Intervju - Brann Dailor, Mastodon


Det blåser riktigt kallt och snön har fallit över Stockholm när jag guidas genom de underjordiska tunnlarna under Annexet och Globen.
Unholy Alliance är i stan och paketets mest intressanta band, Mastodon, har jag fått äran att göra en kort intervju med. Inne i en hyfsat stor loge sitter trummisen Brann Dailor och på tv´n visas något svenskt kulturprogram a´la "Sverige runt" eller liknande. Jag slår mig ner mitt emot Brann i den svarta soffan och vi inleder med en kort konversation om det dåliga vädret, men givetvis betade vi av en del andra ämnen också.
Bandet släpper ett nytt album i början av nästa år, "Crack the skye", som jag själv haft nöjet att höra och det lovar mer än gott. Producent är ingen mindre än Brendan O´Brien, som nyligen gjort underverk med AC/DC. Nedan följer det korta samtalet


So, do you get this kind of weather in Atlanta or is it just constanly hot?

Brann Doiler: No, no, no it´s not constantly hot. It gets cold, it gets down in the 30´s, but it never snows. It´s very rare for it to snow and if it snows, it doesn´t stick. But everyone freks out and goes to the grocery store and buys up all the batteries and duct tape and milk and bread. Like the week I moved to Atlanta, there was a huge ice storm and we didn´t have power for like a week. Pretty nuts!



How´s the tour been going so far? How was Gothenburg?

BD: Gothenburg was great! A really good audience. The tour´s been good. It´s been weird, but it´s been fun. Same old same old (laughs). Touring with Slayer... it´s like the seventh one (laughs).



How´s he (Bill) doing? You´re still playing as a trio, right?

BD: Yeah, power trio!



Of course! Like Rush...

BD: Like Rush and Cream. Pick your trio! It´s fine. We´ve gotten used to it and I like it. It´s good. I mean, I don´t like playing without Bill, but we have to.



Is he doing ok?

BD: He´s doing ok. He´s gonna make a full recovery, bu the basically just needs to go home and hang out for a month to get all good for next year´s crazy touring schedule that we´re just starting to see unfold. We need him healthy for that.



What´s it like playing as a trio? Did you have to work everything out and rearrange stuff?

BD: Not really. We played the first shows as a trio and it was weird and we didn´t have Bill´s rig hooked up on that side and you know, Brent´s the rock guy and Bill´s a metal guy so we needed to find out where that big heavy sound was gonna come from, so we just hooked up Bill´s rig over there and started running two rigs. Brent´s got like a 12 string, which makes a fuller sound. Brent´s the only one who´s had to make the major adjustments. I think myself and Troy are just doing the same thing we always do. We try to rock a little bit harder and we brought everything in a little bit tighter, but I think we´ve got it down at the moment.



Any songs you had to cut because it didn´t work out or are you playing the same set?

BD: We´re pretty much playing the same set that we would. We only get like 30 minutes, so that´s not that many songs.



On a tour like this, do you get to hang out with the rest of the bands, because sometimes you talk to bands and it´s like "Well, we hardly saw them!"?

BD: Over the years we´ve made really good friends with Slayer. We mainly hang out with Kerry and Jeff, but the Trivium guys and Amon Amarth, we´re all out here together and we hang out every day and have drinks after every show. One big happy family! (laughs)



A band like Slayer that´s been around for a long time, do you pick up stuff from them like organization wise or whatever?

BD: I think we did it the first time we toured with Slayer, which was the first Unholy Alliance here. When we did that tour we really needed to step up our game because we realized we were only three bands. It was us, Slipknot and Slayer and we learned what it was like to be in an arena and a big stage and stuff and I think we were able to step up and do that and now we know how to do that and I think we learned that stuff from bands like Slayer.



The new album then? I´ve only heard it once at Warner Records, but how did you guys hook up with Brendan O´Brien?

BD: Through myspace (laughs). Facebook... no it was really through Bruce Springsteen I guess. We´ve been friends with Max Weinberg for a while through his son. His son is like thirteen years old and is a big music fan and he´s been coming out to see our shows. His dad wuld take him, so his dad kind of got into it as well, watching all the crazy metal drummers and stuff and through Max this kid could meet any rock star he wanted to. "Meet Danny from Tool! Meet Joey from Slipknot!", you know what I mean. So over the years we´ve maintained a friendship with him and his father and we knew who Brendan O´Brien was, but we weren´t sure... we kind of felt like our band was small potatoes compared to his resume and the list of people he´s worked with. "Is he even going to be interested in our demos?", but he ended up being one of the only guys that really came back and went "I love this stuff and I really want to help you guys work on it!". We were supposed to do the record with Rich Costey originally and it didn´t work out because... I guess he´s a wanted man because he didn´t have any time for us and we were ready to record in June and he couldn´t do anything until September/October. "If we sit on this material for that long and not record it, our band will break up." We were like "Listen dude! We just need someone to push record and make it sound awesome!". The stars aligned, I don´t know what happened, but all of a sudden a week later we were in the studio and the record was almost done. It really came together great.



Was this after he had done AC/DC?

BD: Right after. He was like "I´m just finishing up with AC/DC and then I´m gonna do you guys next." and we were like "Sweeeeet!". (laughs) It was awesome! He was great to work with, really fast and really fun to be around and that´s a big part of it. To be a producer you need to be personable as well. Be able to talk to these, you know, fragile musicians. (laughs)



Did he bring anything music wise?

BD: Yeah, definitely! He was able to push us and without it being forced. He was able to make us tap into where we wanted to go, but we never knew how to get there before, I guess. He just elevated the band, I think. It sounds corny, bu the made us feel good about ourselves as players and he was like "Do that, that´s great!". "Really?", you know what I mean. He gave everybody good confidence and good vibes. We needed somebody like that at this moment in time for our band. It just really worked out great. He just happened to be working in Atlanta at an awesome studio that I had no idea was there. It´s like four minutes from my house and I drive passed it every single day. I had no idea. Bruce Springsteen was down there making records at Southern Tracks. It was just awesome to wake up in the morning in my bed, make coffee and then roll over to the studio. Play a track, "Cool, sounds great! See you guys later!". It was awesome!



Who came up with the title of the album?

BD: Me.



I read that it´s based on the russian tsar family.

BD: It´s a multidemensional story. It starts on planet earth, it deals with astral travel, goes to outer space, you get lost and you go on into a wormhole and you start exploring all sorts of Stephen Hawkings theroies, space continium and all that, you go into the spirit realm, you get sucked into another wormhole that brings you into tsaric russia and you get put inside Rasputin´s body and Rasputin is assassinated and you fly off through the crack in the skye and back through outer space into the devil´s dominion, passed him, back into earth and into your body.



Wow! How do you come up with a story like that?

BD: I don´t know, man. Did a lot of acid as a teenager! (laughs) The story starts with a seed and it grows. It´s all real natural and it all kind of comes together. We like it. We like concept albums and we like being able to have a story that is tangible and something to look at, to hold and be able to immerse the listener. I think it´s like that and I think our fans expect that from us and I think if we just did a record with songs that had nothing to do with themselves, it would be like "What happened? You couldn´t think of a story?".



It sounded great! I´ve only heard it once and it was a bit more of a 70´s vibe to it and more mellow and laidback.

BD: Yeah, definitely. Brent wrote the majority of the music that´s on it and he suffered a traumatic head wound in Las Vegas and basically, he needed to sit home and not really do much, because he had like vertigo after it. He would just basically get up in the morning, go to his couch in his boxer shorts and play acoustic guitar and write all this crazy stuff. I think he was feeling pretty fragile and the band was kind of perservering going down to practise space every day and just being like "Ok, I don´t know what´s going on?" and for the first time we felt kind of shaky, but it was like "Let´s just come down here everyday, no matter what and just sit down here and hang out, if anything. From this time to this time and let´s have a schedule and let´s just be here and write.". And we just wrote and wrote and wrote. It is more laidback and spaced out and psychedelic, but that´s kind of where Brent was going. I don´t think you can get up in the morning and go out in your boxer shorts, sit down with an acoustic guitar and write really aggressive, crazy music. But I think there is a deeper, darker thing going on with it. When I get done listening to it, I feel like I´ve watched some heavy movie. A movie hangover from it. "Fuck, what happened dude?". (laughs)



But when you write an album like this, do the demos differ a lot from the final product?

BD: Not really! There not too different. I mean, there were like faster, heavier songs that we demoed early on, but they just didn´t fit it with the whole vibe of the record. We wanted to make this a journey and an uninterrupted one. So some of the stuff that´s a little more aggressive, that maybe Bill and myself would write, is gonna have to be for something else. Like an ep or something like that. Like "This is the faster, heavier ep!", but for this it felt like a journey or something. But the demos of the songs changed a little bit, but not too much. Once we actually got in there and started working on it with Brendan, he was kind of like "Well, I don´t really want to chnage that much! I just want to make it sound awesome." and we were like "Cool! We´re down with that.". (laughs)



Finally, since you´ve been doing this for some time now and you´ve released a couple of albums, do you care about reviews at all? Like concert reviews and record reviews.

BD: Well, I´d be lying if I said I didn´t. I´d love to be one of those people that goes "I couldn´t care less what anyone says! I like it, I had a good time.", but I´m just not. I could read a hundred awesome reviews and then there´s like one. I read a review that said I should be killed because of all the fills that I do and I should be murdered. I was like "Really? Murdered?". Like, just don´t listen to it, don´t murder me! But it´s always those that stick in your head, you know. "I just wanna be loved.". (laughs) When you get a really great review from a reputable magazine or something, that always feels good. I start reading them when they start coming out. I don´t read every single review obviously, but some of the bigger ones like if Rolling Stone reviews it you´re gonna be like "What do they say? How many stars did they gives us? Only three stars! C´mon!".



Cool! Well, I´m really looking forward to the show tonight. It´s actually the first time I´m gonna see you guys.

BD: Oh man, I wish Bill was here! It´s different, but it´s still us. We´re doing what we can.



It´s gonna be good, I´m sure.


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