“There was just a need in me to go in and fuck it up,” said Monster Magnet mastermind Dave Wyndorf about his new “reimagined” album based on the band’s 2010 release, Mastermind, rebranded as Cobras And Fire (The Mastermind Redux). Continuing the conversation, Wyndorf admitted that he had such a blast reimagining his last album Last Patrol last year, which he christened Milking The Stars: A Re-Imagining Of Last Patrol, that he felt an uncontrollable urge to retool this record. 

“I loved the process of reimagining the Last Patrol and I thought that would work on another record,” Wyndorf said. “Mastermind was the one that needed it the most. It came out as a clean sounding record and it just didn’t sound odd enough for me, so I went in and weirded it up.”

The process of rearranging the tunes was easy to conceptualize according to Wyndorf. There were a lot of options ahead of him, but Wyndorf knew in his head which way to take each track. “I rethought the songs in my head pretty quickly about what could go and what couldn’t go, so there were a lot of different options. I just went in with my buddy Phil Caivano (Monster Magnet guitarist), and we just sat down and chucked out old takes. Our first thing was to get rid of anything from the original Mastermind takes that sounded too clean and throwing out stuff that I thought was boring and replaced them with cooler sounds. And out of doing that, I just got more of an idea of how these songs should be treated.

Not all of the original Mastermind tracks got a makeover, as some just weren’t easy to reimagine as others were. However, the ten tracks on the album that did work, spiral off in a spaced out tangent much like a mescaline-induced hypnotic trance put to music. Combining his affection for ’60s psychedelic rock and stoner rock, Wyndorf weaves little nuances that swerve into surprising new ways, creating another reimagined mindfuck of an album. “She Digs That Hole,” the new version of “Dig That Hole” from the original Mastermind, takes on a twisted, zombie-surf, rockabilly vibe, while the new version of “Hallucination Bomb” has nearly doubled in duration. Plus, by adding a sitar to “Mastermind,” “Hallucination Bomb” and “When the Planes Fall From the Sky,” the tunes took on a fresh and vibrant sound.

“I was just listening to a lot of music from the late ’60s like Kim Fowley, the Music Machine and other ’60s garage psyche bands,” Wyndorf said. “I love the chord progressions in that song (“She Digs That Hole”), and I wanted to mess with them because it seems kind of ’60s to me, so I did it that way. As soon as I started playing that garage rock guitar part, I thought the lyrics should be different and the whole thing should be different. I just followed my muse. I wanted it to sound a little sloppier and more eccentric than the original Mastermind record. I wanted to have a good creep vibe to it.”

New tracks “Ball of Confusion,” a cover tune by the Temptations and a mash-up version of a bunch of Monster Magnet tracks, “I Live Behind The Paradise Machine,” also made the grade.

“Ball of Confusion” is done in a Hawkwind/Pink Fairies style, which is pretty insane,” Wyndorf explained. “Then there’s another song called “I Live Behind The Paradise Machine,” which is basically an eight-minute psychedelic eclectic opus that is a bunch of Monster Magnet tracks. It’s like a mash-up but way more than just a mash-up, it’s an insanely good, really atmospheric trip.”

After taking half the year off, Wyndorf is now just getting geared up to start writing for a new Monster Magnet album. Unsure of exactly when he will start it, Wyndorf stated that he has a rough outline of next year, with a European tour in the meantime. “I don’t know when that’s going to happen,” Wyndorf said. “It’s been about five of those six months I took off and in month number five I’m getting bored. And that’s a good sign, that’s when I start writing stuff. I imagine by the end of next year there’ll be a new Magnet record out. In the meantime we’ll probably do a tour.”

Just one year shy of the big 6-zero, Wyndorf isn’t ready to pack it in just yet. Monster Magnet has celebrated a quarter of a century now and music is what he lives for. Wyndorf admits that he’s not really concerned about how he’s supposed to feel at the age of 59.

“I haven’t really looked at the clock or the calendar that often,” Wyndorf said. “When I do, I’m always surprised at how much time has gone by. I’m like, ‘What? I’m how old’? I don’t feel that much different than I did when I was about 35. I suppose in the next few years I’ll probably feel very old, but if I don’t feel that different now, then there’s no reason to stop or slow down. Making music is fucking fun, man. It’s the reason for living sometimes.”