Mastodon Almost Didn't Survive

It looks as though Mastodon will begin the next decade as the most important band in heavy metal. The guys are on top of the world right now with the recent release of their phenomenal fourth album, Crack The Skye. But life hasn't always been so grand for the Atlanta, Ga. quartet.

Here's the part where guitarist Bill Kelliher and I talked about the rough road that the band had to travel in the past year or two to get to where they are today. But this isn't the same "my girlfriend dumped me, our label is ripping us off and my bandmates are assholes" type of whining.

Things began to go downhill for the band in September 2007 outside of an MTV Video Awards after-party. Singer/guitarist Brent Hinds was involved in a fight that resulted in him being hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage that nearly killed him. After being in a coma for three days, Hinds came through and despite being bedridden for the next eight months, he was inspired and began writing music.

Unfortunately for Kelliher and the rest of Mastodon, that was only the beginning of a long and painful series of events that plagued them.

"We were all riding pretty high for a while and that kind of put us in our place," said Kelliher of Hinds' injury. "We were vulnerable. We're not made of steel.

"I got sick myself and I was in the hospital. I was in London, it was on the Slayer tour — like five, six days in, and basically my stomach said 'No, no more.' I've been a pretty heavy drinker for close to 20 years, and it started to get really bad I guess over the past year when we were writing the record.

"I guess it just caught up to me on tour and put a serious hurting on me. It wasn't alcohol poisoning. It was like my body was shutting down. The alcohol was ruining me. I couldn't function at all. I was basically a couple of days away from death."

Kelliher was fortunately able to battle through his first bout of health problems. But as the guys were finishing up the record, the shit hit the fan once again. Drummer Brann Dailor's mother was kicked out of her house after her boyfriend died in the middle of the night while they were sleeping. Hinds' girlfriend was attacked in front of her house by two guys who beat her up, stole her money and tried to break into her home before they fled the scene. And Kelliher's health problems flared up once again.

"Right towards the end of our stint in the studio, I went to see my doctor for a physical," he says. "He called back later that day and he gave me a chest X-ray, which I've never had before, and he was very concerned. He told me there was a lump, like a mass, in my lung.

"He said, 'It's a tumor. I don't know what kind. I don't know what it is, so don't get freaked out yet.' Of course I was freaked out. I was like, 'Oh fucking great, that's what I need: a tumor.' So I went back for a CAT scan. He was, like, 'Well, it's either HIV, tuberculosis or pneumonia.' I was like, 'Awesome.'"

If you were going to have one of those, your safest bet would be the pneumonia... which Kelliher was diagnosed with.

Kelliher then had to fly to his hometown in New York to attend his aunt's funeral. She was diagnosed with terminal cancer six months earlier after doctors had initially misdiagnosed her. The cancer had already spread all over her body by the time they got a correct diagnosis. Kelliher got the phone call from his distraught mother that his aunt had died while the band were in Montreal during the Montreal Metal Fest with Iron Maiden.

Despite all the misery that was affecting their lives and those of people around them, the band remained focused. As the late, great "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott used to say, "Those are the highs and lows of rock 'n' roll, and you just gotta keep on keepin' on."

"It made us that much more intent on getting this record done," Kelliher says of the adversity. "It's like, 'We're almost there.'

"There are all these barriers popping up to stop us from everything. I could quit everything right now and just be like, 'Fuck, man.'

"At any point, we could've all cracked. But we all kept focused. Every day toward the end there, when all crazy shit was going down, it was a struggle.

"We've travelled so far to the point we were at in writing this record and recording, it was too late to look back. People are dying around us, I've got pneumonia, but shit's got to be done.

"Once we're in the studio, it's like a whole different world. We tried to keep all that stuff outside and try to be in this bubble in the studio, at least for me, personally. I was like, 'I want to get this record done and it's going to be a great record. Nothing is going to get in the way and it's going to sound great.' And here we are."

Here we are. Through all the mental distress, health problems, emotional trauma, deaths and the near demise of the band, Mastodon persevered and managed to create one of the best metal albums in recent memory.

When Kelliher looks back on the past couple of years, he won't be haunted by the fact that he could've died, but instead will remember it as a time where Mastodon were reborn and reached new creative heights as they now begin to cement their legacy.

"It's like the album of our lives. This is the perfect time we're doing this record. Everything felt great about it. All the stars and planets aligned. It was a pleasure."