A: Hi there! I heard you're supposed to guest on Headbanger's Ball, and also introduce a new video, can you tell us about that?

B: Yea, two of our guys went to NY, for MTV2's Headbanger's Ball, and there they introduced the video for the song Iron Tusk, it was shot in Atlanta, by the guy who did our last video, and it even has Troy's daughter in it.

A: What is the video about?

B: It’s a metaphor of about the story of Captain Ahab, and the whole Moby Dick story, with our Captain sitting on a chair made of elephant tusks, and Whale bones, a lot of our friends are also in the video, playing Pirates and such, and Troy's daughter is sitting there, and then picked up by the crew and seemingly sacrificed by them, we also play on the video, we also had some people doing hook hangings, you now, using piercing, but they cut that bit out, I guess it was too much for MTV…

A: How did you come up with the concept for the new album, Leviathan?

B: Brann, our drummer, came up with that idea, he read Moby Dick and had this idea for an album, the book had this comparison between the Whale and a Mastodon, and so he thought about us resembling that idea,
The whole band being a metaphorical Captain Ahab, searching this kind of a whale, or a dream, setting sail, which is a metaphor for going on tour, sating goodbye to our loved ones, as the sailors did, the story is about our search, our quest for something, for the music.


A: You recorded with Mat Bayles again, why did you decide on using the same production team as in the Remission album?

B: We were very pleased with Mat's work on the last album, we didn’t work with a huge budget, but he managed on making us sound really good, he also pushes us as a band, he has a lot of ideas and he influences the music and the lyrics as well, not just the sound, also, in Remission he got us just the sound we wanted, so we didn’t really consider anyone else for the job.

A: Your music doesn’t really resemble anything else, what are your influences musically?

B: Our biggest influences are mainly bands such as Neurosis, Melvins, and also prog rock bands such as Genesis and Rush, I mean, we're not kids, I'm 34 years old and I used to listen to tons of prog rock, so it’s a huge influence,
Leviathan actually has a 14 minute track, in it you can hear our prog rock tendencies, its not really similar to Rush, but you can still get that vibe, the prog rock vibe.

A: Leviathan is quite different from the vocal side of things, there's some melodic singing that wasn’t there on Remission.

B: Yea, we decided on concentrating much more on the vocals this time, and we wanted things to be much more diverse, this time we had about a month in Seattle for the recording, so we had enough time to sit down and work a lot on the lyrics and the vocals, we wanted much more melody and vocal arrangements, and I think it turned out great.

A: The art on both albums is great, who did the artwork?

B: It’s the same guy, Paul, he used to come to all our shows, and he invited us to his place, the minute we got in, we saw all these great paintings all over the house, we really liked them, and we asked him if he would like to do our artwork, the Leviathan artwork he did after we gave him the basic concept, he took elements off each song, and created this painting, it took him several months, but you need to see the original, its huge.

A: You seem to have a fascination with animals, since in both albums you have a lot of animal based lyrics, and the artwork, of course.

B: We all love animals, but part of it is a result of the bands name, we are also very much into mythology and such things, mythological animals, such as huge squids, as in the Jules Vern book, we are fascinated by things like that.

A: Where did the idea for the band's name originate from?

B: We went to the natural history museum, and it had the skeleton of a Mammoth, A Mastodon is a similar creature, something like a huge elephant, we just thought it fitted the band and the music that we make,

A: You actually made quite a move, from Rochester NY, to Atlanta, in order to make the band work, why was that?

B: We went out and back again from Rochester, the problem is that there isn’t anyone doing metal there, so I just couldn’t find a decent band to play with, when I got back there a long time ago, I played with Today Is The Day for some time, both me and Brann, our drummer, and then we decided to do something of our own, so we got back to Atlanta, which is much more central, so it makes touring much easier as well, and got in contact with the rest of the guys, and that's about it!

A: Are you doing any other side projects apart from the band?

B: Not really, the band is the main thing right now, Troy didn’t have a side thing, Brent does his other band from time to time, but Mastodon is the main thing for all of us, it takes up so much of our time that we don’t really have enough time for anything else…

A: What are your touring plans?

B: We have tours with Slayer and Slipknot,

A: How did you land the Slayer gig?

B: It turns out they asked for us! I understand that Kerry King liked our album, and he wanted us, I heard he's very much in tune with current music, and he decided on giving us a shot, its actually quite amazing, I never would have thought we'll get a gig with Slayer, I grew up listening to those guys,
But we're trying to take things in strides, not to get over excited,
Though I have to tell, you, when we got the news about Slayer, we we're in our touring buss, and we just went wild…

Alon Miasnikov

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