Mastodon guitarist Bill Kelliher has the Turnstile bug. Last week, the heavy-metal axman revealed that he and his bandmates have been working out some new concepts for the next Mastodon record, including toying with the idea of committing to a straightforward punk sound. Now, in a separate chat with Guitar.com, Kelliher enthused that Grammy-nominated Baltimore hardcore titans Turnstile have been a major source of inspiration for him lately.
"I want to write music that's really fucking heavy and to the point," Kelliher said of where he wants to go on the follow-up to Mastodon's 2021 album, Hushed and Grim, which mostly centered on longer, more subdued metal compositions. "I want it to sound like Mastodon but steer away from the long, drawn-out songs. I feel like we've been on that kind of kick for a while, and I want to move on to something a little more tangible.
"The stuff I'm working on is the sort of stuff that comes out swinging, you know? I've been listening to a lot of Turnstile, and their last record, Glow On, to me, is fucking great. I just love their guitars, and their production of it sounds great. Their songwriting is really good. It reminds me of Bad Brains, but if they were more modern, with some Jane's Addiction mixed in."
The interviewer then asked if his recent admiration for Turnstile has reinvigorated Kelliher's songwriting spirit, which he more or less agreed with.
"In a way, yes," he said. "That Turnstile record kind of my interest in writing in that way. It's like, Well, you guys are bringing back all the cool things about the bands that I used to listen to and really look up to. I wanna do more of that. I'm a product of the 80s and early 90s when all that kind of stuff was really popular."
A Turnstile-influenced Mastodon record sounds fucking amazing. Count us in.
