Metalsucks Interviews Machine Head and Mastodon
August 28, 2008 by Scott
Axl and Vince over at Metalsucks interviewed Phil Demmel (Machine Head) and Troy Sanders (Mastodon) at Mayhem fest (Badass concert) a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been waiting for their lazy asses to transcribe them already and finally they did. Here are excerpts from each, but if you want to read the entire interview then you’ll have to follow the links over to Metalsucks.net.
With Phil Demmel of Machine Head:
Wow. How does it feel to have been a part of an album that’s been so well received by old fans, new fans, and the press? Everyone seems to have just really climbed on top of this album and loved it…
I’m proud of it, man. I am, because it was a long writing process and the recording process… it seemed like nobody wanted us to finish this record. Problems just kept coming up with gear, the studio, ProTools and everything. I mean anyone who’s an artist wants their art to be liked, so it’s like redemption because I joined this band when it was at its lowest point. It’s been like an escalator ever since. It hasn’t stopped. I’m playing with the guys that I’ve always wanted to play with. They’re my favorite band, and to be able make music like this makes me really proud.
With Troy Sanders od Mastodon
So is the new album more in that hard rock direction as well?
I think most of our new material is going to be more under the rock category, but it’s pretty epic and involved, extremely layered, broad, melodic, dark, and creepy. When we met up with Brendan, he had heard some of our demos and he liked some of the rock elements that we had with our stuff. We told him that we were interested in recording, quote, “a classic rock record that will hopefully have a long shelf life and have solid songs from start to finish, and that will live a lot longer than just listening to it a few times and shelving it.” Our favorite records of all time that we always constantly revisit in our own collection are by bands like Journey, Yes, King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Kansas, and all the shit that we grew up with and were inspired by and continue to revisit. We kind of wanted to attempt to capture a record like that, [at least] in our eyes and ears. The stars had aligned perfectly because Brendan’s a perfect match, a funny dude and a great musician who has an amazing ear. He can pick out little things that we can try to do that we hadn’t even thought of before, whether it be vocally or sonically with the guitars or something. So it is going to be more of a rock kind of Count Chocula-meets-Deep Purple thing. That’s kind of what we’re saying. We finish that record in September. There’s currently not a title, other song titles aren’t confirmed, and that’s all we can really say about that record now because we’re not going to spoil the element of mystery.
