Troy Sanders says the biggest thing about Mastodon‘s new album is not a riff or a lyric — it is the fact that, for the first time in the band’s history, five people made it together.
The singer and bassist spoke to Jai “Jaimunji” Setright of Australia’s “Metal On Tap” about Marrow Deep, out August 28 through Loma Vista Recordings. It is the band’s ninth album, their first since 2021’s Hushed And Grim, and their first as a five-piece, with guitarist Nick Johnston and keyboardist João Nogueira, the latter of The Claypool Lennon Delirium, now folded into the lineup. It also marks a new home for the band, who signed to Loma Vista after around two decades with Reprise.
Sanders made clear the record has been finished for the better part of a year, and that the wait has been its own kind of test. He said: (as transcribed by Blabbermouth):
“We’re excited for this thing to come out. It’s been maybe five years since our last record, Hushed And Grim. We spent a year working on the demo portions of this, and then another year really honing in, the writing and recording. And we finished it, like, eight or nine months ago, so we’ve been sitting on it for a while, so we’re all very, very excited to let go and get it out there. So anyone that cares can have a listen.”
He was candid about the perfectionism that can keep a band tinkering forever, reaching for a painter’s metaphor to explain why you eventually have to stop:
“I’ve been asked before, like, ‘[Is there] any album of your career that you would take back if you could change something about it?’ And there’s always a — well, of course, because, like, ‘Oh, the bass could’ve been sounding better,’ or ‘that intro could’ve gone way longer,’ whatever. Always. But at some point you gotta relinquish the power and be, like, like when do you tell an artist who’s oil on canvas, like, when do you tell him to put the brushes down? So, yeah, you could keep writing it for — I don’t know — whether it’s [being a] perfectionist or just, like… you could always keep going. There’s another layer. You could try that again and try to have a better performance vocally or get a better bass tone or whatever it is. You could just keep chasing probably for infinity. So, yeah, you gotta put the brushes down.”
Sanders walked through how the songs came together — a slow accumulation that picked up sharply once the band knew it had to start recording. Guitarist Bill Kelliher, he explained, is always writing on the road:
“Our guitar player, Bill Kelliher, he brings a Pro Tools rig on the road with us, and he is constantly writing. And I think it kind of really picked up around 2024. We did a North American tour with Lamb Of God. We called it the ‘Ashes Of Leviathan‘ tour, and during that tour is what I remember, like, starting to really put more attention on writing, ’cause we knew we needed to stop touring on Hushed And Grim and get going with some new stuff. And then, of course, in the first half of 2025, we spent a lot of time demoing songs. We had, like, 32 skeletons of songs, which was awesome, but it was too much. And we’re, like, ‘How do we dwindle this down?’ And we started demoing in Bill’s basement. He’s got a small studio in his home, and we just demoed a whole bunch of stuff, which led to honing in on that even more. We ultimately started recording the album in September of ’25, so it’s been nearly a year since we started recording this thing. So the writing was kind of hit or miss. It was constant for the past couple of years, because someone’s always collecting riffs, lyrical ideas, et cetera. But the writing really ramps up as you’re gearing towards, ‘We need to record.'”
The album’s guiding concept came from drummer Brann Dailor, who suggested building it around the Three Fates of Greek mythology — the deities who spin, measure and cut the thread of every human life. Sanders found the theme fit the band’s own situation almost too neatly, and used the question to talk about what the two newest members brought:
“Our drummer Brann Dailor had the idea to get into some mythology on this record and have the three fates be the overlying theme, if you will. [It’s] probably a coincidence that there’s the three core guys in myself, Bill and Brann. But it kind of perfectly encapsulates everything that we’re feeling and thinking and doing, from the past, the now and the moving forward. So to me, it makes perfect sense, and it’s genius the way that Brann kind of put those pieces together. And on top of that, we’ve got our keyboard player that’s been touring with us for five years. His name is João Nogueira. He’s all over the new record, and he collaborated on tons of this stuff. And our new guitar player, Nick Johnston, we’ve been touring the world with him for a year and a half now. He had a lot to contribute to this new record with riffs, solos, full songs. And ultimately it felt very… To me, it felt kind of triumphant that we had five guys in the studio with really a renewed sense of energy and purpose, and all five people very aligned, present in the room, waiting to collaborate or chip in or record this bit or change that, and just be a part of this collective. I do feel like this is obviously a different record in our career because we’ve been a four-piece forever, and now we’re a five-piece with a new guitar player. And just having the energy involved making it was probably my most proud moment of the record. It’s not anything per se on the album, but just the energy of making it through all this up and down and all this unknown. I didn’t feel that way while it was happening, but it took a little while after to realize, like, ‘Oh yeah.’ We were all in that studio for the five weeks all together, all on the same page and very aligned. It was pretty special. Ot took me a minute to see that.”
When Setright remarked that it was good to see the new members shaping the album, Sanders framed that openness as a deliberate choice — and one that separates this record from an easier path the three founders could have taken:
“Anyone that’s got a good idea and if they’re excited about it, then, like, let’s explore that, because energy and excitement is where good things can happen.”
He went on:
“Some bands, they can find this really cool formula and they can kind of repeat that, and that’s awesome. The three of us did not wanna be, like, ‘Hey, this is a new album. The three of us are gonna kind of put this album together.’ Thankfully it wasn’t like that because we want these extra layers and these extra textures and sounds and involvement. So having piano and keys and organ all over the record takes it to another level. Having all the guest vocalists and percussionists on the album helps add these other flavors. Of course Nick‘s playing, it’s very Mastodon-ish, but it’s different, and it feels like this next proper step of our own evolution. So it’s cool. It was cool to see it unfold, as a member of the band and a fan of the band. It was pretty exciting, actually.”
Marrow Deep was co-produced by Mastodon at their own West End Sound in Atlanta with Patrik Berger (Lana Del Rey, Charli XCX) and Kurt Ballou (High On Fire, Converge), and mixed by Andrew Scheps (Adele, Black Sabbath, Metallica). Its lead single, “Snakes For Dinner“, features Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme — his first appearance on a Mastodon track since 2006’s “Colony Of Birchmen” — and is one of a number of guest turns across the album.
The new lineup follows the loss of a founding member. Brent Hinds left Mastodon in March 2025 and died in a motorcycle accident five months later, at 51; Johnston stepped into his place. Hinds had been the band’s lead guitarist and one of its vocalists since 2000, alongside Sanders, Dailor and Kelliher.
Mastodon will mark the release with “The Poisonous Weapons Tour“, a nationwide run with Deafheaven and Alcest in support. It opens September 16 in Orlando and works its way across the country before finishing October 24 at Sick New World in Dallas.
