Mastodon Likely to Begin Writing a New Album Next Year
I know it doesn’t feel like it, but did anyone else just realize that it’s been two years since Mastodon released their double album Hushed and Grim? Because that’s how long it’s been since we got new Mastodon tunes. I mean, it makes sense given how much they’ve been touring lately, but still.
Well, according to recent comments made by guitarist Bill Kelliher during the Guitar Summit in Mannheim, Germany (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), the work on a follow up to Hushed and Grim could be kicking off pretty soon. As in early next year, after the band’s stint on the Headbangers Boat and a following South American tour with Gojira come to an end.
“Hopefully when that’s over, December and in the beginning of next year, we can start sitting down and actually riffing out and writing a new record. Because it’s already time to — it’s past time to write a new record, even though Hushed and Grim was a double album, and I feel like there’s a lot more juice for the squeeze of that record, but we just haven’t — because of COVID, we didn’t tour enough on it. We haven’t done a proper European tour. There’s a lot of places we’ve missed and it’s, it’s hard these days to get out and tour because everything has changed.”
Later on in the interview, Kelliher drilled down into the band’s plans on writing the new record, saying that he’s already begun working on some riffs and whatnot to get the process started.
“The answer to your question is yeah, next year we are gonna write a new record, and I’ve already started writing and I’m very excited about it. It’s a nice time. It’s just — I guess what I’m getting at is, like, it’s already time to write a new record and take time off when my wife’s, like, ‘You need to get out there and work. You guys haven’t worked in the past three years. You’ve only done a month a year.’ It’s not a lot of time out there. But I’m, like, yeah, well, the world is upside down and the gas prices are crazy. And everybody’s on tour trying to make back their money from the lost wages. And it’s a mess. But I’m not gonna let it stop me from writing the next right-turn record.”
As for the rest of the interview, Kelliher talks about a range of topics, including how hard it’s become to tour and how COVID robbed the band of being able to properly debut some new songs off Hushed and Grim. You can check all that out and more in the interview below.
