Mastodon’s Troy Sanders Says Band is Heavily Influenced by Classical Music

Mastodon are one of the few heavy music bands who can go from playing hard-hitting metal festivals, such as Ozzfest, to indie-flavored festivals, like Pitchfork. What is it about the guys that draws such an assorted audience? According to singer and bass player Troy Sanders, that diversity has a lot to do with the band’s random musical tastes.

“I think it stems from the four of us our in the band, our musical tastes and inspirations vary across the entire spectrum of musical history,” he told Loudwire. “The four of us are heavily influenced by and love classical music, the whole spectrum of music across the past 300 years. So when it comes to songwriting, anything goes in our band, we don’t feel like it’s gotta sound like classic Mastodon or else we aren’t going to write it. None of that ever comes into play.”

If fans think Mastodon’s latest album, ‘The Hunter,’ sounds like a tad of a departure from the metal band’s previous albums, that might be because the guys are influenced by different music than they were, say, a decade ago. Sander added that whether it’s obvious or not, the group’s music always varies from year to year. “… We’re gonna have songs that are inspired by early ’70s classic rock, and then something’s going to be very modern, heavy, Neurosis-ish. Or, we’ll come off tour with Queens of the Stone Age and then the next song we write is very Queens of the Stone Age-y. So it’s all over the place, so when we play a set of music, we’re gonna have bits and pieces that I hope many people can draw something from and find at least one thing about us that they think is refreshing or neat or cool.” Queens of the Stone Age-flavored Mastodon? Now, that we have to hear!