Stephen Brodsky: “Mutoid Man helped me find my confidence again as a writer”

Starting with the 1998 release of Cave In’s seminal metalcore album Until Your Heart Stops, Stephen Brodsky has spent a quarter-century playing a crucial role in the world of heavy music. He’s intermittently played with fellow Massachusetts musicians Converge, most recently alongside Chelsea Wolfe on 2021’s epochal Bloodmoon: I, as well as releasing records with New Idea Society, Kid Kilowatt and Old Man Gloom.

Most significantly, however, he’s helped push the boundaries of heaviness with Cave In, from the prog experiments of 2000’s Jupiter to last year’s incredible Heavy Pendulum, charting a course that has taken in both highs and lows, the latter including writer's block, an ensuing hiatus and, most tragically, the death of bassist/co-vocalist Caleb Scofield in 2018. For the last decade, he’s balanced Cave In with New York-based outfit Mutoid Man (alongside Converge drummer Ben Koller and High On Fire bassist Jeff Matz), who you might also know as the house band on metal chat show Two Minutes To Late Night.

As Mutoid Man prepare to release their third album Mutants, Stephen took some time to look back on his career, speaking candidly and with no shortage of appreciation for his musical collaborators over the years. This is a story of ambition, struggle and redemption through the power of the riff…

What got you into music back in the early days?
“Nirvana just changed my whole life. Prior to that I’d listened to bands like Guns N’ Roses and Metallica, but Nirvana made me want to find other people that shared the same love. If I find people who are into this sort of thing, then it’s gonna be way better than trying to pretend that I’m good at sports, which I’m not, and I had zero confidence talking to girls (laughs). But Nirvana just made me feel like maybe there was a place for me, and others like me, in this world.”

How did you get into the hardcore scene in Massachusetts?
“The way that hardcore music was first presented to me was like real macho and violent, and cliquey. When I first heard Converge, they ticked so many of the boxes around heavy, experimental music. And that sort of became my immersion into that world, where I was more forgiving of the things that turned me off about it. So at some point I found myself really devoting all my energy to the local hardcore scene. That’s what inspired me and the original members of what became Cave In to start playing shows.”

You had to step up and become lead vocalist of Cave In just before recording Until Your Heart Stops. How nerve-racking was that?
“I had sung in bands prior to Cave In, so the concept wasn’t totally foreign to me, but putting an aggressive spin on the vocals was new, and I had very little time to prepare. But the Cave In guys were encouraging of me, like telling me, ‘Lower that mic stand and take a James Hetfield stance, and fucking give it all you got!’ I was also taking a creative writing class at the time, so I had all these assignments that I threw up in the air. I kind of made some sense out of that chaos, and that’s essentially what birthed the lyrics to Until Your Heart Stops.”

So you released an iconic metalcore album, and then started incorporating space rock and prog influences. Did you find that Jupiter broadened your audience and allowed you to be heard in places you hadn’t been before?
“It did, absolutely. It really opened the doors for the types of bands that we could play with. [Before recording Jupiter] we had just come off a tour with Neurosis, and in our minds we felt that the transformation of our band was a revolution of the same kind that Neurosis had done from Through Silver In Blood to Times Of Grace. And one of the things that we took from that experience was that we didn’t necessarily have to play as metallic as we once did, but we could be just as loud – maybe even louder – if we really laid into what we were doing.”

What do you remember about your UK tour with Hundred Reasons back then?
“It was at a point in my life when I didn’t really know how to take care of my body. On the second to last show, I jumped off the stage, trying to force myself to have a little more fun, and I sprained my ankle. After the show it was swelling to the size of a softball. So at the end of that tour, I had a fraction of my vocal range, I was hobbling around with a cane, and sick with whatever tour virus I had caught. And that was actually a turning point, the start of me getting into exercise routines, and becoming more conscious of my diet. Wow, that was like 20 years ago, so it was a learning experience for sure.”

When your next album Antenna found you on a major label, did it feel like things were stepping up a gear for Cave In at that point?
“Signing to RCA definitely created a connection with the Foo Fighters. It was a real power move on the label’s part to get us to open for them in the UK, and that was a game-changer. To this day, we still have people coming to see us who say, ‘First time I ever saw you guys was opening for the Foo Fighters!’ There also came a point later on where we were encouraged to remain a presence on the road, and it worked against us. Like we found ourselves at this club we had just played three months prior, and there was a third of the people there, coming up to us going, ‘What happened? Why are you not popular now?’ (Laughs) The honeymoon period was really starting to wane.”

When you guys went on hiatus after Perfect Pitch Black, did you think that was it?
“We had a lot of processing to do, and I think part of it was not trying to answer that question. Caleb moved to LA and started a family, and recorded a couple Zozobra records. Adam [McGrath, guitar] started a new band called Clouds. Both of those guys, as a result of these other creative avenues, became musicians and songwriters in their own right outside of Cave In. That was huge, because up to that point I was the primary writer in the band, and I think we all realised that just wasn’t the formula for success in the long run. And I think the band got more interesting when we regrouped in 2009 and started doing shit differently. We’re still, to this day, reaping the benefits of that transformation.”

In the early 2010s, with Cave In back together, what made you want to start Mutoid Man?
“I went through a writer’s block with heavy music. Being the creative force of Cave In led to what was essentially a commercial failure, and the result of that feeling created that heavy music drought. Also, out of the band’s natural progression, we just weren’t as involved in punk and hardcore. It was just a whole mixture of self-consciousness and failure and depression. When I moved to New York in 2011, it was like hitting the reset button. Mutoid Man helped me find my footing again, as far as my confidence as a writer goes, and it really had a lot to do with Ben championing that possibility in me, which was just laying dormant. It just really needed to have a new scenario for it to come out, and that playground became Brooklyn. I moved my full stack out of my closet, where it was sitting for nine months, and got it into Ben’s rehearsal space and started jamming, and that’s where this rebirth occurred.”

How did you guys get involved as the house band on Two Minutes To Late Night?
“Jordan Olds – who hadn’t become [corpsepainted host] Gwarsenio Hall yet – got in touch with me because he wanted to take guitar lessons. And I quickly realised this guy was certainly not a beginner! Like, if he wants to be taking lessons, it should be with a bona fide shredder, y’know? Then he had an idea for a metal-themed talk show. He’s just a natural comic, and has this really free-flowing sense of comedy to his demeanour and his mind, and so it just seemed like another avenue for Mutoid Man to do something fun. He needed a house band and we were there for him!”

What can people expect from Mutants?
“I think Cave In’s long-term fans appreciate that we’re this kind of rock’n’roll chameleon, and we’ve dabbled from one extreme to the next. With Mutoid Man I wanted to avoid some of those extremities, for there to be this consistency. So, 10 years later, I think Mutants is very much in line with what people have come to expect from Mutoid Man. But I think at the same time, there’s this undeniable newness, with [recently joined bassist] Jeff Matz from High On Fire, who’s brought so much to this band with his playing and his songwriting, and you’ll hear it – there’s a new darkness, but it doesn’t take away from the lightheartedness of the approach of the band.”

One final question: do you still have any musical ambitions that you’re yet to fulfil?
“Oh, absolutely. I’d still like to shake hands with James Hetfield at some point (laughs). I feel like Metallica are gunning to be the first band that ever plays in outer space, so if they need an opener, I’d love for them to consider Mutoid Man! And outside of the realm of loud, bombastic rock’n’roll, I have this sort of finger-style way of playing on my acoustic at home. Someday, when I’m too old to scream and my voice is all shredded, maybe I’ll take the [folk guitarist] John Fahey approach and live that weirdo troubadour lifestyle, just going around with nothing but a guitar and a satchel on my back... But hopefully that’s a long way away!”

Something to look forward to in the distant future, after the trip to space!
“(Laughs) Right on! That sounds like a good trajectory to me.”

Mutants is out July 28 via Sargent House. Mutoid Man tour the UK from September 8 – get your tickets now.

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