TEAM LAST CALL

Mastodon’s Blood Mountain is – I promise – the nastiest, wickedest, most scorching, jaw-dropping, psychedelic, bludgeoning, relentless, ridiculous piece of ear candy you will hear all year.
The Atlanta-based foursome has been called everything from “the future of metal” to “the new Metallica,” and for good reason. They are hardcore, indie rock, prog and metal all rolled up into one fierce, melodic, bone-crushing beast that will have you grinning from ear to ear despite the fact that you now have to sleep with the lights on.
The lyrics of Blood Mountain are a fantastical mind-warp that detail an epic adventure involving an elusive crystal skull, a one-eyed sasquatch, a tribe of little tree-people that unite to form a giant and a hallucinogenic root – perhaps the same root the band members were chewing when they wrote the story.
Mastodon is a band that lives up to its name in both its sound and its stature in the metal scene (and beyond). Team Last Call caught up with drummer and lyricist Brann Dailor – the man Dave Grohl has dubbed the best drummer in the world – to learn the subtle distinction between being a fan of giants and sasquatches (cool) and a fan of dragons and wizards (decidedly uncool).

Team Last Call: So, there’s this weird phenomenon that’s happening with Mastodon, where people who don’t normally listen to metal are completely obsessed with your album. Why do you think that is?
Brann Dailor: There’s so many different people that have come out of the woodwork, so to speak, and told us that they’re getting into it. They don’t listen to much else but indie rock, and we’re the one guilty-pleasure metal band that they’re able to get into. I think it’s maybe because we as people and as a band, we listen to tons of different kinds of music. The music we play is obviously rooted in metal and it’s got the heaviness and the intensity that metal can bring, but there’s a lot of other stuff involved.

TLC: Just about every music mag on planet earth is slobbering over [Blood Mountain] now. What’s that’s like?
BD: It’s a lot better than people hating it, because there’s always that possibility. [laughs] When you put out a record, it’s a pretty vulnerable place to be. You’re asking for people to judge you. I try not to read too many reviews, but I’ve seen a few, and luckily they’ve all been really good. That’s a good feeling. It’s like putting a child into the world. I think at the moment we’re starting to get a lot more regular fans, instead of just being the “musicians’ band” that we were for years.

TLC: A lot of your breakthrough has to do with the fact that you switched to a major label. Were you apprehensive about taking that step?
BD: No. I wasn’t worried at all. I mean, I knew that we were making the right decision. If we had the opportunity to move up, then we should do it and not let it pass us by just based on – what? – “Oh, we gotta keep true to the indie scene or the underground.” I mean, Jesus! I’m 32 years old. I don’t have time for that train of thought anymore. And we didn’t change anything [musically]. It’s the natural progression of our band.

TLC: I’ve read articles where people are straight-up calling Mastodon “the future of metal” and “the new Metallica.” How do you even function with that kind of pressure?
BD: I just ignore it. It doesn’t do anything to me. It’s nice that it’s being said, but it’s something that journalists do to get people interested in the band that they’re digging. You have to say something extreme to get people’s attention. You have to say Metallica. You can’t say any other band, like, “Oh, these guys are the next W.A.S.P.!” But I don’t pay attention to stuff like that. I just go about my business as the insecure human being that I am and try to play the best drums I can and try to make sure each performance is up to Mastodon’s standards.

TLC: Where do you think the attraction to the whole mythical, mystical side of things comes from? Sasquatches, giants, birchmen …
BD: I thought everybody was into that! [laughs] I mean, how much money did “Lord of the Rings” make?
I think that’s a way for us to remain like little kids. I saw that episode of “In Search Of …” with Leonard Nimoy when they talk about the bigfoot, and after that, everything I wanted to do and see had to have something to do with bigfoot. I was really into dinosaurs when I was a little kid, just like every little boy. And it makes for bad-ass metal T-shirts. We just prefer to do that instead of being so literal about everything and telling people, “I’m sad because this happened to me today …” like some 13-year-old girl. We’re adults.

TLC: I guess once you’re 32 you can’t just be mad at your dad all the time.
BD: No, you really can’t. I like my dad. He’s awesome. [laughs] We just like that element of fantasy. We think the idea of searching for a crystal skull is cool. You gotta ride that fence. Is this cool? Are we becoming a parody?

TLC: Where do you draw that line? And what crosses the line?
BD: Dragons.

TLC: Dragons?
BD: Yep. No dragons.

TLC: Why dragons?
BD: No dragons, man. You just can’t do it. Can’t go there.

TLC: You’ve talked a lot about getting song material from dreams. Are these substance-induced dreams, or are your dreams really that weird?
BD: I don’t know. It’s not all from dreams. Some of it, I’m wide-awake and just thinking about stuff and brainstorming. I just sit around and think about bizarre shit all day long and try to go into the abstract.

TLC: People write about it like you guys lock yourselves in a room with a suitcase full of acid and come out with an album concept.
BD: That’s not true. I used to do a shitload of acid, and maybe when I was 15 and I took all that acid it opened up a door for me, and now I know where that door is. I don’t need the acid anymore to get there.

TLC: Makes sense. So, I had a coworker who said that your album sounded like you were playing too much “Dungeons & Dragons.” If somebody says that to your face, do they get a high-five or a punch in the face?
BD: Them’s fightin’ words. We’re not “Dungeons & Dragons” nerds.

TLC: What’s the difference?
BD: Well, first, you gotta play “Dungeons & Dragons,” and I wouldn’t even know where to begin with that. And second of all, the word “dragon” is in there, so those are fighting words right there.
I don’t know, man. Our stuff, I don’t picture it like that. It’s more of another dimension. I see it more in the future, in outer space, just astral travel and stuff like that. It’s mystical, but it’s not like a wizard’s involved! It’s like life struggles. It’s just some guy lost in the woods, really, and he just starts eating various roots and starts tripping. He’s starving and he’s trying to get to the top of this mountain, and he thinks he has to find this crystal skull. For me in my head, it’s not “Dungeons & Dragons.”

TLC: So, where do you go from here, when you’re already being called the “future of metal?”
BD: I don’t know where you go. You just tour and tour and see what you can do, see how many people want to come out and see you play your music, and when the album cycle is over, you do it all over again.

TLC: So, you’re not going around thinking, “I am in the greatest metal band on earth!”
BD: No, never. It’s quite the opposite, actually. You gotta watch yourself. You gotta police yourself. You gotta make sure that the motivation for why you’re doing it stays intact. You’re not playing music for other people’s approval, or at least you’re not supposed to be. You’re not playing music for money. Money ruins art. You gotta watch out for it – even though 90 percent of the music out there is money-motivated, and everyone fucking loves it.
We’re just going to continue to do what we’re doing. Maybe it will go out of style in two years, but we’d be doing this regardless of what anybody was saying. This is all we know how to do, and this is all we want to do, and we’ve found something special in Mastodon with each other as friends and musicians. So that’s the deal.
*Reprinted from Fly Magazine