Mastodon drummer Brann Dailor recently sat down with Blabbermouth to talk about his vocal contribution to King Ultramega, the Soundgarden tribute act fronted by Metal Allegiance‘s Mark Menghi — and the conversation quickly turned to where Mastodon stands now, with a new album finished, a new guitarist in the fold, and the shadow of Brent Hinds‘s August 2025 death still present in everything the band does.
Dailor told Blabbermouth: “I just see myself as more of a drummer, but I’ve always sung my whole life. I was always in the ‘select’ choir. I could always do it, and I’d open my mouth in the van and sing along to Stevie Wonder and Iron Maiden and all of that stuff. I could do a pretty good King Diamond and Ozzy [Osbourne], so I’d be up there and singing and Brent was listening intently and at a certain point, he was like, ‘You got to start singing, dude, I’m sorry.’ In approaching something like this with Chris Cornell, which is kind of a bluegrass thing, that’s way out of my wheelhouse, and he’s really going for it, full-on Chris Cornell vocal prowess on full display. So it was really intimidating to consider doing it, much like a ‘Stairway to Heaven’ [Led Zeppelin]. But I looked at it as a pretty cool opportunity to sink my teeth into something I wouldn’t normally do.”
On the personal weight the “Dead Wishes” cover carried, Dailor added: “I brought my mom in because she was a big fan of Chris Cornell and Soundgarden from the beginning. I remember her listening to this song and being like, ‘Oh, that’s different for Chris.’ When I got asked to do it, I listened to the song and I was like, ‘Wow. It’s cool. It’s different from something I would have done.’ I thought of my mom. She passed a few months ago. I was like, ‘She would be over the moon about this. She would love it so much. I’m going to dig in and do my absolute best.’”
When Blabbermouth asked whether he’d want to front a band of his own, Dailor said it would have to come with a character: “For my synth band, Arcadia, I’ll do that. We put out a video for the song ‘Fuzzy Planet’. I’m this kind of debonair clown in the video. I could do it if I could be a character. I don’t know if I could just walk out there, just me, pick out a cool jacket to wear from H&M. [Laughs] Phil Collins, he took his shirt off, he put on some white overalls, like the ‘everyman’ and got out there and was blue collar. To answer your question, I would do it, but I would have to be another person.”
The biggest news: the new Mastodon album is done. “Our new album is finished as of last week,” Dailor said. “There would be some new music very soon. We’re very excited about it. It was a hard record to make. It was a very emotional time for us. I lost my mom, we went through all this turmoil with Brent, and then he passed away. It’s been tough. It’s all in the music, it’s all in the songs, and I’m excited to release it and get it out there into the world because we’ve been sitting on it for a while. A lot of this stuff, at least the skeletons of what this album is, we’ve been sitting on for two years now. A lot was going on.”
On the back-to-back losses that shaped the record, Dailor said: “I really thought that this record was going to be without any loss. I’m like, ‘We can concentrate on mythological creatures again. We don’t have to go down these roads of unpacking a grief cycle.’ No, we got a two-fer. That’s life. As you start getting older, you start losing your loved ones. Tomorrow is not promised. We’re trying to make the best of it and try to figure out what happened to us this past year, so that’s what the new album is going to reveal.”
On Hinds‘s absence from the sessions and the way things ended between them: “Toward the end, unfortunately, it was hard to get him to come down to the space. He was interested in doing other stuff, which was fine. It was a confusing time. [Laughs] I was the one going, ‘Come on, man. Come down. Let’s riff.’ He was a free spirit. He wanted to ride his motorcycle around and do this and that. He was wherever the wind took him. Unfortunately, it was not down to the practice space to work on riffs.”
“I’m sad the way things ended. Nobody wanted that. I always thought the future version would be coming back together and be like, ‘Dude, what the fuck? All that shit?’ It’s really sad that it’s not a possibility. I’m still here, and the other guys are still here, and we are still as dedicated as ever to Mastodon, to this musical project that we started 26 years ago.”
New guitarist Nick Johnston has since completed the album with the remaining trio of Dailor, bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders, and guitarist Bill Kelliher. Dailor on the choice of Johnston: “He’s not trying to be Brent. There’s never going to be another Brent, obviously. He broke the mold, as they say. [Laughs] He was the wild, wild dude. I loved him to death. We had a really close musical relationship.”
“With the search for a new guitar player, Nick was always sort of in the back of my mind because I liked his style. He has an interesting style. I was always looking for the yin and the yang with Bill. Bill‘s the riff guy and plays all the heavy stuff, and I loved the combination of him and Brent. Brent was the chicken-picking and all that. Nick is very much like that. He’s proggy and in a whole other world of guitar playing, and combined with Bill, makes for something really interesting. And he’s such a sweetheart and a nice, down-to-earth guy. He’s a great person and an incredible player. Holy shit, the stuff he pulls off is really amazing, and you wouldn’t know it by meeting him because he’s such a humble guy. He just wants to do an awesome job, preserve Brent‘s memory more than ever now, and get closer to the solos in how they are supposed to be played. I think some of Brent‘s solos are really iconic like that. They deserve to be played as close to the emotion that Brent put in them as possible. Nick is doing that. The new stuff: Nick brings a whole different flair to his solo sections, but I can also hear the homages to Brent. I loved that he was able to do that, fold it in, and bring some of Brent‘s personality and what he did for us in Mastodon to the band.”
The post MASTODON’s BRANN DAILOR: “Our New Album Is Finished as of Last Week… It Was a Very Emotional Time for Us” appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.
