BackstageAxxess recently caught up with MASTODON's Brent Hinds at NAMM 2014:

"Brent Hinds maybe one of the most unpredictable artists we have ever spoken to here at BackstageAxxess. Brent is a jokester and lets it roll right off of his tongue. Brent along with his bandmate Bill Kelliher Hinds were promoting their respective signature guitar pickups at the 2014 NAMM expo. Lace was still working on his signature series Hammerclaws custom box, so at NAMM there was a display promo. Hinds joked around about it as you can see during this piece. See what he really wanted to call it. We tried to talk about the new CD and what the fans can expect from it and Hinds took that conversation in another direction as well."

Mastodon recently announced that they will hit the road for a North American headlining spring tour with support from GOJIRA and KVELERTAK. Tickets are on sale now. Today, Mastodon confirmed the addition of four more dates to the tour in Seattle, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Toronto. The complete itinerary is listed below.

April

28 - Seattle, WA - Showbox SoDo
29 - Portland, OR - Roseland Theater

May

1 - Oakland, CA - Fox Theater
2 - Los Angeles, CA - Nokia Theater
3 - Las Vegas, NV - House Of Blues
4 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Depot
5 - Denver, CO - Ogden Theater
7 - Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue
8 - Chicago, IL - The Riviera Theater
9 - Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE
10 - Toronto, ON - The Sound Academy
12 - Buffalo, NY - The Town Ballroom
13 - Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
15 - New York, NY - Terminal 5
16 - Boston, MA - The Palladium
17 - Philadelphia, PA - Electric Factory
18 - Columbus, OH - Rock On The Range

Excited about the upcoming tour, guitarist Bill Kelliher says: "Mastodon touring with Kvelertak and Gojira! Man, this is one tour dream come true! First of all Kvelertak and Gojira are two of my favorite bands at the moment, both putting out slamming records last year. We toured with them on off shows from the Soundwaves festivals in Australia and I remember thinking what a great package/lineup this would be to bring to the States, and now it's happening. Game On!"

Mastodon have been in the studio in Nashville, TN with Grammy Award-winning producer Nick Raskulinecz (FOO FIGHTERS, DEFTONES) working on the follow-up to their 2011 album The Hunter. Details surrounding the release of Mastodon's currently untitled sixth studio effort will be revealed soon.