About.com caught up with MASTODON at the June 18th opening of the feature film Jonah Hex to discuss the band's work for the soundtrack. A transcript of the interview appears below.

Q: How did you get hooked up with the project?

Brann Dailor: "The director, Jimmy - he's right over there - he is a fan of the band and was listening to our music when writing the script and wanted to include us in the soundtrack."

Brent Hinds: "Our album had just come out. It was a new album so he was picking that up and doing his work for the storyboard, drawing the storyboard, and was very inspired by our music which is flattering to us because we had never met Jimmy before. And now we've met him and he's just a part of the family. He seems like one of us. We really get along well. We're into the same things. It kind of came very naturally and very organic."

Q: It seems like if he was doing the storyboards while listening to your music, then your music has to fit in there. Did you feel that way when you were doing it?

Brann Dailor: "We had an instant bond to the film I think."

Brent Hinds: "What first happened with me and Jimmy is I also am an artist and I draw a lot of stuff, as well as him, I just looked at his storyboard just to get a synopsis of what's really going to take place on film. That helped to get a preliminary excitement about what you're about to be embarking on."

Q: Did you know Jonah Hex at all? Were you familiar with this?

Brent Hinds: "Yes. I had the comic book from the '70s, but it was secondary to my Witchery comic books. I was really into that kind of creepy, cryptic, zombie, witches, when I was very young. And just to meet someone who had the same ideals and to bring us into that situation was really super flattering, I thought."

Go to this location to watch the video footage. It is preceeded by an interview with director Jimmy Hayward.

As previously reported, Reprise Records will release a six-track EP from MASTODON from the film’s original motion picture score Jonah Hex on June 29th.

Jonah Hex features an original score by Reprise recording artists Mastodon and Oscar-nominated composer Mario Beltrami (The Hurt Locker, 3:10 to Yuma). Mastodon were asked to create the score personally by the film’s director, Jimmy Hayward who was inspired by repeated listenings of Mastodon’s 2006 album Blood Mountain. “Jimmy called us out of the blue as a fan,” bassist Troy Sanders told Paste magazine in an interview. “It was the most beautiful, authentic way to collaborate.”

Reprise Records will also release an exclusive EP of six of Mastodon’s tracks from the film Jonah Hex score on June 29th. For their first film scoring experience Mastodon recorded the tracks for Jonah Hex by viewing movie footage and actually composing the score spontaneously on the spot in the studio. This method of experimental and immediate composition proved to be a daring, daunting and ultimately fun way of creating music together over a short period of time. The resulting sessions yielded incredibly exciting results produced in a completely different way than they normally would approach writing and recording for a Mastodon album. Fans will get a chance to hear these new tracks all available through iTunes and all other digital outlets:

Death March (film version)

Clayton Boys (film version)

Indian Theme (film version)

Train Assault (film version)

Death March (alternate version)

Clayton Boys (alternate version)

Based on the legendary character from the comic book series from DC Comics, Jonah Hex is an epic action adventure about one man’s personal quest for redemption against the canvas of the battle between good and evil. The film stars Academy Award nominee Josh Brolin (Milk, No Country For Old Men), two-time Academy Award nominee John Malkovich (In the Line of Fire, Places in the Heart), Megan Fox (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds), Will Arnett (Blades of Glory) and Academy Award nominee Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road).