Mastodon Talk Crack the Skye: Exclusive Track-by-Track Preview

There’s been a lot of talk about the narrative behind <b>Mastodon</b>’s fourth LP proper – blown up to the heavens as a transcendental dream set in Tsarist Russia. But what about the way it actually, y’know, sounds? Before they unleash the devil and take to the road to play the album in its entirety, the explosive Atlantan quartet provide an exclusive track-by-track insight into the way songs were conceived, written and recorded – a firsthand account on the architecture of <i>Crack the Skye</i>. Guitarist <b>Bill Kelliher</b> picks up the story…

Feature by Bill Kelliher | 18 Mar 2009

We were really prepared for this record. We had a lot more time and resources; nothing was rushed or forced. We had a year to write it, relax and let it stew, put it in a Crock-pot and let it sit there and grow. We worked really hard on all the arrangements, the whole story and the artwork by going down to our practice space every day and just playing. We had fifteen songs for the record that got trimmed down to seven. I got pro-tools for my laptop so we could put some riffs in there, arrange them the way we wanted to and remember them. We bought a bunch of microphones and a bigger unit for our practice space to start recording tracks into an eight-track digital recorder. We just went all out with pre-pre-pre-production; arranging beats and overdubbing guitars to see what did and didn’t work. So by the time we got into the studio with Brendan [O’Brien, producer], we could play everything in a way we wanted it to flow.

Oblivion was one of the songs I didn’t see ending up on the record – it wasn’t one of my favourites until it was completely finished. When we were putting it together, Brent [Hinds, vocals/guitar] and I started writing the beginning of the song, then a couple of parts in the middle. Parts of it were comprised from a bunch of riffs we had leftover from other songs and a few more that we threw together until it started taking shape and sounding cool. But it still just didn’t kick my ass like the other songs. Then when the lyrics came around and the vocal patterns came over it, I loved it. I said ‘holy shit, this song has turned 180 degrees.’ When Brendan was listening back to it as we were playing it for him in our practice space, he was like ‘OK, that song’s whatever, but as soon as Brent started singing it, that’s when his ears perked up and he said ‘oh, this song we need to focus on, it’s a hit’. He knew right away it could be a single.

Divinations was pretty much the first song we put together. It’s just a straightforward rock song. It’s got its beginning – with Brent’s banjo- then a verse, another verse, chorus, ending, solo. It’s got a ripping solo in it that really screams Mastodon, which is rad – I really enjoy it.

Quintessence has got a crazy melody with an even crazier guitar riff in the beginning there ‘badda-doodle-noodle-badda-badda-noodle-noodle…’ a lot of notes going on. When we were tracking that song, I came up with the guitar riff that goes under the main vocals and the really busy guitar part. So when Brent was singing and playing it he said ‘I can’t play the fast parts, we’re going to have to switch so I can sing and play. You can play the crazy riff.’ I didn’t think I could really do it, it’s all in his styling and it’s a very chicken-pickin’ kind of playing style. But I got it down and it took a minute. That was basically all for the sake of playing it live.

The Czar was even longer when we first wrote it and put it all together. The record only has seven songs, but this really is four [I. Usurper, II. Escape, III. Martyr, IV. Spiral] in one, each one of those parts could be taken out separately and it’s a song on its own. The Czar is like a book and each part is a chapter. It’s a monster and it’s one of my favourite Mastodon songs to date. The beginning is very pretty and eerie; the story that it tells is of the Czarina – the Czar’s wife – trying to warn Rasputin about the assassins that are coming to kill him. It’s a really interesting story and when it kicks into the heavy riffage it’s monstrous. It’s just a big explosion of rock and then it kind of kicks into some funk and there’s some tambourine and woodblock playing going on in the middle, then it kind of blasts off into outer space with the guitar solo at the end there. Then it goes back to the beginning. Brendan sang on the end of it, he and Brann [Dailor, drums] handled those vocal harmonies. It just came out really well; it’s a really heavy but pretty song - just under ten minutes long.

With Ghost of Karelia, Troy [Sanders, bass/vocals] and I were down at the practice space waiting for everyone else to show up one day. He was playing a couple of the parts he had, then I stuck on my delay pedal and started playing along – we just started building from there. Brent came in and heard us play, we asked him for another part and he says ‘OK, here you go’ – came up with the next riff. The song fettered out for a few months and we had a bunch of other parts that we chopped out that didn’t really serve any purpose really – it was just filler I guess. Once we got in the studio with Brendan he said ‘yeah, just take those parts out – I don’t think you need them’. We needed someone to tell us that. Then we rearranged one other section and had a song we were happy with.

Crack the Skye is one of the heavier, doomier, songs on the record. We had the main riff floating around for a while, like maybe a year – year and a half, basically just heard Scott Kelly’s [Neurosis] voice all over it. That’s when we called him out to sing on it. For his part, we gave him the lyrics for the rest of the record so he could get a feel for what was going on.

The Last Baron is a crazy fifteen minute song that’s got all sorts of different elements of Mastodon involved with it. It had five, six or seven riffs in a row when Brent brought it to us - it didn’t really have any shape or direction - and we tried to make sense of it. We had all these powerful riffs and embellished beyond what Brent had done with chorus parts to really craft it into a song. To me it had a Mars Volta feel to it when we started playing the heavily delayed part. The third part of the song has a great breakdown that was one of the very first riffs we had for the record but I didn’t know what to make of it, we’d never played anything like that before. It’s got a freeform freak-out jazz part in the middle there, kind of Frank Zappa-ish, almost like a trumpet playing sound to the guitar parts. It feels like a quick burst of energy. That part comes out of leftfield but it all fits together. It sprang to life once the melodies came in and it’s got some cool chicken pickin’ parts and a really good funk vibe going on towards the end. It also has a kickass solo in the end; it’s just a really moving song and a perfect ender for the record. It sums the whole thing up.

Crack the Skye is released on 23 Mar via Warner.

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