MASTODON To Guest On MTV2's 'Headbangers Ball'

November 4, 2009

Atlanta progressive metallers MASTODON will guest on "Headbangers Ball" on Saturday, December 19.

"Headbangers Ball" airs Saturday nights/Sunday mornings at 2:00 a.m. ET/PT on MTV2.

MASTODON performed the song "Divinations" live on the October 30 edition of NBC-TV's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon". Watch video of the performance below.

MASTODON has written the score to "Jonah Hex", the comic-book Western/horror film starring Josh Brolin in the lead role, with support from John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Will Arnett, Michael Fassbender and Michael Shannon. The movie is based on the DC comic series about a horribly scarred antihero who is "a rough-and-tumble gunslinger and part-time bounty hunter whose adventures always ended in blood."

MASTODON guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds makes a cameo appearance in the film, which is being directed by former Pixar animator Jimmy Hayward for a June 18, 2010 release.

As MASTODON bassist Troy Sanders told Paste magazine, creating a film score wasn't entirely different from the band's usual songwriting process. "Since day one, we've always written albums thinking the music was the score of a movie," Sanders said. "Then we'll create the lyrics or story line on top of that, as if we're writing the dialogue to match the movie's cinematography."

Regarding how much the band was paid to contribute to the film, Sanders revealed it was "basically nothing."

"[The movie budget] covered our studio fees, but it was a break even deal," he said. "Malkovich, Brolin and Megan Fox all took pay cuts to be a part of this movie — that alone speaks volumes about how much people care about this film."

"I guarantee an incredibly popular misconception will be, 'Oh my god, they're selling out doing a fucking comic-book movie. They probably got a huge paycheck and don't give a shit about integrity,'" Sanders continued. "The fact is the exact opposite. We sacrificed another two weeks away from home to give away an album's worth of material for nothing in return but satisfaction in being a part of something incredible."

MASTODON wrote about an hour's worth of music, all instrumental, including five full songs and many smaller musical themes adapted throughout. Some of the material, Sanders said, will likely be adapted for the London Orchestra for particularly epic scenes. "We wrote variations on themes for each character, different variables for a bunch of riffs: faster, slower, heavier, lighter," Sanders said. "It's the Darth Vader approach."

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).