MASTODON drummer Brann Dailor is featured in a new interview with Ultimate-Guitar.com. He discusses the new Live At The Aragon CD/DVD, where the band perform Crack The Skye in its entirely as well as songs from Remission, Leviathan, and Blood Mountain. An excerpt is available below:

UG: How do you decide when the time is right to release a live CD/DVD project?

Dailor: "We’ve been kinda wantin’ to do a DVD for a long time and the couple years we were out there touring for Crack the Skye was our biggest production and we were playing for the most amount of people that we’ve ever played for. We figured it would be a good opportunity to get some kind of 10-camera crazy shoot going and picked a cool venue to do it at. It’s just another night on tour for us but with some cameras involved."

UG: Do you interpret these Crack the Skye songs differently live than you do in the studio?

Dailor: "In some spots it’s changed a little bit but that’s just kind of the evolution of when you play stuff for a while and little bits and pieces change. Or if you were to watch me play the songs tonight and tomorrow night, it’d be probably exactly the same. But if you watched me play ‘em tonight and then I continuously play them for six months, there will be little variations on parts. It’s pretty close to what the record is and I like to keep certain transitions there because it cues the guitar players and everybody that we’re headed to the next part. If I don’t do that it kind of freaks people out. You know what I mean? They look back at me like, 'What’s happening?' When it’s all happening live you have to rely on little landmarks or things like that and sometimes some of those drum fills and those crescendos, those become those landmarks. And if you don’t hear that then you probably think that you’re going crazy. 'Am I supposed to go to the next part now?' So I try to keep things anchored in some spots but like I said there is other places where I can kinda change things up."

UG: Do you make mistakes?

Dailor: "Yeah, I make mistakes; I make little ones that a lot of people wouldn’t hear. It’s pretty rare for me to completely drop out of a song; that probably doesn’t happen very often thank god. But we play the songs a lot so it’s kinda rare for that to happen ‘cause that’s real embarrassing when it does. I try to avoid it. The guitar player can stop and the song is still goin’ on but the drummer stops, it’s a big hole and everyone is like, “What the hell?” The drums can’t really stop but I like that. Sometimes when everything is goin’ full speed, it’s kinda like the train is about to go off the track and somehow it stays on there."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

Live At The Aragon was released on March 15th via Reprise Records. A clip from the DVD, for the song 'Crack The Skye', can be seen below courtesy of Noisecreep.

The tracklisting for Mastodon: Live At The Aragon is as follows:

'Oblivion'

'Divinations'

'Quintessence'

'The Czar'

'Ghost of Karelia'

'Crack The Skye'

'The Last Baron'

'Circle of Cysquatch'

'Aqua Dementia'

'Where Strides The Behemoth'

'Mother Puncher'

'The Bit' (MELVINS cover)

As previously reporetd, Mastodon are currently at Doppler Studios in Atlanta, recording their follow-up to the Crack The Skye album with producer Mike Elizondo.

The band website reports: "Every Wednesday, we’ll put up 5 photos from the studio where Mastodon is finishing up their current record. Check out the photo section to see them."

Mastodon have announced that two of the titles from their forthcoming album are 'Blasteroids', and 'All The Heavy Lifting'.

Says the band, "The album will be coming soon."

Mastodon has announced they will be heading across the European continent and more this summer playing festivals from June 4th through July 16th.

All Mastodon tour dates are as follows:

June

4 - Rock Im Park - Nurnberg, Germany
5 - Rock Am Ring - Nuremburgring, Germany
6 – Gruensoan - Hamburg, Germany
7 - FZM - Dortmund, Germany
8 - Die Rohre - Stuttgart, Germany
10 - Sonisphere Festival - Warsaw, Poland
11 - Sonisphere Festival - Prague, Czech Republic
12 - Norweigan Wood - Oslo, Norway
13 - Plenen - Bergen, Norway
17 - Sonisphere Festival - Athens, Greece
19 - Sonisphere Festival - Istanbul, Turkey
21 - Sonisphere Festival - Sofia, Bulgaria
22 - INmusic Festival - Zagreb, Croatia
24 - Sonisphere Festival - Basel, Switzerland
25 - Sonisphere Festival - - San Marino, Italy
26 - Graspop - Dessel, Belgium
28 - Patronaat - Haarlem, Holand
29 - Metropol - Hengelo, Holand

July

1 - Roskilde Festival - Rosklide, Denmark
2 - Sonisphere Festival - Helsinki, Finland
3 - Glav Club - St. Petersburg, Russia
4 - Arena Moscow - Moscow, Russia
6 - Colos-Saal - Aschanffenburg, Germany
8 - Sonisphere Festival - Amneville, France
9 - Sonisphere Festival - Stockholm, Sweden
10 - Sonisphere Festival - Knebworth, UK
12 - C-Club - Berlin, Germany
13 - Metalcamp Festival - Tolmin, Slovakia
14 - Hegyalja Festival - Tokaj, Hungary
16 - Sonisphere Festival - Madrid, Spain