It's been less than two years since Mastodon released their last album, 2021's Hushed and Grim, but co-guitarist Bill Kelliher has revealed that the band already have some unexpected plans for its eventual follow-up. In a new interview with the Metal Voice, Kelliher said that he and his bandmates are considering a drastic sonic overhaul for their next album, and have flirted with the idea of doing straightforward punk, a rock opera or even a more ambient type of sound.
"I don't know," Keilliher said when asked where Mastodon are headed sonically. "I mean, we've talked about doing like a punk rock album where it's much quicker, faster, straight to the punch, kind of really fast music. We've talked about doing that. We've talked about rock operas, we've talked about soundscapes.
"There's still a lot of stuff that we have to explore and there's a lot of places in the planet we haven't been to yet. We're not throwing in the towel by any means. We got a lot of stuff on the horizon and things that we need to check off the list."
Whatever it ends up sounding like, it seems like Mastodon fans might won't have to wait very long to hear a piece of new music. Kelliher said that he's been busy working on new ideas, and that the band are hoping to drop a fresh one-off single before their upcoming co-headlining tour with Gojira, which kicks off April 18th.
"I'm always writing," Kelliher said of his creative process. "Seventy-five percent of my day I'm usually playing guitar and I'm always writing stuff. I got lots of ideas. We're trying to be ambitious enough to write a song before we leave for this next Gojira tour and have it come out at some point during the tour, before the tour, [or] in between the two legs."
Even beyond that one song, Kelliher said that he's jonesing to get back into the writing room with his bandmates and start cranking out their next record.
"I'm always assembling riffs. I've got a few skeleton ideas," he said. "I'm definitely eager and really ready to get started writing the next record. There's no shortage of ideas. We still have a lot of creativity left in our band. We're all 100 percent committed to our band, so as soon as we get home from this touring cycle, I'm ready to show the guys some of the stuff I got.
"I own a recording studio and that's where we did our last record, so it was really easy just to book some time there and just go down [there] when we feel like being creative. It's just different now that we have our own studio. Instead of having to book time and then you're on a schedule, it's like you're always looking at the clock. I feel like now we're just we can be more creative and take our time."
Watch Kelliher's whole interview below. Then watch Kelliher and co-guitarist Brent Hinds play the heaviest riffs in Mastodon's entire catalog.
