MASTODON's TROY SANDERS: 'We're Free To Float On Any Musical Waters We Choose'

Brendan Crabb (a.k.a. Spiritech) of PyroMusic.net recently conducted an interview with vocalist/bassist Troy Sanders of Atlanta progressive metallers MASTODON. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

PyroMusic.net: To me, ["Crack the Skye"] seems to be an album with a lot of contrasts. You've got the more psychedelic, otherworldly ideas included, but then you've got the parallels, such as detailing the death of Brann's (Dailor, drums) sister. Was it an intentional thing, to try and keep things grounded while also taking it into the stratosphere?

Troy Sanders: Yeah, you got it exactly right. Like the constellations, we like to create patterns and tell stories. Creating stories for us is... telling the story is parallel with our band and personal lives and experiences. It's left literal that way and it allows us to create these stories and create a broader picture. Again, I like to use the word multi-dimensional. We like to have that in our sound and our stories. So, it's a way for us to get personal as well as more mystical. So yes, it was very much on purpose and very meticulously thought out, over and over again.

PyroMusic.net: The band obviously has a fondness for concept albums, going back to "Leviathan". Do you think with "Crack the Skye" you've taken the concept record prospect as far as you can?

Troy Sanders: Well, "Crack the Skye", it was based around the element of ether. So that kind of... you know, "Leviathan" was water, "Remission" was fire, "Blood Mountain" was elements of earth and now "Crack the Skye" is literally surrounding the element of ether, the dark matter that dominates the universe, you know, outside of our atmosphere. So the book of elements, the chapters are complete and now we can close the book of elements. Where this leads us, we don't know yet, but having a themes throughout our past four records has definitely worked for us. Whether we'll continue on that path, it's too early to tell.

PyroMusic.net: The album has a lot of nuances and requires many listens to fully appreciate. Having gone as far as you have with the progressive influences on this record, would the band ever consider stripping things back somewhat and going for a more straightforward hard rock sound on a future record?

Troy Sanders: You know, every... all of our music is very, it's not really predetermined. None of our ideas are predetermined. We don't get together and go, "Hey, guys, let's put out a brutally heavy album next," or "Hey, guys, let's have a couple of short and sweet songs." It never happens like that. It just, we just let the authenticity reveal itself. Whatever emotions come through our souls and out of our fingers and through our instruments and into our ears, that circle just comes very naturally. Whoever's got an idea, whoever's got a feeling, we just kinda lay it on the table and then begin to elaborate on that and then we go through it meticulously, over and over until we write what we consider a good song. Then we'll do that until we feel we have an album's worth of material. So nothing is talked about or preconceived at all. The musical waters, we're free to float on any musical waters we choose and I have no idea where this band is... I have no idea where this band's sound is moving towards. When we're done touring the "Crack the Skye" record, we'll go home, rejuvenate our batteries both mentally and physically and then we'll go down to our space, our practice space and just start hashing out whatever ideas people have that we've collected along the way. So it's a big question mark.

PyroMusic.net: Having that kind of approach towards songwriting, at what point did the idea to incorporate more clean vocals into "Crack the Skye" come into the equation?

Troy Sanders: Well, the music was deeper and darker and more personal than anything we've ever created. It was very spacious... a lot of parts were extremely layered and some parts were very spacious. We realized the music not only called for, but demanded better vocals on top to complement the sound of the music itself. So it was nice for us to finally sit back and concentrate as much on vocal melodies, patterns and sounds as much energy as we've spent on the music. We felt like we really needed to step that up and have the vocal lines and patterns match the integrity of the music that we had created. So it just seemed obvious that we needed to step up our game vocally. Create melody and patterns and attempt to create a record that would have a very long-lasting life.

Read the entire interview from PyroMusic.net.