Mastodon: This one’s for Skye

(Credit: Warner Bros. Records)

Mastodon’s beautifully brutal and sophisticated attack has made them the most important metal band of the new millennium. Brann Dailor (drums, vocals), Brent Hinds (lead guitar, vocals), Bill Kelliher (guitars) and Troy Sanders (bass, vocals) have been perfecting their heady assault since forming in Atlanta a decade ago.

On Mastodon’s fourth album, “Crack the Skye,” which came out in March, the band teamed with super producer Brendan O’Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, AC/DC) to create a sublime synthesis of thrash, prog, sludge and old-fashioned, head-banging rock. The record introduced the Mastodon to the masses—reaching No. 11 on the Billboard 200 album chart—while earning glowing reviews from the New York Times, Pitchfork and pretty much every publication in between.

Dailor deftly guides the group as they speed through tricky tempo changes and time signatures, his muscular precision making him one of the greatest drummers of his generation. He also sings and writes lyrics, including the ones for the haunting title track on the band's latest.

Dailor spoke to Metromix by phone while killing time before a Mastodon gig “in the middle of nowhere”…aka Salt Lake City.

RollingStone.com recently called you “one of modern rock’s most gifted drummers” and a “rock ’n’ roll athlete.” So, what do you do to stay in shape?
[Laughs] Just drum every night. I don’t really have any regimented workout or anything like that. I’m pretty normal. I eat food and, ah, get plenty of sleep and watch a lot of movies.

You’re co-headlining with Dethklok, an animated band from Adult Swim’s “Metalocalypse.” How do you compete with huge, fantastically dirtball-looking cartoons that play death metal?
There’s no competition there. We couldn’t compete with Murderface and company. We just do our thing and hope the kids appreciate it.

Now that Troy is recently married, are you worried that wife time will cut into the band’s rehearsing, recording and beer drinking schedule?
Yeah, we’re deeply concerned about that and have had numerous talks with him about how there are no females—or wives—allowed near the band. No, I’m just kidding. He gets all his beer drinking duties taken care of even with the ring on his finger.

As a married man yourself, what advice have you given him?
Keep in contact with your female companion as much as possible—and party with dudes!

I understand you’ve been busy scoring the new comic-turned-film “Jonah Hex” [starring Megan Fox, Josh Brolin and John Malkovich]—performing instrumentals and songs with vocals. How much music does Mastodon contribute to the soundtrack?
On giant TVs they played portions of the movie and we played along to those scenes and some of it was just coming up with riffs, seeing if they dug it. We just gave them a wealth of riffage. They can do whatever they want with it. John Powell, the composer, will probably use things along with orchestration or possibly use bits here, there and everywhere.

Do you dig the film?
I saw most of the movie and it’s awesome. I usually like anything with John Malkovich in it and Josh Brolin is great, too. 

“Crack the Skye” is the first album on which we really get to hear your voice. In fact, you sing the first couple verses to the fierce opening salvo, “Oblivion.” What gave you the confidence to start singing on this record?
It wasn’t a question of confidence—more just a question of, “does it fit?” I have more of a sing-song-y voice. I don’t have a gruff voice; it’s smoother. It had to make sense for me to sing in the context of what was happening musically. Basically, I just went into the vocal booth. We all offer ideas for how to do vocals—the cadence and rhythm. We’re a real diplomatic band, the more ideas the better. So I went in there and sang and they all dug it. But then I had to see if I could sing and play at the same time. I rehearsed. It took some time but it’s doable. With a lot of songs it would be impossible because of the amount of drumming—but “Oblivion” is not as insane, so it was the perfect opportunity for me to sing and play.

The title track is clearly an homage to your late sister [who committed suicide when both siblings were teens]. How did her death influence the album?
Her name was Skye and she’s in the title. When we were inventing a lot of the stuff and building songs up together, there was a certain kind of darkness that had me thinking about her more—it’s something I think about every day. I was just never vocal about it before. But being in this band has given me the platform. Everyone experiences death on some level—be it a sibling or suicide or whatever. But not everyone has the artistic outlet to channel all that. I took advantage of that opportunity. It’s really cool that the other guys in band let me do it. Yeah, it was huge influence on the album, on everything I did lyrically.

As someone with two younger sisters, I can’t imagine coping with anything more devastating. The song “Crack the Skye” is filled with heartbreaking lines like, “Please tell Lucifer he can’t have this one/Her spirit’s too strong.” Is it difficult, from an emotional standpoint, performing that song each night on tour?
It is difficult. Singing those lines live puts me back in that place. It crossed my mind that maybe it was not the best idea to be constantly reliving it every night. But I don’t think it has an adverse effect. It’s a little depressing but it definitely gets easier to perform over time. To unearth all that stuff, maybe it’s good. But I’m not sure. Only time will tell.