T
Make You Stronger
hat which doesn ’ t kill you will only make you stronger , goes the old maxim . But in the case of sludgeheavy prog-metal quartet Mastodon , mortality can occasionally offer a surprising new strength , as well . As in the recent honor bestowed upon the group by Dan Weiss , the executive producer of HBO ’ s hit series Game of Thrones , who not only included its song “ White Walker ” on the soundtrack , but actually invited the members to appear as feral Wildlings in Season Five last year , who were then – in one of the show ’ s bloodiest battle-scene episodes ever – murdered , and resurrected as undead White Walkers themselves . That much stronger , and more wickedly determined than ever to breach that civilization ’ s monolithic protective wall .
“ It was definitely a cool experience for everybody involved ,” declares Mastodon bassist Troy Sanders , who was unable to attend the tapings in Northern Ireland . “ And whenever we play Belfast , Dan comes to our show , even though he ’ s incredibly busy . But he just loves Mastodon , loves the band , and he ’ s a really sweet guy , and he wears a Mastodon shirt all the time – I ’ ve seen him in it on television shows . So it was just a really cool connection , and for Wildlings , I think our band fits in nicely .” Why didn ’ t he accept Weiss ’ remarkable offer ? “ I guess it ’ s all a hush-hush thing or whatever ,” he starts to explain , then catches himself . “ Wait – are you talking about last year ?” he gulps . That ’ s right – the White Walkers are an army of zombies , still on their mission of conquest . Which means ….” Wellll …. I ’ m not supposed to talk about it -- whoops !” he chuckles . Perhaps Game of Thrones fans will have to pause their DVRs once more to catch glimpses of cataract-eyed ex-
By Tom Lanham photos by Jimmy Hubbard
Wildlings Brann Dailor , Brent Hinds , and Bill Kelliher ( already so bearded and burly that they couldn ’ t have required that much makeup ) marching en masse across a frozen wasteland this upcoming season . Given the cone of silence surrounding the program ’ s future plotlines , Sanders has already said too much .
Then the Atlanta native begins talking about the reason he , personally , didn ’ t jet to Belfast , even though his wife insisted he go . He had front-row tickets that particular day to see the latest Cirque Du Soleil performance with her and their two children , and witnessing such magical entertainment with his family , up close , meant much more to him at the time . “ So I ’ ll take another sunset with my kids over an amazing opportunity like that any day ,” he says , not intending to sound ungrateful . “ So sometimes great opportunities come my way that I take , sometimes great opportunities come my way that I pass on . And I ’ m fortunate enough to have that be a problem – having a great opportunity that I can say no thank you to , and Game of Thrones is arguably the best show on TV .” He pauses . “ But you know , we just wrote a record on the idea of time , and what it means ….”
And therein hangs the real tale , revolving around not only mortality , but overcoming human frailty with indomitable will power and inner strength . As parables go , they don ’ t come much darker than Emperor of Sand , Mastodon ’ s new seventh studio effort , with said Emperor representing the Grim Reaper who – in thundering Track One – levies upon the unwitting protagonist a “ Sultan ’ s Curse ,” which haunts him through his travels / travails across a morally-ambiguous desert of “ Precious Stones ,” a “ Steambreather ,” an “ Ancient Kingdom ,” eliciting the “ Why me ?” questioning of “ Clandestiny ,” the star-gazing of “ Andromeda ” ( featuring Brutal Truth ’ s Kevin Sharp ) and the threat of “ Scorpion Breath ” ( with Scott Kelly of Neurosis ) before finally finding some sort of mystical South American peace in a closing “ Jaguar God .” The dirges were inspired by a subject far more serious than the group ’ s usual heady dissertations – the unexpected diagnosis of cancer that hit a loved one of each band member over the past two years , starting with the brain cancer that slowly took the life of Kelliher ’ s mother , while he watched , horrified and helpless as the disease swiftly progressed . Sanders is fairly private , and he doesn ’ t like oversharing on social media . So he isn ’ t revealing which person in his own family was affected . But the experience – both alone and collectively , as a group – was quite harrowing , and it could only find release in cathartic songwriting , with the bassist himself providing a good deal of the metaphorical lyrics .
Mastodon is no stranger to concept albums . Its second adventurous outing , Leviathan , was a reimagining of Melville ’ s Moby Dick opus , before the band broke through to Grammy-nominated territory with 2006 ’ s brains-meets-brawn Blood Mountain , leading to a line of Vans skate shoes featuring the eldritch cover artwork , and more recently , its own special craft beers , including Mother Puncher from Denmark ’ s Keller Brewery , Germany ’ s The Hunter from Mars Brau , and a Crack the Skye run from Chicago ’ s Three Floyds company . “ If you would have asked us a handful of years ago if there was a certain level of success we were shooting for , we would have said , ‘ If we could have our own shoe and our own beer ,’” Sanders says . “ And now we ’ ve got five different beers , and we ’ ve had multiple album-art images on shoes . So to us ? We ’ ve made it . We set the goals high , but we did it , damn it !”
Otherwise , the artist sighs , he ’ s been rolling with the punches , thinking positive , and letting his droll sense of humor buoy his spirits in such grim circumstances . And he and his fellow members found solace in the studio , creating the fable of their Emperor of Sand , Or rather , letting the story imagine itself into existence . “ The four of us have been living these experiences deeply over the past two years ,” he says . “ And that ’ s what we were writing . When we showed up to band practice , we let that current of emotion flow through our fingers and into the instruments , and through the amps and onto the recording tape . That ’ s how we build songs .”
That ’ s what led to the record ’ s most crucial track , “ Clandestiny ,” he adds . For any cancer patient , “ You find this thing inside you and you say , ‘ What ’ s in me ?,’ and then you go and get a cancer diagnosis . And you still wonder , ‘ Why is this a part of my fate ?’ So we wrote that song about the fact that it ’ s part of your destiny , but it ’ s been dwelling dormant inside of you , silent all your life , and only now it ’ s arising . So you have to try to wrap your head around something like that , and that ’ s affected all of us this year . We ’ re kind of blown away by how four of our loved ones are dealing with this horrible thing called cancer – it ’ s affecting lives and taking lives , and that was very brutally on our minds every single day we showed up for band practice . So that was going to come out naturally in the music .”
Kelliher ’ s mother was something of a matron to the whole group , Sanders
Continued on page 26
22 illinoisentertainer . com march 2017