One year after the death of former Mastodon guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds, the band is preparing to release a new record. It’s their first without the late founding member, who left on bad terms just months before his tragic death from a motorcycle accident.
Now, Mastodon drummer Brann Dailor has offered some new insight into the “anguish” they collectively felt over Hinds’ death. “It’s hard [to explain] the pain and the anguish of losing someone in those circumstances,” Dailor told NME.
“This is someone we were so close with, and while we left on bad terms, we all thought that we were going to bury the hatchet at one point. I had hope that he was going to come back into the fold,” he added.
Brent Hinds passed away in August 2025 after the motorcycle he was riding collided with another vehicle
“When that [hope] had gone, it felt like the best thing for our group just to lean on each other during that moment and prop each other up with music,” Dailor continued. “There was no scenario where any of us wanted the record to be about any of that stuff, and I’d trade every riff and every lyric to get those people back… but that’s not the reality of it.”
Finally, he added, “So the best thing that we could do for ourselves and our mental state was to power through and write about it. Marrow Deep is the culmination of that.”
‘Marrow Deep’ is the first Mastodon album without Hinds
Speaking very personally, Dailor also shared, “I miss Brent. I want him to be here as much as the person who wants him back the most, but I’m also a human being who expresses himself through art and music, and I have been putting every single thing I have artistically into Mastodon for almost 27 years.
He went on to say, “It’s the same with Bill [Kelliher, guitarist] and with Troy [Sanders, bassist]. There is no shortage of ideas and no shortage of passion. We still want to play live, write music, and put music out there. Now if people don’t want to listen to it, that’s totally fine, but Mastodon is still very much alive.”
Mastodon will release Marrow Deep, their ninth studio album, on Aug. 28.
The post Mastodon Drummer Brann Dailor Opens up About the ‘Anguish’ of Losing Brent Hinds: ‘We Thought We Were Going To Bury the Hatchet’ appeared first on VICE.
