's called the hunter, because he was hunting at heart attack, dragging a deer back or something like that. And Brent had written, let's see, there's the sparrow and there's the hunter, but they're very emotional and very complex.

acoustic bit cleans cleaner songs right really pretty and really wild like this is this is like but it was like to me it was like half and half because we had songs like blastroid because I wanted that record before I went to rehab I was like I want to write a fucking I don't want to write another crack to sky man that's like 12 minute songs and yeah it's raging low it's all medium pace and I want to like fucking come out swing and like what did something that some music could come out and I'm like I want to be like that like these guys are like Queens of Stone Age or something It was coming out like fast or whatever I was hearing. I was like, oh, no, do something like that.

We're so deep in this like, this arpeggiated world of all these slow. But it's great. I mean, I love those. Like, this is a timeless record. So that's really like black tongue, which to me was a little bit more groovier and like heavy and had a certain sound. And then heavy lifting and a blasteroid, you know, it's nice and quick and fast. You want to keep this thing moving. Yeah, I just wonder, like, let's have a summer hit.

Okay. The summer record, this comes out swinging, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. It feels warm. Yeah, there's definitely that side of it, but there's also like the kind of slower... Melancholic, yeah. Melancholy kind of thing, so it's still a great record. Braun sings alone and composed Creature Lives.

Oh, yeah, Creature Lives. That's right, yep. Was that, did he... How was seeing him step up to that role and kind of enter that position full time? I didn't really think. I just was like, yeah, dude, that's awesome. You got a song? You want to sing it?

Fuck yeah. I always knew Braun. I mean, even from the, when Braun and I were in today's day, we would always be singing King Diamond shit together. And he was like, what? He got great voice. Oh, yeah. Grandma's getting weaker.

And I was like, man, that's great, dude. You should sing. You just said it. Yeah. What is your King Diamond song? I don't know. I need to make one. Yeah.

Billy Diamond. Yeah, that's you. Do you have any aspirations to sing full songs on recording? Maybe. I mean, I didn't. I mean, I sing live a lot, but I'm starting to sing more because Brent's not there anymore. And Nick hasn't started singing. And there are some Brent songs that I want.

I am singing some of his parts live, but there are a lot of songs that he was an integral, like the lead singer. And I'd like to kind of maybe try that. but it's not an easy task. It's hard. It was really hard for him just to play the complex things that he would write and try to sing like this and play like this. You know what I mean? It's like, we have to practice.

That's the only thing. And I've been practicing. I'm like, I think I can get there. I mean, it might not sound like him, but it would be a shame to, like, throw all these songs out. Yeah, big time. How does Mastod wind up on the Monsters University soundtrack? I don't know.

That's a good question. that someone was a fan and the guy had hit me up and was like yeah we want something like Iceland in there and I wrote I wrote a bunch of stuff in my studio and sent it to him and they ended up just using Iceland

like a split second of it like that's cool whatever thanks it was fun because we went we rented it and I think the kids were little and we watched it and it was a tiny tiny little blur but I'm like that's my band

whatever to add yeah no they might have been excited good good good 2014, once more around the sun, a record that you described as representing the theme of death and loss that you at all experienced. How do you reflect on that and this record now, especially all things considered? Yeah, that record, I really need to revisit that record and kind of give it a good listen because I'm like, I'm not as familiar. You know, when we're doing records, I put my all into it because I'm writing, we're arranging, I'm recording. I'm on it.

I'm on my fingers on the pulse. I'm like, yep. But then as soon as it's done, it's like, I never want to hear that again. Really? You know, I like that with your music? I listen to it a billion times. But you listen to a billion times.

And then you're sick of it. And then you're like, I can't hear it anymore. So I don't necessarily listen to it against it. But once in a while, before we record a new record, I tend to go through our catalog and I'll just listen to stuff. Just so I can be like, oh, yeah. What do we sound like? What do we sound like?

where can we improve? What are things I wish I would have done? You know what I mean? Just refresh yourself on what you sound like. You also have so many records. We do. It's a lot to keep up with it. There is a lot.

And, yeah, it's one of those things. For reference, I'm just like, what did our last record sound like? Okay, I want to improve the guitar tone. I want to have more not so polished snare drum. I don't know, whatever. Something like that. I pay more attention nowadays.

As in the past, I didn't really care. Do you not play many of these songs live? from once we're out of the sun. Yeah. High road. High road's on there, right? Yeah, you play the mother load. Right?

Mother low we play. That's the mother of all choruses. I'll tell you what. Tell me about that song. That song, see, I wrote that. I mean, I wrote the music. And it was definitely, it was...

Banger. What do we do with that song? I don't remember. I don't know. We just put it together. Just an organic. Ripper? Yeah. But I remember being like this is kind of more of like a, it's kind of

Queensy, it's more of poppy, it's not as heavy and evil as like, say other songs. Do you have reservations about that when you have that thought? I don't know. Sometimes, like we've been playing it lately. It's a great song and everyone seems to fucking get into it, but I'm like, man, we're going from this

like really happy kind of, I'm going to play a lot happy songs. Not that it's happy, but to me it's like some of the chord choices. I mean, that's kind of, it's a a little ticklish here and there. But it's not, I mean, when we're done playing it, everyone's going crazy and they love it. But then we'll go into like fucking

some real heavy evil shit. And I'm like, but that's cool to be able to do that instead of every song. And for your audience to understand that you can do that and they want that is special. Yeah, not a lot of bands get to be that dynamic. You got to play.

Just give me the riff all the time. Yeah, when you go happy, they go, fuck you. We're not, we don't care anymore but you can tour with against me in cursive and slayer so you you built the you built it you built this city um how do you even begin to build a set list at this point it's not easy we don't really fight over it but you know like when we toured with the clutch we're like how do you guys because they play different set list every night how do you guys do that like well one guy one guy gets to choose write the set list every night we have certain songs that stay I was like we try we to do that and it was like with Brent a lot of times it was a struggle.

He used to play the deepest cut known to mankind. Yeah, I was like, well, you don't know that song anymore, dude. Can you learn it and then we'll play it? He just wanted things that whatever. You do some bangers, do you do any for you? I definitely chime in, like for instance, okay, uh, once we're on the sun, that's, uh, tread lightly. One of my favorite songs, my favorite riffs, songs I wrote.

I love it. And I was like, we gotta, I was like, we gotta play this. Why don't we, we used to open on that tour, we opened with it. And we have this, we have that as a sample. And then we walk out while the acoustic going, bam, bera-l-l-na-na-da-da-da-l. And we come in on the, bown-naw now, bam. And I was like, that's so cool. Why don't we, we haven't played this song in like 10 years.

Let's fucking play it. So we started playing it last year. And what a great tune it is. So we get to, if I may say myself. Yeah. But it's like, you know, I get to say, you know, we all get to say, hey, I want to, let's play this song. What do you guys think? But it's hard because you have over 100 songs. You got to keep the hits in there. You got to have the hits in there,

but you don't want to only play the hits because then he piss off all the guys that comb their hair with the protractor. They're in there. All the hipsters are in there. I got, I want to hear the deep cuts. I feel like fucking before they even put the demo out. Yeah, when do you, when do you notice like a Mastodon culture grow? Like you got, there's like a Mastodon guy. What do you mean? He's in, He's out there. He wants the deepest cut imaginable. He knows everything about every pedal you play, every setting on the ring. There's a lot of guys like that. But I talk to them. I'm like, yeah, this is what I play.

And I like talking nerd shit like that. No, we definitely have fan clubs and fan bases. I don't know. Just like any other band. I don't think it's, you know, our fans are unique. You know, I feel like some of them are kind of judgy. You know, they're like, oh, it's like, yeah, man. Don't be like that. Everything's going to be okay.

But do you have a conscious moment where you figure out that like these, there's people out there that know more about your life aspects of your life than you do in someone? Sometimes. I'm like, get a life. Yeah, I mean, I try to separate myself as much as possible. But, you know, whenever I see someone in public who wants to like, oh my God, dude, you look just like the guy from Mess. And I'm like, yeah, I get, I hear that. I hear it every day. Yeah, but I'm all, you know, I've learned to just be like, put a smile on and shake everyone's hands. hand and be nice and like that's the best way to be instead of like because it's the second like you might be having dinner when your wife's breastfeeding and you're having dinner you know you're down there at um apple bees or whatever you see a jean jacket some fucking guy comes up hey man i don't want to be that guy but you sign this and and you just got to be like of course man here you go thanks

but if you because we don't oh i met bill he's a complete dick 100% dude you said i'm I don't want to be a guy. Well, you are being a guy. So anyway. Does Macedon starting to lean more melodic by this time give you the itch to make or play purely heavy music that would contribute to you eventually doing something like joining Burnt by the Sun?

I kind of do, yeah. I kind of do, because that's kind of what I grew up on. I was playing the Jersey chord. Oh, yeah. That I, what's what we call it? Yeah, Diada Bada. So, and I just, they're so rhythmic, and I love all the guys in the band.

They're great friends of mine. And I've known Dave Whitty for fucking 35 years. Like, the dude's such one of the greatest drummers around. Niceest guy to being in a band with, like, the nicest people is very rewarding. So it's a challenge to me because that shit's not easy. And I haven't played like that in a really long time. So I'm like, I'm fucking all, I'm up for it. Let's do it.

How has that been going so far? We haven't even practiced yet. Perfect. But I have been learning. I've been learning the songs and I've been speaking. Like, they came to see me when I was recording. in the stuns thing, which stuns is me and Dave Woody and Kevin Sharp.

Sick. A project of mine, and I'm just a little project, some shit I wrote and recorded at my studio, but that's taken a while to come out and everything. Stuns? Is it a grind band? No, it's kind of like, imagine a black flag and the accused

and Macedonnell kind of. Oh, okay. But it's much simpler. I say that, but it's still pretty, there's some techy parts. Accus isn't, you know, they got risk. But they got the, like the real fast. picking kind of crossover kind of sound, but like drop C, so you're playing your burner. Like catchy, like Cveller talkish.

Sure. Like cool, like what I want to do. I want to be like, let's not be so techy, even though I am playing with Burnt Pass Sun. Who knows? I don't know what I want. Yeah. We're figuring it out every day. It's like playing in music.

Exactly. In 2015, you appeared in Game of Thrones alongside Brent and Braun for the first of two appearances. How the fuck does that happen? So we were at Nebworth Festival, or no, it was Nebworth Castle. And it's Nebworth is the name of the festival in Europe. Like the outdoor thing where Oasis is played? Nebworth? Nebworth.

It was a big rock festival and we were there and there was like this American guy comes up. And he's like, oh, hey. And we had a publicist with us. And she's like, oh, this is D.B. Weiss. Oh, I didn't know who we were. I didn't never seen. I think I might have seen a little bit of Game of Thrones. Okay. But I didn't know who he was.

And he was like, hey, what's up, guys? I'm like, oh, you're an American. What's going on, man? He was with Sam and Sam's girlfriend from the show, the big, the big heavy Seag guy is John Snow's pal. And I didn't recognize them. I was just like, yeah, I don't think I really, I might not have seen the show. I knew about it.

It was fucking huge. And we started talking about it. So what are you doing here? What are you doing? He's like, I live in the Belfast. I'm, I'm filming movies and direct movies for HBO or not movie series for, for HBO. And I like, well, what do you, what I kept poking at it? like, what are you, what are you working on?

It's a show called Game of Thrones. Like, Game of Thrones? You're working at Game of Thrones? Holy fuck. That's fucking great. So then we were like, can we be on the show? I think I just said that. And then I had our publicist. Go get his number. Let's get on the show. Why not? I want to be a wildling or something. He's like, okay. And then we played in Belfast like a couple, like a year later or something.

And they were working on the next season. And he was backstage and we were talking. I'm like, hey, technically we're not dead. like I think we got yeah we got well we got killed and then we came back to life as White Walker's like hey we're not dead

can you have us back of the show and he's like fuck yeah it's great as we're on the show again wow okay you got more appearances than many good for you man you got to be pushy in life you got to make it happen exactly 2017 Emperor of Sand

this is my favorite master on record thank you dark heavy and all time great chorus after all time great chorus. Tell me about making this work. So that record, I had a very heavy hand in that with the riffs. You done good. Thank you. My mom had, she was diagnosed with glioblastoma, which is brain cancer at that same time. And I was just like, oh my God, fuck. And I was just immersed myself in my guitar. I was just writing and writing and writing and writing and writing. She was like in hot. I had to put her to hospice during that. And she was, I was in the hospice

house with her and she was in the bed just basically sleeping and I would have to give her morphine. It was fucking horrible. And I had my guitar with me and my laptop and I was writing and you know songs like Roots Remain like I was talking about it was Salton's Curse, you know, again that Sultan's Curse was a riff I'd written like 12 years before and just didn't have, it was just missing

Part B and I came up with Part B where it's you know the department store elevator kind of thing. Same thing with Roots Remain. I had this heavy riff, Bada-Bada-Bad-da-Ban-a-N-a-na-na. And the song, to me, I'm not sure exactly, but it was going to be called Catherine the Great, which was my mom's name, Catherine. But we changed it to Roots Remain. But so it's about her. And same exact formula where you come out with a Bada-Bada-Bada-Bah-a-Bah, the snare is on the upbeat. And I could not figure out what to play for the next part B, which is the chorus.

And again, it's the beat. And the chord, the notes that I chose, and every time I play it brings me right back to sitting in that room watching her die, basically. Is that difficult to play now? I love playing. It makes me cry because those notes, you know, to be the world's greatest guitar player to fucking write a great song. It's like, I just, I like. I like to play a root note and then use the other fingers as like the emotional or the sympathy notes to fill in the meo do new, me, do, me, no, yeah, and I typically write forwards and backwards. It's pretty simple. There's always a call and response, call and response. So I do lessons as well. So when I do my lessons, I'm like, this is what I do. This is behind the scenes. It's not as hard as you might think. Don't throw your bad riffs away. It just could be the drummer. throw the drummer away

you know what I'm saying though because to me that part represents when she was awake conscious is in her brain so she'd be like some days and she was up in New York so I'd go up I was going up there like every week to be with her

and hang out with her and she was living in my brother's house and she'd be good days, bad days and some days she would blah blah blah blah blah no nothing and like and she'd think that she was talking and I don't know what the fuck you're saying mom So the riff

Beh Bo-na-na-na-na-na- It's like That's where I came up with it So everything I write I try to make a personal connection With like It's got to

Or it's fake Not fake But it just doesn't mean anything Sure So I have to kind of make this connection And that's why he's a lot With strings And dissonant chords

And stuff like that Because it shocks you It's ugly It's weird It brings a feeling of like, that's creepy, man. It doesn't sound healthy. If you don't feel anything, what's the point?

Exactly. And it's so interesting that with Macedon, you keep, each record almost has this like different tragedy attached to it. Unfortunately, yeah. They didn't mean it to be that way. But the person who's attached to the tragedy

steps up creatively and like uses it to get through it in a way it sounds like. Yeah, it's catharticism, I guess, a little bit. It's, you know, just trying to get it out and that's the only way you know how to do it to process my feelings and emotions you know just put my guitar on and like strum it out strum it away yeah like i said there this is my favorite mass on record there's there's many songs that i cannot believe but i think most of all would be a song called clandestiny oh yeah banger tell tell me about uh putting this together and why you've only

played it a handful of times because brent he couldn't sing it and he sings on the choruses He never wanted to play it. Yeah. But I love that song. That's when I first got my helix and my Axeffects. I think in the middle section, I kind of built this trippy, psychedelic part. But it was all from turning the knob. It's like, it's a tool.

You know, it's like the presets. Making all these cool tremolo effects. And all of a sudden, it helps you write something. That's what I used that a lot. It just inspired me to write all those things. It was a great song. Great song. Kevin Sharp from Bruele Truth appears on Andromeda.

That's right. Finally. How did you make that? How did you finally let that one in? See, Andromeda, to me, is when I wrote that riff, well, I wrote the first riff, Braun wrote the chorus riff behind. We both worked on it, but the opening riff, to me, is all Jersey Chord stuff. And I was like, it's very burnt out of the sun.

And it all comes back to. Yeah, it all does. And I was like, at the end of the song is like, man, it's just, really building against fucking so heavy and nodey and like and Kevin's one of my best friends like dude come down the studio and fucking put some vocals down on this part and he did a great job

he's got that voice you know he really does over uh steam breather masterpiece that's a great one too talk to me uh broad and I were that song was totally different when we first I had come up with it originally like the opening

a couple riffs and I just built my studio in my basement. And I think Braun was like, he's like, I really like the riffs and the chorus of it just came, I don't know, I just started strumming and I did that pattern. I was like, that sounds really cool. Never played anything like that. Very gorgeous. Yeah, very cool. I put acoustics behind it. And so I was telling you earlier about the, on the sampler, it's in there too. But Braun was like, he's like, I really like it, but it was too busy. So there's a part in the song, bong, bong, bannan, bennan, bennan, bannabon. Bannibon. Blah, da, da, da, da, da. the bridge right before the solo that was the original bong bong bong bong bong bong it was that is the verse

and brahams like it's kind of busy he's like want to sing over that and that's when i learned like you don't always have to have the spotlight on your playing like let me just play something easy and i came up with a bong gung gung gong that is built for vocals and then yeah it's still pretty hard on its own yeah and then when i did the b bannel-d-d-d-d-d-l-d-l like the back and forth kind of slidey up guitar with omba string yeah i first wrote i first wrote that and i was like is that too country sound it sounds real country but now i don't think that at all i'm like no way this is really unique it sounds fucking super cool yeah because when i play it live i'm b i try to keep the the high b string open the whole time just so it gives it that cool

dissonance like a melancholy slide up slide down something that a my brother and I that we are and always have been is primus guys tell me about touring with them for two months oh my god is so awesome less claypool like my coolest fucking dudes ever so interesting such a great player were you a possessed guy at all growing up no not really but i mean i mean i love ler he's a good he's a great guy too they're all great guys i mean just such a happy awesome talented bunch of dudes her unique one of a kind very unique when they came out man i lost my I lost my mind. I was like, this is what is, who are these guys? When they were a new band? When they first came out. Wow. Yeah, I was like, they were like Frank Zappa, but digestible. I was like, I can understand this.

And heavy as hell. Frank Zappa with China Mosh parts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so good. Just simple drum things and ding ding ding datana. I was like, I love this. What is this? It's not metal, but it's heavy. That was a perfect time to be that age when that stuff came out and grunge and all that shit. Still is. It's still good. Yeah. In September 2018, your longtime manager, Nick John, passes away. How would you describe his work with Mastodon and impact on the band? Man, that's a tough one, man. I love that guy.

He was like one of my closest friends. I talk to almost every day. It's just so unfortunate. He's gone. It wouldn't be where we are without him. Yeah. It was the second time today I've had to talk about him. I'm sorry.

No, that's okay. I mean, usually I can talk about him, but for some reason today, this is hitting home, maybe because I'm in L.A. where he fucking died. But he, you know, we were very close friends, and he, everyone loved him.

He could, he was the best manager. He could just be, he was not a dick whatsoever. Most managers of bands are like these fucking L.A. assholes. It's like, he was not like that. Everyone would tell us, he got the coolest manager.

I'm like, I don't know, he's great. I love Nick. and when he died man we were just in a tailspin I was like what the fuck are we gonna do now he's gone we made it this far and now fucking the dude that's

steering the ship is like we rely on him for so much stuff and he gets so many things done and in a nice way you know what I mean it's fucking hard I mean he taught you clearly taught you a lot

on how to handle yourselves and how to steer that shit he just could put out of any fire you know what I mean I mean I'm not saying that our management can't our management it's the same management but it's just different.

Yeah. It's just different. It's not your friend. Was he part of the band for a long time? My buddy. But you got to dedicate, you know, art to him with Huston Grimm, this beautiful tribute to your late manager. Did that make that record extra cathartic? And after record, after record, after record of catharsis.

I mean, I don't know if catharsis is the right word because you're still hurting. Yeah. But for me, the cathartisism or whatever, how you say it, is more of, of me getting that fucking riff that doesn't have a home that's in my head bouncing around you got to that's going to be when i die i'm like i still got all these riffs to write unresolved melody unresolved that's a better word yeah so that's more of the catharticism for me is like oh man we i got that writ like salton's curse riff i had that floating around for 12 years like okay cool here it goes there and this goes there and it's everything's packed away now

the we're supposed to be the tone across the album is very somber and the the the heavy parts literally feel like they have this added weight to them. You do. Was this the most difficult record to make? You said there's two hours of music written. Yeah. You guys were locked up, right? It was COVID.

That was during COVID, yeah. And we used my studio for the first time, and David Botryl came, like, sight unseen and recorded. You know, that's also when, I mean, Emperor Sand, Brent, that's when he really wasn't there whatsoever to write anything. He wrote Jaguar God, That was like the 11th hour We were packing up

And he's like I got this I got all these parts I was like Where he been for the past month Like he was like He was learning the songs As we were recording him

I was like Dude he just wasn't He just wasn't really there So eight years he was out of the band That was that was Yeah And then so Gosh de Grimm was the same

I mean he had He had like The Beast I think is one of his song He has two songs on there But he just I don't know It was just

It was getting more and more difficult especially given circumstances. Yeah, and I was taking on much and more of the songwriting and but I don't mind doing that because it's what I do.

Write and record it and layer it and fucking let's go. It was hard just because when Nick was gone, I don't know. I think that's when Brent, I think Brent really really lost

connection with us when Nick died because Nick was like the guy could reel Brent in while keep him off a cliff and I think he really got affected by that. And what is it like after making this record returning to touring and playing live with Macedon?

Are you guys united? Yes, absolutely. Wait, are you talking about which record? Well, on Hush and Grim, returning to playing live after lockdown initially. We didn't really play much. That record, we really haven't done a proper headline tour with that record.

And that's really sad because there's so many great songs there. I mean, we play more than I could chew. We were playing, pushing the tides, a cheer drinker. We played, I mean, we did play a lot of those songs. We still do, but it's one of those records, and I knew this is going to happen.

It's a double record, which is always the downfall. Burning something. Something suffers. But also it came out during COVID, and it was like, nobody's paid attention to records and stuff like that. And it was our last record with Warner Brothers. I didn't really push it at all.

And we didn't get, we were going to go to Europe and tour on it, but it was like, we can't afford it. There's not, we're going to spend the exact same amount of money we're making to go to Europe and tour on this. This sucks. It happened two years in a row, so we didn't tour. So yeah, we straight up did not tour at all. No, we toured. We didn't go to Europe. We always went to Europe every year for the summer. It took a long time for their economy to catch back up. Yeah. Yeah, it was because the, because then when everyone was going back out, there's not enough buses, tour buses, or there's not enough drivers or both.

And it was like, fuck, man. And the guarantees so low that they're like, because if your band, everyone wants to go back to work. So if you're not going to work, I'll hire this guy. Yeah. So you're like, well, okay, I'll stay at home. I was like, I'm not going to go out in the middle winter tour Europe for break even or for even less than like $5,000 to come home with at least. Yeah. I mean, so it's hard.

Touring for Per Diem. Yeah. I'm not, I'm 55 years old. I'm not doing that. I'd rather stay at home and my kids and talk and sit on the couch and write more riffs. I guess, I don't know. But what is it like, so touring the States from 2021 to that post-COVID boom for live music was so insane.

No, it was good. Yeah, you're right. It was good. I was so happy to get back out on the road. I was going to stir fucking crazy. But what I really liked about it was that we, hey, you guys can't come backstage COVID. All those hangar honors to come back and drink all your beer and talk to your ear off. How do you feel about that?

The green room being a place for the friends and stuff. stuff to hang out. It's really not anymore, which is great. But most of my friends at this age they understand, you know, but that, you know, for a long time, people didn't. And there are a lot of people that, it's like, dude, do you realize I haven't worked in three

fucking years? Don't ask me on the guest list. You're always on the guest list. Pay up. Pay the fucking, dude, do you not understand? That's my pay. Like, I don't work for, like, people misunderstand oh, you're a rich rock star. You just, I'm like, no, I'm not. It's like, I have to go out and work. I haven't worked in three years. Yeah.

Even if I was rich, I'm not anymore because three years won't buy and I didn't make a cent. So I hustle a lot. I sell records. I buy and sell guitars, amps, pedals. Teach guitar. Teach guitar lessons. I run our merch store. I own a building.

I own a studio that musicians rehearse there. It's like I have to like make ends meet. I can't just rely on fucking getting a check in the mail. And this is Macedon, guys. Yeah. So smaller ads. Please go. See him.

Go back to school. That too. Yeah, good. Come see us. Go see Massadon. So 2021 to 2025. In the lead-up to this new album and Brent's departure from the band, how is that time defined for you?

Yeah, it was difficult just because when we'd signed with Loma Vista, I think 2024, it was just, that was the camel. That was straw broke camels back with Brent. because it didn't go well for us with him in the room. It was like, dude, what are you doing? You're sinking the ship.

Just the conversation was on this? Just his, no, it's just his demons getting to him like in a public place where we're trying to like, this is a second half of our career. And he was poking holes all over the place. Because he was drinking. It was getting the best of him. And it was, we were like, I was like, I'm done. Can't do the same with you.

I'm sorry. Okay. And you all felt that way. Huh? You all collectively felt that way. we all were like we love you do we don't want to I mean we need you get some help yeah and he did but then he didn't you did he did begrudgingly and then he came back twice as worse for those two years and eventually we were just like dude remember we said two years ago like we drew a line in the sand

and we have to stick to it yeah you got to go yeah we care about you you're gonna fucking kill yourself and you're gonna ruin our band yeah because it's like messina is a ship and everybody's working to keep the ship clean and feed the coal into the engine and swab the deck and feed people and you're poking holes in the fucking ship bro ship ain't gonna sink you're gonna get off the ship i had to say it like that too i hate to say that to you but you this is your chance make make make make do the right thing right and he just went the opposite direction i was like like trying to call my bluff and i was like i'm sorry dude i can't this is my life in my career i have kids they're going to college i have what am i going to do if this band

burns up, the ship sinks. I don't have anything. I have to go back to work. I mean, no one would... I mean, it is work, but this is what I love to do. Yeah. And you're making it really difficult. Please, you got a great job. Just fucking get some help. So that was basically the the gist of the whole... Up until he passed away.

It was just, just went downhill, man. It's terrible. Yeah. I mean, and it's like the... You can still hear the frustration. Yeah, it's going to take a long time. There's a lot of PTSD. with that. Yeah. But you know, I bring up Nick and it's and it's like, fuck man, miss that guy. Yeah. And it's like, you're still processing that in a way. And it makes this added extra thing on top of it just so much more complicated. Are you grateful that you guys are at least together when you, when this news breaks to you? Yeah, of course. I'm just, you know, there's never a good time to die.

You know that. We just got off the plane in Alaska, first time to Alaska playing some big festival, the Alaskan State Fair, never been to Anchorage. My son met me there. So my Harrison from Hawaii, he loves fishing. And we had the very next morning, 4 a.m., 12-hour fishing trip for me and my family. Then very next morning, I just flew in and his ex-wife was blowing my phone up just to tell me that he just died. And I was like, fuck.

So I'd get four in the morning and next day and just be out a fishing boat for 12 hours with people I didn't know and just sit there and be like, fishing. That first day is almost like it's not real. Yeah, of course. I still, it took me a long time. Like, what if this is a prank? Yeah.

Wasn't until I was at his funeral. Touched him in the coffin. I was like, okay, dude, you're gone. And you having to play a show the next day. You had to play a show the two days later, yeah. Yeah. Unimaginable. Is this, is this? I was like, I was like, we, I just, I had to put Brent's death aside, but I was also like,

we have to do something. I have to, like, put his picture up there. acknowledge it and say something. And Braun was on the microphone. It was beautiful. It was fucking really. But it's a shock because you're not ready for that. How have you even processed that enough to address it?

Concentrating on playing a good show and doing your thing. And every second you're thinking about, fuck, Brent's gone, man. But we always knew that that could happen. Yeah. So I wasn't surprised, but I was shocked. It's a good way to put it. Yeah.

And, you know, there's no right or wrong way to handle the unhandleable. and you know the masadon in the room mini documentary that you guys posted i would encourage all you to check that out it's very it's you did a great job thank you and i think it was the most respectful thing you could have done and you know i found clearly you found it too i mean being productive and getting shit done is like the best possible therapy of course you got to keep moving forward and it's like there's of course there's a lot of people out there well no brent no macedon it's like well you you you weren't there you don't have the right to say that because you don't know. You do not know

what we put up with. And who did what in the band? You do not know any of that shit. So just shut up. I mean, I, from an ignorant mind, if I was a kid, I would say that. Maybe like, Metallica, oh, Cliff Burton's not there, so you should just quit. It's like,

you're at the height of your success. Like, you have to keep going. You don't want to. You don't want to? I mean, but he was already out of the band anyway, so it's like we didn't want to do that. Yeah. But, you know, in our lives were all, of course, guaranteed to experience loss in one way or another, whether it be family, friends, but there's something different about losing an artistic counterpart that I don't think the average person understands and whether or not your relationship had the closure that you guys

wanted. You created a lifetime of beautiful art. No, we didn't get the closure, you know. Yeah. The closure for us was putting out the mask on in the room. That's the best we could do. say it. We had to say something. And we wanted to do it cool, calm, and collected. Yeah. For ourselves and just for, you know, the sake of our fans. They need to know. Like, why did it, what happened? We're going to tell you what happened. The truth.

So, that's that. But the music also exists forever. Exactly. Sure does. Massadon opened Ozzy and Black Sabbath's final performance at Back to the Beginning in Birmingham, UK. Have you, had you guys crossed paths? with Ozzy before in your career? Yeah, we did the Oz Fest. We did the Oz Fest in 2005. Not that we met him. Yeah, like Masterdown, thank you for being in my vest. Well, we knew that

like Gieser Butler, we had, we had spoken to him, we had spoken to Bill Ward, and I just listened to Gieser Butler's Into the Void audiobooks, and he mentions us in that. And he plays on our new record. Yes, he does. How'd that happen? Have you heard it? Do you have it? I got it at midnight last night, Trevor. But yeah. Okay, so yeah, that was all that's, you know, really positive, great stuff. But of course, being invited to something like that, I'm still like, can't believe it. That was such an amazing thing. Beautiful. Yeah. And that brings us to today. What do you feel Macedon still has to accomplish? I just want to continue playing music and writing great songs until I can't anymore.

Because, you know, once it's not fun or it's phony or, you know, I'm not going to do it anymore. And it could all end tomorrow and I'd be like, man, that was amazing. I'm so the luckiest guy in the world. Yeah. I don't want it to end tomorrow. I can only wear these skinny pants for so much longer. Yeah, yeah. They got big pants now.

Do they? Yeah, they're good. I can't wear big pants. It's not me. Okay. But, you know, there's a lot of country, cities, and places we haven't not played yet. We have a big long list of those, and we still need to hit all those places. And that's one of the biggest perks of being in a band.

I never would have been able to meet people, travel, eat great food. To travel. Yeah. It's amazing. Just to go out and go to different countries and see stuff. I would never do that in my life. Many people never do. They don't leave.

And that's what it cures ignorance. I'm telling you. Racism. All that shit. And you're like, oh, man, I've been living in Rochester too long as you get out of here or any town. And when we're young, we kind of take all this shit for granted. The amazing... Absolutely.

It's like you only live once in a giant world out there. Get off your couch and go travel. Yeah. And what is the dynamic like between you, Troy, and Braun like today? It's better than ever. We feel like we made the right decisions and we're just that much closer as a band and the core. We talk all the time and we always did. It was always the three of us and then Brent over there.

always was like that. And maybe that's what made it special, but I don't know. It could have been better. But the three of us are closer than ever. That's good to you. We all are on the same page. Nick and Joan are fucking amazing.

Yeah. Where'd you find Nick? He's just like a guitar prodigy guy? Yeah. He was, Braun met him years ago when he was at Brendan Small's studio like recording something.

And he was like, who the fuck is that guy? You guys great. He got his name and number. He was like, just in case. He says, just in case. case, I'm going to call that guy. I was reading about Nick John, Nick and being like,

I don't know who this guy is. And then I was talking to my friend. A lot of people know who he is. I didn't know how popular it was until he got in the band. Like, oh, you're pretty popular. Dude, I was talking to my regular, like, Prague friend. And he was like, they got fucking Nick in the band now? So that, that put, made a lot of... Yes, it was Matt.

I love that. Mero Deep is at August 28th, which is probably this week, depending on when you're watching this. And on that note, I have just one last question for you. Bill, what are your top four hardcore records of all time? Victim in pain, rock for light, fresh fruit for riding vegetables,

glow on. Wow. That's awesome. You crush that. Fuck yeah. I'm staying up all night practicing. Wow. Rock for light sped up or originally.

Did Rico Kasich speed it up? When they did the reissue in 90. Or no. Like 1% sped up or something. 87 or something like that. The original, the first two pressings are in correct tuning and then the rest of it is sped up? Half step higher.

Really? Was it Rico Kasich? He remixed it. I think so. Yeah. Fuck, man. Why would you do that? Because if you listen to the first tape versus Rockford Light, they're all.

The tuning's pretty low pitch. Man. Tell me about, talk a little, before we rap, talk a little bit about victim and pain. When does A.F. cross your radar. When I was a kid. Just growing up in New York, not New York City. but in New York State, you know, there's like, I don't know how I heard them.

I just did. I was like, this, what is this? This is awesome. And then, like, you know, song The Eliminator off of, cause for alarm. When Cause for Album came out, I think, you know what?

I think I got it. I think I got Caust for Alarm first because I saw the album cover. I was like, man, this looks sick. What is this? And then I went backwards and I got Victim in Pain on tape. My head on tape, that's right.

Black tape. I was like, this is great. There's two different bands. I was like, this cross. It's like crossover. You know, I love DRI. When D.R.I did the crossover album. Dealing with it.

I was like, man. Are you a crumb sucker guy? Not so much, man. I appreciate them. They weren't like, it was more DRI and Dead Kennedys and Black Flag and Descendants. And, yeah, shit. All the circle jerks, all that stuff. First wave, H.C.

Wow. Big, diggle abortions. I love that shit. So to this day, I have to listen to all that stuff. Fantastic. Fantastic chat. Bill, thank you so much for being here today. Longest interview I've ever done. Is that true?

Well, thank you. We appreciate it. We're honored. Yeah, thanks for having me. Of course. Mero Deep, August 28th. See you next week. Bye.