Is there new Mastodon in our immediate future? According to guitarist and vocalist Bill Kelliher, there might be!
In an interview with The Metal Voice, Kelliher said he'd like to get a new song out sometime either before or during Mastodon's upcoming tour with Gojira and Lorna Shore. Kelliher said he's always writing new music and now owns his own studio, so getting a song written and recorded isn't out of the question.
"Yeah, there's no like shut off valve for writing and riff writing and stuff like that," he said. "It's always happening. I'm always writing. Seventy-five percent of my day I'm usually playing guitar and I'm always writing stuff. I got lots of ideas. We're trying to be ambitious enough to write a song before we leave for this next Gojira tour and have it come out at some point during the tour, before the tour, [or] in between the two legs.
"I'm always assembling riffs. I've got a few skeleton ideas. I'm definitely eager and really ready to get started writing the next record. There's no shortage of ideas. We still have a lot of creativity left in our band. We're all 100% committed to our band, so as soon as we get home from this touring cycle, I'm ready to show the guys some of the stuff I got.
"I own a recording studio and that's where we did our last record, so it was really easy just to book some time there and just go down [there] when we feel like being creative. It's just different now that we have our own studio. Instead of having to book time and then you're on a schedul, it's like you're always looking at the clock. I feel like now we're just we can be more creative and take our time."
When asked what genre the new song might be, or if Mastodon would ever change direction into something completely new, Kelliher gave a surprising answer. Kelliher said Mastodon has talked about doing everything from a straight up punk album to some more ambient stuff, later adding that the band has "a lot of stuff on the horizon."
"I don't know. I mean, we've talked about doing like a punk rock album where it's much quicker, faster, straight to the punch kind of really fast music. We've talked about doing that. We've talked about rock operas, we've talked about soundscapes. There's still a lot of stuff that we have to explore and there's a lot of places in the planet we haven't been to yet. We're not throwing in the towel by any means. We got a lot of stuff on the horizon and things that we need to check off the list."
Catch Mastodon, Gojira, and Lorna Shore at one of the dates below.
4/18 Portland, OR Veterans Memorial Coliseum [Tickets]
4/20 Concord, CA Concord Pavilion [Tickets]
4/21 Los Angeles, CA The Forum [Tickets]
4/22 Phoenix, AZ AZ Federal Theatre [Tickets]
4/23 Las Vegas, NV Virgin [Tickets]
4/26 Dallas, TX The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory [Tickets]
4/28 Houston, TX 713 Music Hall [Tickets]
4/29 Austin, TX Moody Center [Tickets]
4/30 Oklahoma City, OK Zoo Amphitheatre [Tickets]
5/2 Nashville, TN Municipal Auditorium [Tickets]
5/4 Boca Raton, FL Sunset Cove Amphitheater [Tickets]
5/5 St. Augustine, FL St. Augustine Amphitheatre [Tickets]
5/6 Atlanta, GA Ameris Bank Amphitheatre [Tickets]
5/7 Asheville, NC Harrah’s Cherokee Center [Tickets]
5/9 Richmond, VA Virginia Credit Union Live [Tickets]
5/10 Baltimore, MD Pier Six Pavilion [Tickets]
5/11 Reading, PA Santander Arena [Tickets]
8/9 Cincinnati, OH MegaCorp Pavilion [Tickets]
8/10 Cleveland, OH Jacob’s Pavilion [Tickets]
8/11 Pittsburgh, PA Stage AE Outdoors [Tickets]
8/12 New York, NY Coney Island Amphitheater [Tickets]
8/13 Syracuse, NY OneCenter [Tickets]
8/15 Detroit, MI Masonic Temple [Tickets]
8/17 Toronto, ON RBC Echo Beach [Tickets]
8/18 Montreal, QC Place Bell [Tickets]
8/19 Portland, ME Cross Insurance Arena [Tickets]
8/20 Boston, MA MGM Music Hall [Tickets]
8/23 Milwaukee, WI BMO Pavilion [Tickets]
8/25 Hammond, IN Horseshoe [Tickets]
8/26 Omaha, NE Westfair Amphitheater [Tickets]
8/27 Minneapolis, MN Waite Park Amphitheater [Tickets]
8/29 St. Louis, MO The Factory [Tickets]
8/30 Kansas City, MO Azura Amphitheater [Tickets]
9/1 Salt Lake City, UT USANA Amphitheater [Tickets]
9/2 Denver, CO Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater [Tickets]
