Metal Shrine recently conducted an interview with MASTODON bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders. In the interview Sanders talked about song writing, the new album artwork, ELTON JOHN and more. Excerpts from the interview are below:

Metal Shrine: Speaking of that artwork? How did you come across that guy AJ Fosik?

Troy Sanders: “We´d seen some of his work in magazines and such and books and it was quite striking. Months ago while we were in the writing process, we contacted him and discussed the idea of making an epic wood sculpture and he was very much into it, so he started busting his ass similarly to the way we feel about creating our music. He spent hours and hours of dedicated time and talent making this massive wood sculpture of a triple jarred minotaur type head and it turned out to be so slick and beautiful, that it almost looks like a computer generated image, but it´s not. It´s actually a massive wood sculpture that he spent many, many hours on. It was cool to change it up and we´re very, very happy with what he did.”

Metal Shrine: Writing this album, I understand that it was more of a collaboration and a group effort than Crack The Skye. How do you guys work on songs? Does everyone bring an idea for a riff or a melody? How does it work?

Troy Sanders: “Yeah! Essentially everyone in the band contributes a lot to the finished product, but the majority of songs are written in one or two ways. One of the ways is that one of the guitar players will come into practice because they both have acoustic guitars and they play a lot of music at home on their couches, so sometimes that guitar players will walk in and say “Hey, I think I have a whole song! Check this out!” and they´ll play it and then we take what we love and move forward and build on that or it might be a complete song already and we´re like “Wow, kickass!” The other way that a lot of the songs are written is that somebody will come into the practice space and somebody will start jamming on something cool and everybody kind of joins in and then we try and find other riffs that match that and just kind of build it very spontaneously and then by the end of the day we´ll go “Holy shit, that´s a song! Done! High five!”, so those are the two main ways that songs are written in the Mastodon world. Essentially everybody has their style and their feel and their contributions to it, whether it be guitar wise or vocally or whatever. It is very much a band effort when it´s all said and done.”

Metal Shrine: How´s it looking tour wise now? Any plans for Europe and Sweden?

Troy Sanders: “Oh absolutely! The record comes out very soon and then we have a US tour booked from October to November and then we´ll take a break for the new year and right now it´s all coming together for the plans for early 2012 and we definitely wanna come across the seas and do a proper club headlining tour, so we hope to be over there doing our own shows at the beginning of the new year. That´s very high on our priority list.”

Read the entire interview at this location.

On Monday, September 26th, The Roxy in Los Angeles is having a special release party for Mastodon's new album, The Hunter. For more details click here or see the flyer below.

As previously reported, Mastodon will be doing a live Q&A; webchat on September 27th, the day their new album, The Hunter, is released, from their hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Stay tuned for info on how to fire off your questions that day.

Check out footage from the making of the augmented reality experience - available with the new Mastodon album, The Hunter, due in stores September 27th. When you get the album cover, you can hold it up to your screen, which triggers the experience. Pre-order the limited edition that comes with extra augmented reality footage by clicking here.

As previously reported, the official tracklisting for The Hunter is as follows:

'Black Tongue'

'Curl Of The Burl'

'Blasteroid'

'Stargasm'

'Octopus Has No Friends'

'All The Heavy Lifting'

'The Hunter'

'Dry Bone Valley'

'Thickening'

'Creature Lives'

'Spectrelight'

'Bedazzled Fingernails'

'The Sparrow'

'The Ruiner' (with limited edition)

'Deathbound' (with limited edition)

Mastodon recently announced a North American headlining tour, with THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN and RED FANG as support. For a limited time (until midnight on September 26th), every pair of tickets purchased online will also receive one digital copy of Mastodon's new album, The Hunter.

Tour dates include:

October

25 - Austin, TX - La Zona Rosa
27 - Houston, TX - Fitzgeralds

November

1 - Los Angeles, CA - Wiltern Theatre
2 - Sacramento, CA - Ace of Spades
3 - San Francisco, CA - The Warfield
5 - Portland, OR - Roseland Theatre
6 - Seattle, WA - Showbox SODO
7 - Boise, ID - Knitting Factory
8 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Depot
9 - Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre
11 - Chicago, IL - Riviera Theatre
12 - Milwaukee, WI - Rave Ballroom
13 - Sauget, IL - Pop’s
14 - Kansas City, MO - The Beaumont
16 - Detroit, MI - The Fillmore Detroit
17 - Indianapolis, IN - Egyptian Room
19 - New York City, NY - Terminal 5
20 - Philadelphia, PA - Trocadero
21 - Boston, MA - House of Blues
23 - Montreal, QC - Metropolis
25 - Toronto, ON - Kool Haus
26 - Buffalo, NY - Town Ballroom
27 - Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
28 - Norfolk, VA - The NorVa
29 - Asheville, NC - Orange Peel

December

1 - Lake Buena Vista, FL - House Of Blues