Mastodon’s Bill Kelliher (guitar), Troy Sanders (bass/vocals), Brann Dailor (drums/vocals), and Brent Hinds (lead guitar).
It’s a chilly night in late November, and the line for ticket holders has snaked all the way around the block. “Wow, that’s what I call dedication!” yells a passerby, marveling at the size of the crowd. Strict COVID protocols are causing delays at the doors to New York City’s sold-out Hammerstein Ballroom, but no one here seems to mind. After all, it’s been more than two years since the four prog-metal horsemen of Mastodon last descended on Gotham. What’s another half-hour in the cold, especially when the payoff is a sweat-soaked live set packed with brand new songs and some of the band’s most feral old-school headbangers?
For reasons that transcend the hassles of a pandemic lockdown, Hushed and Grim, Mastodon’s eighth and most wide-ranging and ambitious album, also went through a prolonged incubation period. It started, like most of the band’s projects, in the wake of tragedy, with the passing in late 2018 of their longtime manager and family friend Nick John, following a battle with pancreatic cancer. They responded with “Fallen Torches,” a song they tracked with Neurosis frontman Scott Kelly, just a few months after John’s death.
Mastodon - Pushing the Tides [Official Music Video]
“Fallen Torches” wound up on the 2020 compilation Medium Rarities, but it gave Mastodon the spark to begin thinking about a bold, concept-driven statement album dedicated to John’s memory. And Hushed and Grim, despite its title, is anything but quiet. It’s the mammoth, multi-layered sound of a band that’s working through its collective grief while feeding a ravenous hunger for experimentation and new directions. Clocking in at nearly 90 minutes, the double slab ambushes you with genre twists and turns—from the Crimson-esque psych flavors of “Teardrinker” to the amped-up hardcore groove of “Savage Lands”—even as it rewards you with special guests (Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil on “Had It All” and Southern rock rebel Marcus King on “The Beast”) and sonic gems galore.
When asked why every Mastodon album seems to come across as a deep and intensely personal experience, guitarist Bill Kelliher doesn’t flinch. “That’s the connection we have with our fans,” he says. “They kind of expect it by now from us—that emotional bond, that realism. I mean, everybody goes through it. Everybody has lost someone, or knows someone who had cancer, or who died in a car accident or some unspeakable tragedy. We just spill our guts about it. It’s almost medicinal.”
“I’ve had those Marshalls for a while. I bought them from Ruyter [Suys] from Nashville Pussy, who bought them when they were on tour with AC/DC, so they were actually Angus’ [Young] amps!” —Brent Hinds
In the grip of a creative torrent that yielded 25 demos, the band made a savvy move by recruiting producer David Bottrill, well-known for his work with Peter Gabriel and King Crimson, for tracking sessions at their own studio, West End Sound in Atlanta. “On one level, I wish we had pulled David in right away,” says lead guitarist Brent Hinds, “so when we were about to do the demos, that would have been the album, you know? But he is top-notch, no question. He’s a really cool human being, and he’s just great at what he does.”
Botrill quickly honed in on Mastodon’s enduring strengths: the vocal powers of drummer Brann Dailor and bassist Troy Sanders, and, in particular, the yin-and-yang symbiosis that fuels Hinds and Kelliher as guitar players. Where Kelliher is the more cerebral and deliberate of the two, Hinds plays like he’s about to burst into flames at any moment—and yet they gamely collaborate on riffs that writhe and dip with a deep-seated sense of melody, harmony, swift-picked precision, and endless groove. (The oft-quoted analogy is the legendary twin-guitar attack of Thin Lizzy’s Brian Robertson and Scott Gorham, and the comparison fits.)
TIDBIT: Mastodon’s eighth studio album, Hushed and Grim, is a tribute to their longtime manager and friend, Nick John, who passed away after a battle with pancreatic cancer. It was produced by David Bottrill at Mastodon’s own West End Sound in Atlanta.
With this in mind, Botrill encouraged both guitarists to push their sound further and explore more amp combinations and effects. “We really fine-combed through every single possibility of every song,” Kelliher explains. “I have this little floor pedal with four switches, and you can plug in four cabinets with one head and compare them very quickly. When David first showed up, we spent a day doing that, and he’s like, ‘Well, your Marshall [JCM 800] sounds great with the Friedman cabinet, and your Friedman [Butterslax] head sounds great with the Marshall cabinet.’ And then I had a Mojotone cabinet that I used with my [Friedman] BE Deluxe. So we had a nice big, thick sound for all the rhythm stuff.” (Kelliher has just collaborated with STL Tones to release a signature ToneHub Preset Pack—a plug-in suite that features all the setups he used for Hushed and Grim.)
He points to “Pain with an Anchor,” the molten leadoff cut from Hushed and Grim, as a prime instance of a new effect helping to guide his rhythm part, which he played on one of his signature ESP Sparrowhawks, a standby for most of the album. “In my head, I always heard more of a sitar-like sound,” Kelliher says, “so I bought an Electro-Harmonix Ravish [Sitar emulator]. It has a million settings, but luckily David had the patience to sit there with me and turn knobs while I played it. I wanted to keep it pretty clean, except for the very end of the song, which is this big, doomy chugga-chugga thing, so it sounds super heavy and percussive when that section comes in.”
Brent Hinds’ Gear
Brent Hinds riffs aplenty on one of his preferred Gibson SGs at Detroit’s Royal Oak Music Theatre in 2017. He opted for a vintage 1963 Gibson SG Junior on Mastodon’s new album, Hushed and Grim.
Photo by Ken Settle
Guitars
- Banker Custom Hammer Axe
- Banker Custom V
- Electrical Guitar Company Signature Custom V
- Epiphone Signature Flying V Custom
- 1963 Gibson SG Junior
- Gibson Custom Silverburst Flying V
- Gibson Les Paul Gold Top
Amps
- Orange Signature Terror
- Diezel VH4
- Marshall JMP Super Lead
- Fender Princeton Reverb (vintage)
- Marshall cabinets
Effects
- Dirty B Hinds Mastodrive
- Boss DD-6 Digital Delay
- Boss RE-20 Space Echo
- Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer
- ISP Decimator
- Jim Dunlop 105Q bass wah (wide sweep)
- Line 6 DL4
- MXR Phase 90
- TC Electronic Flashback
- TC Electronic Corona Chorus
Strings and Picks
- D’Addario EXL145 Heavy (.012–054, .011–.052)
- Dunlop Yellow .73 mm Tortex
Hinds, although perhaps less enamored of exotic effects, nevertheless mixed it up with his choice of guitars, among them a vintage 1963 Gibson SG Junior, a custom Banker V, a Les Paul Goldtop, a Telecaster B-bender owned by Marcus King, and a Stratocaster owned by Banker’s Matt Hughes. (Hughes was also a source for a fleet of Fender ’57 amps that appear on the album.)
“I do play through my Mastodrive on ‘More Than I Could Chew,’” Hinds clarifies, citing the overdrive pedal, designed by his company Dirty B Hinds, that figures prominently on one of the heaviest-treading anthems on the album. “The landscape is really big on that song, with a lot of cool moving parts. And I’m pretty sure I was playing one of my JMPs mixed with the Diezel VH4. I’ve had those Marshalls for a while. I bought them from Ruyter [Suys] from Nashville Pussy, who bought them when they were on tour with AC/DC, so they were actually Angus [Young]’s amps! They’ve got a history, and they sound great.”
“Everybody has lost someone, or knows someone who had cancer, or who died in a car accident or some unspeakable tragedy. We just spill our guts about it. It’s almost medicinal.” —Bill Kelliher
All that heavy mojo invariably finds its way into the solos. Hinds dials in a remarkably buttery and bluesy tone, with just a hint of ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, toward the end of the doomy ballad “Skeleton of Splendor,” while his tasty Hendrixian vamp on “Sickle and Peace” gets a reverse delay treatment from Botrill that helps transport the song into a resplendently cosmic headspace. Further on, Marcus King brings an elastic, Carolina-fried slide to “The Beast,” and Kim Thayil turns back the clock for a wah-soaked euphoric wail on “Had It All.”
“That song is about loss,” Kelliher says, “and I figured Kim could relate, and would be the perfect guy to play an emotional solo.”
Of course, this wouldn’t be a Mastodon album without their reliance on D standard tuning (with some darker variations that include drop C and drop A), which naturally lends itself to the moody timbre of Hushed and Grim. For Kelliher, “Pushing the Tides” is the standout.
Bill Kelliher’s Gear
“I have this little floor pedal with four switches, and you can plug in four cabinets with one head and compare them very quickly,” says Bill Kelliher. He recently colloborated with STL Tones to release a signature plug-in suite that features all the setups from the new album.
Photo by Ken Settle
Guitars
- ESP Sparrowhawk Signatures
- ESP LTD Signatures
- ESP Eclipse (Silverburst double-cutaway)
- Banker Custom Excalibur
- Dunable Custom Gnarwhal
- First Act custom 9-string
- Dunable Custom Gnarwhal
- Gibson Signature “Halcyon” Les Paul
- Gibson Les Paul Custom
Strings
- D’Addario EXL140 (.010–.052)
Amps
- Marshall JCM800
- Friedman Signature Butterslax
- Friedman BE 100 Deluxe
- Fender Vibro-King (formerly owned by Duane Denison of Jesus Lizard)
- Silvertone 1464 Solid State 100
- Marshall and Friedman cabinets
Effects
- Line 6 Helix with HX Stomp
- Electro-Harmonix Ravish Sitar Emulator
“A song like ‘Roots Remain’ [from 2017’s Emperor of Sand] has that same feel,” he says. “I’m repeating myself a lot, but you know, look at the Ramones. They took the same three chords and played them in a different rhythm, and it’s a different song, and no one ever notices [laughs]. So there are certain notes that I know in my head that when I play them together, it gives me this sad feeling. When I’m doing a dissonant chord, or dissonant notes, sometimes it’s a feeling like your ship is sinking. And in my head, I have these categories of what I can see on the guitar. It’s like, this song needs fear, this one needs sadness, this one needs regret. I’ve gotten to where I can kind of conjure that up with my hands.”
It’s not a stretch to refer to Hushed and Grim as Mastodon’s version of Quadrophenia or Physical Graffiti, and that’s primarily because the band itself is expanding its sonic horizons more noticeably than on any other album they’ve done to date. When you’re open to embracing the energy, grief has a way of drawing out your most combustible and authentic mode of expression … but it’s not a crutch you can lean on for too long. At some point, catharsis and redemption must take hold.
“In my head, I have these categories of what I can see on the guitar. It’s like, this song needs fear, this one needs sadness, this one needs regret. I’ve gotten to where I can kind of conjure that up with my hands.” —Bill Kelliher
“When we lost Nick and then the lockdown happened. Everyone needed that time to deal with a lot of things, you know?” Hinds observes. “I think that was good for us. We’d been going at a thousand miles an hour for like 20 years, so everyone needed that time off to just chill a little bit. It was really nice to be able to sit around and just focus on some music for a change.”
With all those years in the trenches together, Mastodon are probably more focused and sure-footed than they’ve ever been as a band. That cohesiveness and confidence shine through now that they’re taking the stage again, and it’s lifting their fans right up along with them—for plenty more raucous trips ’round the sun, we expect. Better buckle up and hold on.
Mastodon - Live 2020 [Full Show]
In this recent performance for Adult Swim, Mastodon take all the loss and pain from the last few years and bring catharsis to the stage, with a neon glow and their elephant-sized, multi-layered sound.
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“Earthwood Bell Bronze strings are a giant leap forward in tone, playability, and durability. They’re great in any musical setting but really shine when played solo. There’s an orchestral quality to them.” -John Mayer
Product Features:
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- Patent-pending alloy unique to Ernie Ball stringsHow is Bell Bronze different?
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Milkman’s Jerry Garcia-style JG-40 combo.
Entire books about the Grateful Dead’s gear have been written, so we can’t cover it all here. Garcia tinkered with all facets of his sound from about 1971 until 1978, when his signal path reached stability. By then, his On-Board Effects Loop—an innovation he developed to control how much signal reached his effects—was dialed in, his backline firm, and his choice of effects pedals solidified. Even then, adjustments were made, especially when MIDI arrived or when technology like in-ear monitoring was used. Here are some basics.
Scarlet Fire’s recreation of Garcia’s Wolf, originally built by Doug Irwin.
It starts with guitars. For players wanting to get their Jerry on, there’s a wide range of Garcia-esque instruments—with just as wide a range of prices—out there. Recreations of the Doug Irwin guitars and the Fender Alligator Strat abound. China-built models from companies likePhred Instruments can go for as little as $700 or so. Luthier Thomas Lieber apprenticed with Irwin long ago, and his Lieber Guitars will deliver a copy of a variety of Garcia models. Leo Elliott’sScarlet Fire Guitars out of Dallas, Texas, takes things in another direction. Elliott builds Doug Irwin replicas that start at $20,000 and go up from there, with a current wait time of about 18 months for an instrument. He’s outfitted many of the top Garcia guitarists today, including Tom Hamilton Jr. and Jeff Mattson. Elliott says, “I’m a self-taught luthier; I didn’t really build my first guitar until 2010. I understood a little bit about woodworking before I got started, but I learned by reading books and through trial and error. I started building replicas of Doug Irwin’s Wolf guitar right away, which is sort of like building a car and starting with a Ferrari. I didn’t know any better. Then, eventually I got to know Doug Irwin and collaborated with him. So, I got to hold Garcia’s Tiger guitar and get to know it really well, and by 2015, I had built replicas of that guitar. There’s one guy who helps me around the shop, but otherwise, I am building these guitars on my own. I’m collaborating with Doug Irwin on a new series of Tiger guitars, which will retail for 50 grand each.” That’s one way to get your Jerry going.
The JBL-inspired Milkman K-120.
Garcia’s choice of amplifiers is another matter. He preferred Fender Twin Reverbs loaded with JBL Alnico speakers, which were popular amongst many rock bands in the 1970s. The details get complicated; Garcia’s amps were heavily modified, and the Fender Twin served as a preamp that ran to a McIntosh MC-3500 power amp.
It’s hard to find vintage JBL speakers today—at least ones in good shape. San Francisco’s Milkman Sound, founded by Tim Marcus, has created a faithful reproduction of those classic JBLsthey call the K-120. They’re coupling those speakers with a Garcia-style recreation of his Fender Twin that Marcus named the JG-40. “I think 75 percent of Jerry’s tone is in the JBL speakers,” Milkman’s founder says. “But when you start to analyze the other 25 percent, you kind of have to start withDon Rich. [Editor’s Note: Rich was the guitar player in Buck Owens’ band, pioneers of the Bakersfield Sound.] That’s Jerry’s tone, too, but the difference is Garcia’s midrange was a bit throatier. It sounds clean, but really, it’s not clean at the same time. Especially his tone in the late ’70s. There is something about running that Fender Twin Reverb through the McIntosh that would just completely blow out the tone in a really interesting way.”
Garcia colored his tone with off-the-shelf effects. This was, after all, long before the days of boutique pedals. By 1978 and beyond, you’d hear him playing through an MXR Distortion+, an MXR Analog Delay, and an MXR Phase 100. He often used auto wahs, preferring the Musitronics Mu-Tron envelope filter as well as a Mu-Tron Octave Divider and a Mu-Tron combination volume and wah pedal.
When I asked Jeff Mattson, Bella Rayne, and Tom Hamilton Jr. exactly how orthodox they are about using the kind of gear that Garcia did, I got three different answers.
Mattson tells me that because Dark Star Orchestra is doing something very specific, he really has to tailor his sound as carefully to Garcia’s as he can. “Some folks get too hung up on small things, like what kind of cable to use and things like that, and I don’t go that far. But it’s important for Dark Star Orchestra to get Jerry’s sound right because we are covering different eras and different shows. In 2022, for example, we went to Europe and recreated shows from the Dead’s famous Europe ’72 tour, so you have to pay close attention to what kind of gear they were using to do that right.”
Hamilton works differently. He’s always preferred a higher-gain signal than Garcia ever did, landing in more of a British or heavy metal tone. (Randy Rhoads was a big influence.) “I’ve always approached it like, ‘What’s the new information we can put into this thing?’” he says. “Not just recreate but pushing in a forward direction. And anytime I’ve played with the guys who played with Garcia back in the day, they always said to me, ‘You’re here because you’re here. Don’t try and do what we did back in 1978 or do it because Garcia did it that way.’ They’ve always encouraged me to be myself.”
Bella Rayne is just wrapping her head around what it really means to try to sound like Garcia. “Besides Jerry, I’m influenced by guitarists like Dickey Betts and Derek Trucks, so my tone tends to be a bit heavier and bluesy,” she explains. “I’m generally running a Stratocaster through a Fender Twin Reverb. But recently, I was doing a show, and a buddy of mine set up a Jerry rig for me, and that was so cool: JBL speakers, McIntosh head, the whole setup. I had never played through one. I didn’t know what the hype was all about. I plugged in, and it was just amazing; there was such a snap, and I was really commanding the band. I can see myself keeping my current rig but adding a Dead-rig to experiment. But honestly, anything is fine; I am not picky. I just want to play the best that I can.”
“The distinctive pickup configurations of these five guitars deliver a versatile tonal platform, whether you’re exploring subtle textures or pushing the envelope. The deep dive into our Narrowfield technology is obvious with this launch. With both the S2 models made in our Maryland factory and the SE models made in Indonesia, our goal has been to create guitars that will inspire you and spark creativity, all at an exceptional value,” said PRS Guitars COO, Jack Higginbotham.
S2 Special Semi-Hollow
The PRS S2 Special Semi-Hollow features a pair of 58/15 LT humbuckers in the bass and treble positions and a PRS Narrowfield in the middle. A 5-way blade switch and two mini-toggles allow players to tap the humbuckers, creating twelve distinct pickup combinations for sonic exploration. The carved maple top and mahogany back encompass a semi-hollow body that adds a natural airiness and depth to the guitar’s tone while enhancing sustain.
S2 Studio
The PRS S2 Studio delivers a wide range of sonic possibilities through its distinctive single-single-hum configuration. Featuring two proprietary PRS Narrowfield pickups in the bass and middle positions and a 58/15 LT humbucker in the treble position, the S2 Studio offers a palette of sounds from single-coil clarity to vocal humbucker tones. This model also has a 5-way blade switch and push/pull tone control.
SE Special Semi-Hollow
The PRS SE Special Semi-Hollow is designed with the versatility of a hum/“single”/hum setup, bringing PRS’s Narrowfield DD pickup design to the SE Series in a classic maple-top guitar. The semi-hollow construction also enhances sustain and resonance, while the f-hole adds a classic aesthetic. The coil-tap switching system unlocks a wide range of tones through a pair of 58/15 LT “S” pickups in the bass and treble positions and a PRS Narrowfield DD “S” in the middle.
SE Studio
The PRS SE Studio’s “single”/”single”/hum pickup configuration provides a wide range of tonal options. This combination of PRS Narrowfield DD “S” bass and middle pickups with a PRS 58/15 LT “S” treble humbucker offers humbucking warmth, single-coil sparkle, and everything in between. The 5-way blade switch and push/pull tone control further enhance its versatility.
SE Studio Standard
The only bolt-on neck in this release group, the PRS SE Studio Standard brings the tone, playability, and versatility of the Studio model to the SE Series and into an all-mahogany design with a vintage-style pickguard aesthetic. At the heart of the SE Studio Standard is its versatile trio of pickups: an 58/15 LT “S” humbucker in the treble position with two Narrowfield DD “S” pickups in the middle and bass positions. The 5-way blade switch and push/pull tone control allow for an array of pickup configurations.
PRS Guitars continues its schedule of launching new products each month in 2025. Stay tuned to see new gear and 40th Anniversary limited-edition guitars throughout the year.
