Nearly a year ago, former Mastodon singer-guitarist Brent Hinds died in a motorcycle accident. At the time, only a few months had passed since Mastodon had announced that Hinds had parted ways with the group, with him later saying the band had fired him. Now they’ve released a video, The Mastodon in the Room, featuring the three other founding members reflecting on good times and a lot of bad times with Hinds as they explain what happened.
As a public figure, Hinds never hid his struggles. Throughout the 36-minute video, bassist-vocalist Troy Sanders, guitarist Bill Kelliher, and drummer Brann Dailor, describe Hinds as a complicated individual who battled addictions and mental health problems. Although the trio, seated in a movie theater, chuckle at seeing footage of their early days and remember good times with Hinds, the majority of the clip shows the three of them making sense of what seems like a strained relationship. They described incidents of Hinds acting unreasonably, but they knew they’d have “a redemption show” afterwards that would be great. “It’s almost like what you hear with a battered housewife,” Dailor says. “The remorseful boyfriend or husband comes back with flowers. … He bought us diamond rings.” Eventually things became so tenuous they comment that they have a hard time remembering he could be happy.
Hinds made headlines in 2007 when he clashed with System of a Down bassist Shavo Odadjian and a musician friend, William Hudson, at the MTV Video Music Awards. A police report showed that Hinds was the aggressor, and that Hudson had allegedly fought back leaving Hinds with a broken nose, two black eyes, and a brain hemorrhage. “For the first time, Mastodon felt real fragile,” one of the musicians reflects in voice over.
“In his very, very drunken states, he would be a habitual line stepper,” Dailor says in the clip. “He’d cross the line with somebody. From what I was told, someone said, ‘Don’t do that to me,’ and he did it and got punched.”
They describe how his stress got the better of him on the band’s Crack the Skye tour and took out his feelings on the band’s crew. They recall, album by album, the difficulties of working with Hinds and say that in the past five years his drinking had gotten so bad that each of the other members felt they needed a change.
“We knew in our hearts that this was never going to change,” Sanders says in the video. “I cannot tell you how many heart-to-hearts that the three of us had, daytime, sober, as a four-piece, pleading to someone that you’ve been with for the bulk of your life to listen to us. … It got to the point where the shows were declining in the live environment, and we were exhausted, exhausted at throwing all this love at something that straight up was not listening or not caring.”
During a band meeting, Sanders read Hinds a letter detailing his grievances and, in the clip, he says Hinds got up and left in the middle of it. That was the last time Sanders saw Hinds.
“You’re only as strong as your weakest link,” Kelliher says. “The three of us could be out there practicing all day and rehearsing and we’d go out there, and we would rely on him, and it was killing us, killing all of us.”
“It was horrible,” Dailor says in the video. “It was really depressing and sad, fucked up. We just wanted that beautiful, amazing creature Brent Hinds out there serving up the honey-baked ham and screaming his head off. … We desperately wanted that guy. But he showed us time and again that that person wasn’t coming back without some dramatic change.”
After Hinds’ departure, the band brought in guitarist Nick Johnston as their new lead guitarist. This past May, Dailor reported that the band had finished recording their ninth studio album. Hinds did not contribute to it. “It was a hard record to make,” he told Blabbermouth. “It was a very emotional time for us. I lost my mom, we went through all this turmoil with Brent, and then he passed away. It’s been tough.”
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