After more than two decades of constant evolution, Mastodon have entered one of the most emotionally complicated chapters of their career.
With Mastodon‘s ‘Marrow Deep’ arriving this Friday (August 28th), Troy Sanders talks about grief, the band’s new five piece chemistry, Nick Johnston’s impact, Josh Homme’s return and why success still comes down to one thing, getting onstage.
There was a noticeable lightness in Troy Sanders when we caught up with him via zoom at his home in Florida.
He had recently returned from Europe, and although Mastodon have another North American tour looming, for once there’s a small pocket of time where Sanders can simply exist outside the machinery of the band.
Mastodon ‘Your Ghost Again’ visual
The past year and a half has forced Mastodon through one of the most difficult periods in their 26 year history.
The departure and then passing of founding guitarist Brent Hinds left Sanders, Brann Dailor and Bill Kelliher carrying grief, unanswered questions and the weight of a history that couldn’t simply be wrapped into a neat statement.
Earlier this year, they finally addressed it through the documentary ‘The Mastodon in the Room’.
Now comes the other half of that process.
Mastodon’s tenth studio album, ‘Marrow Deep’, arrives this Friday through Loma Vista Recordings, and according to Sanders, finally speaking openly about the past has made it easier to step into whatever comes next.
‘I think so. We just wanted to address that. You know, all that had transpired internally in the band a year and a half ago, it kind of went. We just were we were just silent and quiet about it because we were working on writing an album. We were working through our own emotions. We were confused. We were sad, but we were energized to keep going.’
The Mastodon in the room
For a band that had spent decades living publicly, the silence became its own kind of weight.
‘We realized that we have a lot of fans around the world that are wondering what’s going on with the band. Why did that happen? Was it you who did what? You know, just so without getting detailed about it, we just wanted to make our statement and put it out to the world and try to be as authentic and transparent as we could be.’
It was to acknowledge it, pay respect to what had happened and create enough space to move forward.
‘Yeah, it was a a bit of a weight off the shoulders, just because that was a lot of weight on the damn shoulders, and it was nice to just be able to speak and hopefully do it. We you know classy and you know we weren’t trying to ever be ugly. It was just we just wanted to get it out there.’
‘Through The Sadness And Darkness, There’s A Lot Of Bright Future’
That distinction sits at the centre of ‘Marrow Deep’.
The record was born from grief and upheaval, but Sanders doesn’t talk about it like a funeral document, if anything, he sounds energised by what Mastodon have become.
The band are now operating as a five piece, with guitarist Nick Johnston joining Sanders, Dailor, Kelliher and keyboardist João Nogueira as part of the creative engine behind the album.
‘Let’s never belittle that situation, but just to to put it out there and really move on and let’s celebrate this record that we just spent two years working on and you know we’re a five piece now and our new guitar player Nick Johnston was super and he was super integral and and the creation of this new record.’
‘There’s a lot of through the sadness and darkness. There’s a lot of of bright future happening right now in our world, and we just really want to plow forward with that.’
That renewed chemistry wasn’t theoretical, Sanders can point to the exact moment it clicked.
During recording, he, Kelliher and Dailor were sitting together on a couch in the control room while Johnston and Nogueira worked through an idea on the floor in front of them.
What followed became the four minute outro that closes the record.
‘Nick had his acoustic and he sat down Indian style on the floor and was playing, and Juan had his small keyboard and he’s on his knees on the floor playing, and the two of them going back and forth, creating this whole, which is the outro of the record now.’
The three founding members watched it unfold.
‘The three of us on the couch looked down at them, and they were just going at it, like just boom, boom, boom, collaborate, collaborating, idea, idea, and we all just looked at each other like, holy sh*t, this is. The future, you know.’
That moment seems to have crystallised something important, this wasn’t Mastodon protecting its territory from new members, it was Mastodon opening the door.
‘It was at that moment with the three of us on the couch, them on the floor, that I knew this was f***ing awesome.’
Mastodon ‘In The Ruins’ video
Mastodon Aren’t Interested In Repeating Themselves
Twenty six years in, creative stagnation would be understandable, but Mastodon have never really operated that way.
From the sludge-soaked violence of ‘Remission’ and ‘Leviathan’ through the progressive sprawl of ‘Crack The Skye’, the melodic scale of ‘Emperor of Sand’ and the emotional breadth of ‘Hushed and Grim’, repetition has rarely been part of the blueprint.
Sanders says that instinct remains unchanged.
‘We’re not the kind of band that you know finds a formula and kind of repeats that from album to album. We we always want to, you know, never write the same album twice, and always explore new musical territories and find new sounds and layers and textures.’
With Johnston and Nogueira now fully involved, that impulse has fresh fuel.
‘I think we have the right chemistry between the five of us to continue that, and yeah, it’s super exciting. You know, no one is running out of ideas. The creative well is far from dry.’
For Sanders, the most significant part is that everyone appears to be pulling in the same direction.
‘We’re all aligned with the same fire and vision, and we just want to create music and want to play shows, and it’s cool to to to be a part of that and recognize it because it’s it’s rare.’
Nick Johnston Didn’t Come In Trying To Take Over
Johnston’s contribution to ‘Marrow Deep’ runs deeper than simply filling a vacant guitar position.
Sanders describes him as technically gifted but, perhaps more importantly, careful about how he entered an already complicated dynamic.
‘We knew he was very talented and capable guitar player, but he’s also very humble and didn’t want to impede too much on the writing.’
Rather than arriving with a stack of finished songs and forcing his identity onto Mastodon, Johnston brought fragments, ideas and instincts.
‘He didn’t come in and say, “Hey, I’ve got these 10 songs. He just came in with a lot of ideas, and sometimes he’d come in with something. We’re like, “Wow, that’s awesome! And all of us would just be like, “What is that? Let’s work on that.’
One of those moments became ‘They’re Coming For You’.
‘That is almost all Nick, and it’s just mind blowing.’
Mastodon ‘Snakes For Dinner’ video
He also reshaped ‘Snakes For Dinner’, bringing in an intro idea that immediately stuck.
‘He came in one day in the studio and says, “I came up with this intro idea last night. What do you think of this? We’re just like, “Holy sh*t! Not only he’s not just shredding to try to shred, but it’s like very it fits and it’s tasteful.’
That willingness to serve the song rather than the ego seems central to why Johnston has slotted into the band so naturally.
‘Everything that he touched just became better.’
Josh Homme Returns To Mastodon’s Orbit
‘Snakes For Dinner’ also carries another familiar voice.
Josh Homme appears on the track, marking his first appearance on a Mastodon recording since ‘Colony of Birchmen’ on 2006’s ‘Blood Mountain’.
The collaboration wasn’t overthought, according to Sanders, Dailor simply heard a space where Homme could fit.
‘I think it was our drummer Braun that said, “Hey, man, I could hear Josh maybe doing something really cool there to elevate that part and make it even more unique.’
Mastodon ‘Colony Of Birchmen’ video
So they asked.
‘He said. Hey, Josh got back to me immediately and said he’d love to.’
For Sanders, that sort of exchange is one of the benefits of having survived long enough in music to build genuine relationships.
‘It’s really complimentary when you reach out to ask someone if they have the time and energy and desire to collaborate in any form or fashion, and they all just. Yes, it’s it’s really cool.’
Success Still Means Having Somewhere To Play
Ask Sanders whether his definition of success has changed since Mastodon started and the answer is surprisingly grounded.
The original ambition wasn’t fame, awards or money, it was escaping day jobs.
‘I remember when our band started. We wanted our definition of success was to book enough shows that we could not have day jobs.’
More than two decades later, that metric hasn’t changed as much as you might expect.
‘I definitely don’t think anything financial would is is success.’
Instead, Sanders points back to the studio, five grown men still excited to work.
Still searching for something better than the version they had five minutes earlier.
‘I think looking back on this record we just recorded, success was seeing five grown men in a studio being happy and just wait, just clawing at the bit to collaborate and chime in and work there and help out there and retract this and make that better.’
The real test?
‘Does anybody want to come to our show still?’
For Sanders, that remains the ultimate measure.
‘I still do consider that the the success.’
Mastodon Want Australia Back On The Calendar
We last saw Mastodon at Good Things Festival in 2024, and Sanders clearly remembers the relationship.
When we asked whether another Australian visit could happen during the ‘Marrow Deep’ cycle, he doesn’t promise anything, but he doesn’t dodge it either.
‘With every album cycle, we always remind our booking agent to please keep Australia very high on the priority list.’
Mastodon have made the trip seven times by Sanders’ count, and he remains keen for an eighth.
‘Every time is phenomenal, and we have a great time. The crowds are amazing, the foods, the sights, the people, everything is wonderful.’
The timeframe?
‘We certainly hope, and we we intend on coming down as soon as possible, and we’re just very hopeful that it will be 27.’
Then comes perhaps the most Mastodon Australian touring story imaginable, Sanders remembers playing Soundwave in Sydney and returning to the dressing room area near the old horse stables.
There were cookies.
He ate a few.
Then someone informed him they contained weed.
‘And I was like, “Well, sh*t! And then about an hour later, my legs give out. I can’t walk. I’m stumbling everywhere. I tip forward, and I fall face first in a pile of horse sh*t.’
At the time, understandably, it wasn’t particularly funny.
‘I didn’t. My lost my control of my muscles, so I couldn’t laugh. But inside, I was like, “Oh my god, what the f**k is happening? This is hilarious.’
Friends eventually helped him back to the hotel and into the shower.
‘I was like, thank you for whoever brought these gifts to us. But damn it, let someone know, you know, put a little sign.’
Time has improved the memory.
‘At the moment, it was my worst, you know, moment of the seven Australian tours. But now it’s-I don’t consider it the worst. I think it’s one of the best.’
‘Something Beautiful Stemming From Something Very Dark’
For all the renewed energy surrounding Mastodon right now, ‘Marrow Deep’ still carries the emotional weight of what created it.
Sanders doesn’t pretend otherwise, he hopes casual listeners can latch onto the riffs, tones and strange corners of the record.
For long term Mastodon fans, though, he hopes it reaches somewhere deeper.
‘Hopefully they can find like some strength or some beauty in it because it was a record that was written out of really you know tragedy and and sadness and darkness.’
That darkness wasn’t planned, it simply became part of the material.
‘We tried to channel all these these emotions that we’ve been dealing with the past couple years, and we tried to channel it through the art that we call Mastodon, and try to put out something beautiful stemming from something very dark and sad.’
That might be the clearest way to understand ‘Marrow Deep’, not as a clean break with the past or as an attempt to erase anything.
But as five musicians taking grief, change and uncertainty and forcing it into something that still moves.
‘I just hope people can take something positive from it, and if they can take anything at all positive or beautiful or or bright, then that’d be great.’
For a band whose future once looked uncertain, that brightness feels significant.
And right now, Sanders sounds like someone who knows exactly how lucky that is.
Mastodon ‘Marrow Deep’ Track List:
- Barbarian’s Blood
- Poisonous Weapons
- Your Ghost Again
- Snakes For Dinner
- Out Like A Lamb
- In The Ruins
- They’re Coming For You
- Golden Spires
- Moth And Bone
- A Vampire’s Demeanor
- The Vanishing
- The Three Fates
Mastodon’s ‘Marrow Deep’ is out this Friday, August 28th via Loma Vista Recordings.
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