Mastodon recorded '20 rough songs' before Covid-19 and is now working on 'Bill and Ted Face the Music' song
Atlanta heavy metal veterans, Mastodon, are working on new music amid coronavirus quarantine. Guitarist Bill Kelliher, appeared on the latest episode of the RocknRoll Beer Guy podcast as the featured guest, discussing several topics, according to The PRP. Apart from talks on the current administration where he called Trump an "orange s**tstain," Kelliher, who is a landlord and property owner himself spoke about the current economic recession and the uncertainty the pandemic has brought upon the band's work.
He also shared on how Mastodon landed some cameos on 'Game Of Thrones', where they appeared in the finale of Season 7 as white walkers and as wildlings in Season 5. On the subject of the band's music, Kelliher revealed that they had 20 rough songs recorded before the Covid-19 outbreak. “We were kind of right in the middle of it and we had about, I don’t know, 20 rough songs recorded right before this hit. And it just totally put the brakes on it,” he said. “I’m actually leaving tomorrow for Atlanta, we’re gonna get back together and have our first kinda… try to get back into finishing a few things that we started and seeing where we get," he added.
When it came to their new album, he explained, "The new record, the stuff I’ve written is not quite as notey as that ['Emperor Of Sand']. It’s definitely got a more like Neurosis heaviness. Like simplified guitar parts and Brann [Dailor] has been doing a lot of…He also demos most of the vocal ideas because he always has melodies and stuff like that and he’s been singing on a lot of it — at least for the demo purposes."
He continued, "The vocals are kind of like an 'Asleep In The Deep' style, kind of Radiohead-ish almost, real melodic. Just a lot of vocal harmonies. When I think back about it, even though we’ve got like 20-25 songs, we still don’t have all of Brent [Hinds]’s songs in there yet. And there’s still a lot of time for that stuff to change and to morph into other stuff."
"There’s a couple of old riffs — cause I’m constantly writing…I may write a hundred riffs a week but only one of them is any good…I wrote some stuff years ago that I sent to Troy [Sanders] and he took it upon himself to throw down some vocals on it and spun it back to me the other day and I was very surprised. It was a pleasant surprise. I was like wow man, this sounds really eerie. Like really dark and eerie and cool. Like I never expected [him] to do anything with it…" he said.
He concluded by saying that "Troy’s trying to be more involved. Everybody has their place, their part in the band," and added, "I don’t know, every record is just a little bit different on how it gets written or who writes the majority or whose songs make it on the record or what not."
Fans can expect more music on the way, as Kelliher also revealed that Mastodon wrote a song for 'Bill & Ted Face The Music', the third installment in the 'Bill & Ted film franchise. “We got asked, like a couple months ago, to be a part of the new Bill & Ted movie, to put a song in there,” he said, adding, “So we wrote a song to be in that movie which we’re kinda of wrapping up now. It’s pretty fun.”