Born in Helena, Alabama on January 16, 1974, efficiency was his ardour from an early age. Moderately than being immersed in rock, nonetheless, Brent discovered his manner by way of the sounds of backwoods bluegrass and nation, which might inform his distinctive quick hybrid selecting type of guitar.
“My dad is cool as hell,” he defined his twangy genesis as a participant to Rolling Stone in a revealing 2009 interview, “however in an asshole transfer, he made me be taught the banjo earlier than he would purchase me a guitar. So I used to be studying all this hillbilly music with my uncle – then then I targeted on being an superior guitar participant. My mother would come and say, ‘Are you okay? You haven’t been out of your room in two days.’ I’d be like, ‘Don’t fear, mother. I’m not masturbating, I’m taking part in guitar!’”
Forsaking Alabama for the southern metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia, by the mid-Nineteen Nineties he was already a neighborhood legend. Becoming a member of up with Troy (a thought-about yin to Brent’s chaotic yang) in earlier venture 4 Hour Fogger, his repute as a mercurial menace preceded him: the most effective guitarist on the town, if he turned as much as apply in a match state to play. When Invoice and Brann entered their orbit after forsaking noise rockers At this time Is The Day and the nippiness of upstate New York – crushing beers, doing mushrooms and watching the bands play at an early Excessive On Hearth present at now-defunct basement The Parasite Home – there was prompt rapport and a starburst of inspiration.
Brent set a madcap tone from the outset. The night of their first jam collectively started at still-favoured native Mexican restaurant Elmyr, the place Invoice was employed on the time. The ‘Tequila Women’ – scantily clad promo waitresses – have been on the town, and Brent duly overindulged, getting right into a combat with the chef. “They went out into the road and the whole lot,” Brann would recall for a Okay! twentieth anniversary celebration in 2020. Invoice remembered fearing he’d be fired, “like, ‘Dude! What the fuck?!’” and that the following session wasn’t significantly better: “He simply rode on that low E-string…”
When Brent turned up once more the subsequent day – January 14, 2000 – banging on their house door to affix the jam, they reluctantly let him in. “He began noodling all these loopy riffs,” Invoice recalled. “It was like, ‘This man’s nice. The place was he final night time?!’” Extra than simply uncooked technical expertise, they noticed Brent’s character, individuality and urge for food to forge one thing from disparate affect like Melvins and Skinny Lizzy. Most of all, they noticed a fellow misplaced musician (at that time toiling away in development), keen to apply 5 nights per week and endure 1000’s of miles at the back of a van for thankless membership reveals in dive bars, basements, VFW halls and as soon as even in a China Buffet.
“There have been a whole lot of crimson flags, for certain, however I ignored them,” Brann would a lot later reckon of Mastodon’s helter skelter coming-together. “To me, discovering somebody distinctive, particular and superb, who shares your musical soul, is way more necessary than [peace and quiet]. You can be the worst individual on the planet and I’d take care of it for this music that’s my complete life.”
Milestones would come thick and quick. 2002’s Remission continues to be arguably probably the most achieved excessive metallic debut of the twenty first century. Each 2004’s landmark Leviathan and 2011’s The Hunter would go on to be named Kerrang!’s Album Of The Yr. Extra emphatically, 2006’s Blood Mountain and 2009’s Crack The Skye underlined Brent’s pivotal function within the four-part system: his proggier experimentation and runaway thrives a resplendent counterpoint to Invoice’s weightier traditional metallic riffs; his nasal whine a primal reply to Brann’s achieved croon and Troy’s deeper howl.
