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"The Most Important Record Of Our Career": Mastodon's Troy Sanders On New Album 'Marrow Deep'
- Tiana Speter
- 13 minutes ago
- 4 min read
With five years between album releases, most bands would expect and experience change along the way. For GRAMMY Award-winning rockers Mastodon, the reality behind the scenes of the making of their ninth studio album Marrow Deep was one borne out of significant upheaval, from the untimely passing of former bandmate Brent Hinds through to other devastating personal losses and a world going increasingly mad in the background.
No strangers to channeling personal moments into their creations throughout their career, Mastodon dig deep into the bones of their lives and their own sonic foundations across Marrow Deep, emerging with a collection of songs that feel simultaneously familiar but ferociously fresh, buoyed by the addition of guitarist Nick Johnston and keyboardist João Nogueria alongside the core trio of Bill Kelliher, Brann Dailor and Troy Sanders.
Undoubtedly one of the most influential and innovative rock bands of our time, Mastodon once again stake their claim as fearless trailblazers and razor-sharp creaatives with Marrow Deep, due for release on August 28 via Loma Vista Recordings. And ahead of the release, Tiana Speter stole a moment with bassist and vocalist Troy Sanders to chat inspiration and to dive a bit into the making of this astonishing new album. Read on below...
Troy Sanders: For myself, and probably speaking for the band, I don’t think there was anything in particular that we were listening to that influenced the album because our influences have always been there. And yes, there’s always new artists that are inspiring us, but Marrow Deep was more influenced by all five unique characters that make up Mastodon, and the unique chemistry that we have.
All five of us listen to a wide range of music, from Mozart to Madonna and everything in between. And that’s one of the main reasons that we formed the band, Bill [Kelliher], Brent [Hinds], Brann [Dailor] and myself, we all used to look through each other’s CD booklets that we all had in the 2000s. And in there was everything, classic country, new wave, metal, prog, 70s thrash, it was awesome. And that was attractive to us too because we didn’t want to just be a one-dimensional band. I do think that all five of us share a lot of similar influences, but we also have a lot that each other don’t necessarily have.
I think that’s what lends itself to the unique chemistry that we all bring when we come together too. It doesn’t rub in the wrong way with each other. It blends and it helps us create a slightly unique sound in a world of heavy rock.
All five of us are blown away by the Melvins, and we are still fascinated with Iron Maiden. We all listen to a lot of Black Sabbath and a lot of Thin Lizzy too, that hasn’t changed for our whole career. Those are super “core” bands that all of us are fascinated with, always have been, always will be.
Marrow Deep was also the first time in many albums that we didn’t have a specific movie playing over and over and over in the lounge of the studio. For the last record, Hushed and Grim, it was Rosemary’s Baby playing on repeat in the background. For Emperor of Sand we had 2001: A Space Odyssey playing on repeat. But for Marrow Deep, there was no movie playing at all. And this was a different energy, a different weirdness while recording back in September of 2025.
For the cover artwork, we worked in tandem with our longtime artist Paul Romano. We give thoughts, give guidance and then he does his thing and runs with it. Coming off Hushed and Grim five years ago, it was a very long, drawn out, sad and powerful record with a black and white cover. So we knew for a fact that we wanted to go with a lot of colour with this album, kind of a 180 from the last one. Between Paul Romano and our drummer Brann Dailor, they got together and agreed on this colour palette that was unique and would be representative of the storyline behind it. There’s a lot of colour to this album because we didn’t want a drab visual. Paul Romano disappears for a couple of months and then he shows us this painting on the wall at this studio that’s just massive with a gazillion details and Easter eggs to find, and the lines and the colours and the shapes and the meanings. It’s incredible. Paul’s a genius and super-talented, and it was awesome to work with him again. He’s done the majority of our album covers.
The storyline of the Three Fates and perspective was very influential on this album, and all five of us knew this. It was like we realised the fragility of our existence as humans and as a band. And the idea that we all felt this was going to be the most important record of our career was also influential. When we all felt that way, we were very inspired and influenced by digging deep and thinking harder, trying variations of vocal patterns and drum fills and bass tones, and really wanting to dig in and take it to another level.
We knew it would all still be in the same natural evolution of what Mastodon is. It’s not a crazy departure from anything we’ve ever done. But the more we could dig in, we were hopeful that it would create layers and textures and sounds that would hopefully result in the most unique record that we’ve ever done.
MASTODON - MARROW DEEP
Due out August 28 via Loma Vista Recordings
BY TIANA SPETER
