Mastodon Offers a Masterclass in Processing Band Tragedy

Mastodon have been through the wringer lately with the passing of guitarist Brent Hinds. 

While addressing "The Mastodon in The Room" and discussing a new album and era for the band, Val dissects what we can learn from the group about processing tragedy and ponders what calls for a band to take on a new identity entirely. 

Get more Val at https://valkleinhans.com/

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

There are moments when a band stops just being a band and starts becoming a case study in being human. If you followed Macedon recently, you're probably gonna notice how they've handled an incredibly difficult situation, a very difficult chapter for them in their long decades-long, what, 25-year-long at least, history. And I think there's something that all of us can learn from how they're handling this situation. We can apply those coping skills we've observed vigorously. Let's give it a cool. I doubt that you're listening to this not knowing who Mastodon is, but just in case, just in case, you know, if you are, maybe you're doing a deep dive now, maybe you're just getting into the catalog now, or maybe you've been a fan for a minute. It might get fun to get nostalgic for a moment here. So allow me to explain a few things about the band. I personally, just for reference, began my deeper journey with them when the Hunter dropped. That was all the way back in 2011. They're already celebrating 15 years of that. And for me, that was college. That was college. We were having fun. We were excited to catch them on that tour. They toured with Opeth back in the day. I remember seeing the Pittsburgh stop on that tour with Ghost, too. Ghost in their infancy, if I'm not mistaken. That all three of them really were just shining very brightly at the time. And I knew who Mastodon was because I mean, I yes, I heard rumblings about them in high school. And I remember when the previous three albums had dropped, a little bit of conversation about that. And I'm talking about Leviathan, I'm talking about Blood Mountain, I'm talking about Crack the Sky. And I'll admit I did sleep on them originally, and I didn't really investigate them until I saw the cool t-shirts in the hallways. They have always been masters of merch. And I started dating my now husband, who has been a fan forever, and he got me even more into them, and we've been seeing shows together since then. We got deeper into the catalog backwards from there, and then continued to pay attention moving forward. So I am going to speak just for reference from this point of view. For 25 years, at least 25 years, might be 26 by now. Mastodon consisted of bassist and vocalist Troy Sanders, drummer and vocalist Bron Daylor, guitarist Bill Kelleher, and guitarist and vocalist Brent Hines. Yes, three vocalists. Let's just make that clear. This was one of the more consistent lineups that we had ever seen in heavy music, by the way, one of the longer-running ones. And what made them different is the three vocalist dynamic. To me, that made them very different. That made them very interested in uh it made them interesting to me. Let me back that up. It made them very interesting to me. And this is how the majority of fans are introduced to the band, especially if they're still a fan now. To me, what always made them especially cool, like I said, was just the dynamics of having three vocalists. And musically, they seemed to know what their role was. Vocally, they knew what their capabilities were, and they seemed to just have a knack for knowing where they fit, what their role was, and how to employ their vocal skill set in a manner that really added to the music because baby, they all served different purposes. Brett was just this unique, memorable hooks a lot of the time. Braun is the one who was soaring over a lot of things, and you have Troy with, like, I've described him before as this gruff monster that's about to be unleashed, but and yet it's contained. He is the master of that. Like you just you look to him for those moments. So all three of them were very complimentary of each other. Brent, at this time, backing up a bit, is also making a name for himself as a very talented uh very talented guitarist who just is a picker, man. He is a picker and he's got some spice, he's got some flavor on what he does. I mean, it is a soulful when he plays. That is, as a guitarist, what he is absolutely remembered for. All of the members of Macedon are talented. Please don't cut do not twist my words. Do not think that I'm not giving everybody their flowers here. All of them are insanely talented. All of them got together and compliment each other well musically for a reason. And what was nice about this band, what is still nice about this band is that when you listen to them, you can tell that they seem to organize their musical structure with all of this in mind, basing it on everybody's strengths. They know their strengths, they know who each other are. They've been brothers for a minute, and that's gonna be a word that keeps coming up here. Brothers. That's gonna matter. Yes, while all this is happening, while they're developing, while they're making a name for themselves, fans had heard rumblings about Brent being weird sporadically throughout this time. But it didn't ramp up or seemed to become more frequent anyway, until a little bit later in the career, a little bit, like that there was a few years there where we didn't hear anything, and then we started to. I honestly feel like they kept as much of this under wraps as possible for as long as they could. That may have been a goal of theirs, I don't know, but to me it seems like it because to me, fans who have followed for just as long, please correct me. But my recollection of starting to hear these types of stories didn't really happen until 2007. A very public sucker punch is what happened at this time. It happened at the VMAs that year. That's is sort of what brought this behavior that is now mentioned to light. Brent got hit. Brent got hit that night. Uh, the story from Macedon in the Room that uh the video that I watched that explained a lot of this, and we'll get into that video a little bit later. The story that is told in here is Brent was crossing a line with someone and he was drunk and he got hit for it. And that's what happened. And his bandmates explained that you know, the physical injuries that he endured at that moment, that definitely changed him. I'm paraphrasing, but from that moment, whether it was the physical impact, the mental ill, uh the not mental illness, but mental impact, whatever it was, they all three acknowledged that something changed from then on. So between then and 2025, more weirdness happens. Internet back and forth happens, and all of this leads to the announcement last March, March 2025, that Brent is leaving the band. And that news, I'm telling you, I think it did shock everyone, even longtime fans who were aware of these moments. It didn't seem to, it didn't seem to turn fans away, but I can understand how internally that causes a lot of frustration among the members of the band. And Brent sadly ended up passing away a few months after that announcement, almost a year ago, August 20th, 2025, motorcycle accident. And that becomes the catalyst for everything that we are discussing today. And this is where we get into the Macedon in the room. By the way, very clever title. Let's start there. Because we love the expression, the elephant in the room, that's the thing that like everybody wants to avoid, nobody wants to talk about it. Well, maybe for the remaining three, they didn't really want to talk about this either. I'm sure this can't be a fun subject for them to discuss. So that's why this video, for fans anyway, was a treat. And I hope it was therapeutic for the guys themselves. That's where I'm at on this. But clever title. Kudos to them on that. I've always admired their sense of humor as a group, as a collective. They seem to have a vibe there. There's a little bit of sardonic, sarcastic, dry, yet silly, almost slapstick sense of humor all thrown in there. They've always had a very healthy sense of humor, and that's something else I've loved about this band. But specifically as it applies to this video, let me explain it. The Macedon in the Room, part of what came with processing Brent's passing, really, was the release of this video, the Macedon in the Room. And it went to YouTube. It was a 35-minute-long video showing Bill, Braun, and Troy get very vulnerable talking about their friend Brent, and get really in-depth about it, especially, I mean, really, just with a special carefulness and yet vulnerability and honesty. Essentially for the first time, by the way, they hadn't really said a whole lot about Brent, a whole lot about what's been going on. They didn't really share too, too much other than we miss him, we love him. Uh kind words, really, especially at the time when all this first happened. Um it didn't seem like they really got in depth about it until now, is what I'm getting at, until this video. Sure, we had official statements and shows in between. We had all that, but really until this video came out, fans didn't know details on how the remaining three band members were have been doing since. And we're watching them recap this. I mean, they're in a private theater, there's a private showing, they're watching home movies with friends. Oh my god, like it just it pulls at the heartstrings. It really does. This this was done, it this was done with thought behind it, and this is also where we find out that the remaining three members, well, we find out how they really felt about that 2007 VMAs incident and the impact that it did have on Brent, not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, all the above. This is where they, in their words, and I am paraphrasing here, they felt like this is the moment Massadon as a unit starts to become fragile, sort of started to see Brent as a liability. Paraphrasing. When those drunk moments happen, they wanted him to commit to good performance and to commit to showing up at practice and being someone that they could rely on. It seemed to me that at this time they're describing feeling like that was not so. I'm paraphrasing again here, but this is also where we find out that Bill, Braun, and Troy generally felt they were keeping Mastodon alive at this point. I mean, and since, really, while Brent was struggling with alcohol, they talk about having to accept responsibility and party less as Mastodon grew, as Mastodon got bigger, as Mastodon themselves obtained more responsibilities, obtained more work. You know, they they talk about having to accept that, and in their opinion, paraphrasing, Brent didn't seem too interested in doing that. Brent, this was a lot for Brent at once, and he wanted to party. He wanted to do his own thing, he wanted to do his own thing musically, really, in addition to Macedon. That's true. He had several side projects, and what's interesting is that they don't really address that in this video at all. I I I if there's one thing that I wish the Mastodon in the room touched on more, it would be that Brent's side projects were very obviously musically different from Mastodon. And I have always wondered if that was possibly another source of tension. I always wondered how both sides actually felt about that, but the video didn't cover this, so we may never really know. Most fans love this video, the Mastodon in the room. They appreciated the transparency and vulnerability that the van shared in speaking on something that was undoubtedly very hard to discuss. I'm in that camp. Thank you, Mastodon, for putting that together. Thank you for doing it for the fans. Thank you for handling a sensitive subject with transparency, honesty, vulnerability, and careful thought. Some fans thought that this was a giant dig at Brent. Not cool to do when he's not here to share his side of what was going on. But to me, my opinion, if you paid attention to what Brent said online in the months leading up to March 2025, and uh maybe even a little bit after, they parted ways. I think you got his side. Brent put some insults out there at his bandmates and said his piece. Googled them if you want to know what they were. So perhaps that was his way of getting his version of events out there. I do remember saying at the time he passed, when it was still a shock to everybody, I remember saying that I hope he felt like he said what he wanted to. We knew he'd been talking. And I I still stand on that today. I I hope that even in those outbursts, if you want to call them that, as he's processing this and he's dealing with his own emotions uh around the whole thing, I still stand on that. I still hope that even if they were not the nicest of words, I hope he found some relief in that. I hope he feels like through that he got the opportunity to say ultimately what he wanted to say. And speaking about these comments that he's made online, one of them that I thought was particularly telling was posted on a video of an old performance. And if I'm not mistaken, it was an old performance, maybe at least 20 years old, of the song Crack the Sky. In this comment, Brett writes, he's critiquing the performance essentially. My guitar sounds great, but Troy and Prawn, intentionally misspelling Braun, sound horribly. And they are way out of key, embarrassing, and they kicked me out of the band for embarrassing them for being who I am, but what about who they are? That's Brent's direct comment. Those are Brent's own words. So knowing what we know now, after watching the Macedon in the room, that last sentence to me says a lot because it confirms that really the hugest chunk of the tension here had to do with Brent's behavior while he was drunk. That was a topic of heavy discussion among the entire group, and it was the thing they could not agree on, it seems. The thing about the Macedon in the Room video is that it did and didn't have to be made. Didn't have to be made. But it kind of did. And I'm glad it I'm glad it was made. Bill, Braun, Troy, they certainly do not owe anybody, definitely not fans, or anybody, it's not anybody's business but their own, really. They they didn't owe anybody a look at what was going on or what they were going through at all. They didn't. This was a gift to fans. And hopefully a gift to them personally, in that they now had the opportunity to get some things out after being mostly quiet about the whole thing for a while. Where I feel this did have to be made was in terms of announcing the new era that we're seeing now. The Mastodon in the room was a great way to put the subject of Brent to bed. At this point, everybody has said their piece. Fans feel like the subject was not totally ignored, and the video felt like this is the final wrap-up of the subject. We have addressed it in the hopes that we can all move forward and focus on whatever is coming in the future. And overall, the choice to make the video was a good choice because I think it served the intended purpose. It did allow us to have a collective moment to remember and honor Brett and get honest about what all those emotions bring up. Even smarter was the choice to put this out before a new era, a new album, was announced. And that eventually well, and then eventually announce uh the new album while the world is still digesting the video, so that the focus is still on them and still on what they're doing. I mean, there were literally days between the Mastodon in the Room coming out and a new single and album announcement coming out as well. So now let's talk about that new new. I'm excited for it. And let's talk about the questions that we're hoping this new era answers for fans. Mainly, we're wondering, will they sound the same? I mean, we've been asking this question since we knew Brent left. The Mastodon in the Room was released July 8th, July 12th. We get Snakes for Dinner as a single, and the announcement that an album called Marrow Deep is due before the end of the month here on August 28th. Here's what this new era is going to signal. It's gonna signal a few things. I mean, backing up though, I don't want to ignore your ghost again. That was another single from the upcoming album that was released before the Mastodon in the Room video. So we knew some music was on the way. There was at least a clue that something was happening. We were not sure that it was a full-length album just yet, but it was a little bit of a taste of what's to come. I mean, your ghost again was specifically about Brent, honoring Brent, the man that made that very clear. Uh musically, it was it's a great piece of music. It is. It is a little bit more proggy. Um, I didn't know. None of us knew if more music than this would address Brent, but Snakes for Dinner proved it would. Lyrically, that also has got to be about Brent. When you left, you took our hearts and minds. Come on. Where am I in the lens of your eyes? How are you seeing the situation? I mean, come on. I I'm not sure that the band has like fully confirmed that, but to me, it feels like it's at least trending that way. Snakes for Dinner is fresher on their mind just because it's newer and because it was tied to the official album rollout. It it felt a little bit more prominent, but I don't want to ignore the good piece of music that is your ghost again either. I mean, like I said, both were on Marrow Deep, and I think this new era between the two of them signaled a few different things. It signaled a more inclusive Mastodon. Eagle-eyed fans noticed that the new press photos they've been putting out present themselves as a five-piece. Nick Johnston, their guitar guy. I mean, he's been taking over guitar duty since Brent's departure. That seems to be a solidified thing now. Nick and Bill, they're gonna be handling guitar from now on, and that's great. He has earned it. Similar situation, Joean Ogheira, keyboardist they have worked with for years. If I'm not mistaken, he's also part of Brent's Arcadia Project, or not Brent's uh Arcadia Project, Braun. Too many B names. But he's also part of this as well. They've worked with him for a minute. I've watched him handle keyboards live with Mastodon multiple times before. So this is another situation where it's about time. I mean, really. And he has earned his spot. These photos are showing all of them together as a five-piece. To me, that says this is the lineup. Period. End of discussion. And it does also signal something else musically. It does tell me that keyboards are going to be a more consistent part of their sound moving forward. I mean, yes, they have been layered in on and off for years, certainly since Hushton Grimm, but my guess is that we're probably going to hear them even more consistently now. And to me, that makes sense because they have been inching prog ear and prog ear lately. I presume that may have been their musical intentions, in including Joa. That might have been their plan. So it looks like everybody's aligned now. Do they sound the same? Let's answer that question. I will offer my opinion. You can offer yours in the comments. I am gonna say that they sound like an evolved Mastodon. Are the heavy rifts gone? No. Are the multiple vocals and multiple vocalists gone? No. Does Snakes for Dinner and your ghost again show us a greater presence of progressive elements? Does it show that those elements are increasing? Yes. Have they done this since Tosh Jin Grim? Also, yes. So how much of that was a shock to anybody? I guess I don't really know. But overall, we've got some tasty risks to look forward to while holding on to some elements that still feel familiar. And I'm happy about that. But now I want to get into the lessons learned from this whole situation because this is a masterclass in processing band tragedy. Like it really is. Let's take some of the lessons learned here from their history and everything that they've experienced, specifically this past year. Most of us eventually will experience some version of this. Let's remember that. Let's start there. A friendship can end, a coworker that you got close to, all you know, job transition that happens, they leave, family changes, a chapter closes. Do we spend all of our energy trying to recreate the past? Or do we honor it while building what's next? That becomes the question. And to me, it is obvious what Mastodon's answer to that question was. And as a fan, I am glad that they have chosen to continue. In Bill, Braun, and Troy still being present, there are enough of the roots still there for everything to feel very familiar. And I would argue not enough differentiation to warrant a new entity. So why market themselves as one? To me, it wouldn't make sense. It definitely doesn't make sense to them either. And the reason that Mastodon is still viable despite this tragedy is that they towed the line very carefully as they acknowledged the whole thing. They kept their statements respectful. In Mastodon in the room, they offered enough detail about Brent without mudslinging. To me, they kept things fair in acknowledging that Brent felt differently than they did while t while talking about this. And it they didn't disregard how he felt about his departure. They also did not ignore his musical contributions. They acknowledged the reality of the whole thing and they didn't pretend that it was anything it wasn't. They admitted that it was hard. They admitted that they were brothers and brothers fight, and they fully expected a reconciliation at some point and were visibly upset. I could see this in the video about no longer having that opportunity. Man, when Brent got on stage in Alaska the day after that it happened, Braun got on stage in Alaska the day after that it happened. When he said that almost verbatim, their brothers, brothers fight, but we miss our friend.

unknown 26:09

Man.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Made total sense. And it was relatable and it was honest. I mean, they they have navigated this entire thing with intention and address it all before getting into the official album rollout and doing it, you know, all of this within a timely manner so that there wasn't like such a long period between those two moments, the moment that they address it and the moment that they announce something new. If they had started talking about Marrow Deep without any conversation about Brett, that would have been weird. They knew their fans well enough to know that we would see it that way and feel that way. And I'm sure it is possible that these three felt that way personally too. I mean, maybe as people, they felt like they needed to address this before moving on, and they were right. It was a right move for everybody involved. They went even further and recognizing that fans were grieving too. Bronn specifically apologized for not addressing this stuff sooner and was honest in saying, I am sorry for not being there for you, the fans, in the immediate moment. But know that I'm still processing this myself with you guys. He didn't have to apologize for that. He did not have to apologize for that. And anybody with the slightest bit of empathy and knowledge of their history could imagine that losing Brent was not a good time for them. For any of them, or Bill, or Troy. I really. Grief doesn't always look dramatic, and I think it's okay that they took a beat before getting deep about this. I think sometimes people imagine tragedy looking like farewell tours and crying interviews and super emotional speeches, and I think more often it ends up looking like showing up, rehearsing, honoring commitments, figuring things out one show at a time. That is what they ended up doing here. That's what they Masson has done this past year with with quiet periods in between, and that's something I think listeners, fans can relate to because that is realistic. I also think the two things can be true, and this might be a hot take. Might be a hot take. But one person can be essential to a band sound, and they acknowledge that Brent had an impact on what they put out musically. And Mastodon can also carry on in his absence, too. Alice and Chains have done it, ACDC has done it, Metallica has done it. The identity simply evolves rather than disappears. Shoot, I wouldn't have blamed them if they went the typo negative route. Either. And just said, nah, we're done now. It's ultimately their choice, and I would come to accept it. Although I do think the typo negative situation was a little bit different in that Peter was obviously the creative face behind the branding, everything, the aesthetic. I mean, it's him. He he was at the forefront. It very much was his baby. So at that point, when somebody who's got that much of an impact on what you're doing is gone, I can sort of understand why they're not trying to revive that. Because it was largely his. But I think the Macedon situation is different. And I think that maybe what we've learned here is that in every long-term relationship, whether it's a band, a business, dealing with our loved ones, our own lives, I mean, it is eventually tested by change. And the bands that survive are not always the ones that avoid tragedy. They're often the ones that learn how to carry it without letting it define every chapter that comes after. Continuing is not forgetting that somebody existed. You can honor somebody's contributions and write the next chapter. And if you're working on your next chapter after some trauma, I see you. Keep going. I wish you well this week. Thank you for joining me for another one, for diving into this with me. If you're a fan too, chat in the comments. Let's talk about this. How are you feeling? Are we excited for what's new? Are we still missing Brent? Let me know. Bye.