“We were all talking about owning tridents in case of burglary”: Inside Mastodon and Lamb Of God’s Triton-tastic collab

Mastodon and Lamb Of God have just finished up a summer tearing around America on a big old tour together. In part, it was a way to celebrate 20 years of their respective landmark albums Leviathan and Ashes Of The Wake. Moreover, it was about two bands of friends hitting the road together, and taking other mates Kerry King and Sheffield bruisers Malevolence out with them.

Now, the two bands have got together to collaborate on a new track, the majestically-titled Floods Of Triton. It is, as you'd expect, a feast of riffs and gung-ho adventuring.

We hooked up with Mastodon drummer/singer Brann Dailor and Lamb Of God frontman Randy Blythe to get the skinny on how it came about, making music with your friends, and the art of communicating through grunts…

Whose idea was it to do a song together?
Randy: “That was Mastodon. I got a text from Brann: ‘Hey, do you want to sing on a song with us? We have a song that I think that you would really fit well on.’ So it was that easy!”
Brann: “Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. We were doing this tour together, obviously, so Randy was at the front of my mind to sing on this track. Bill [Kelliher, guitar/vocals] and I had been going through demos and going through what we like to call ‘homeless riffs’ from days of old, and we stumbled upon this one that's been kicked around for years now. Every time we go to write an album, we talk about this riff, and it always gets shoved to the side. I said, ‘Let's just push everything else over here, and let's work on this thing.’ And for some reason, it came together pretty quickly. And then we thought to ask Lamb Of God about collaborating. I text Randy and asked him to sing on it, because it just fit perfectly in his wheelhouse. It was a Randy vibe.”

Randy, you went down to Mastodon's HQ in Atlanta to do the vocals. How did that go?
Randy: “It was great, man. When I do collaborations or guest spots, whatever you want to call it, with another band, I prefer to go to the studio with them. Everybody works remotely [usually], but I think something happens when musicians are in a room together in the studio, recording, working stuff out, which simply does not happen when you're sending files back and forth via the internet. Musicians have a weird way of communicating. Brann or Troy [Sanders, bass/vocals] or Bill could just say something to me – ‘How about a little bit more oomph here’ or whatever – and I’d understand that. There’s almost an emotional language that all musicians speak that gets lost when you’re just emailing back and forth.
“For me, I want the band to be happy with what I'm doing. They've asked me to sing with them, and I'm able to really ensure that I'm giving them what they want if I'm there in person. And we've been friends for a long time, so it's just a vibe.”
Brann: “It was pretty easy. Randy said he’d be around in Atlanta, and once we had a pretty simple plan in place, it was like: ‘Alright, attack!’ When Randy got down here, he had everything kind of worked out to a degree. But it just took the three of us – myself, Randy and Troy – to get in a room and look each other in the eyes and go through it. Like Randy said, we all kind of speak the same language, especially us self-taught musicians. You really have to rely on grunts and caveman-speak to get your point across. Which works really well. You get in there and go ‘Ooga booga,’ and you got an awesome, kick-ass track.”

Who wrote the lyrics?
Randy: “Troy and I did those. I wrote probably 75 per cent of the lyrics, and I talked to Troy about what I was writing about, and conceptually what I wanted it to be. I sent them to the Mastodon guys, and they were like, ‘That's great.’ I mean, I was hoping for a little bit more input, but maybe I'm just being needy. These are my homies, but it's kind of like, are they just saying that because we're friends and they don't want to hurt my feelings? Do they think it sucks?”
Brann: “No way. I care about your feelings, but not when it comes to lyrics…”
Randy: “Exactly, they’ve got to be good. We sat in the in the kitchen of their studio, went through the lyrics, because I wanted to make sure what I was hearing as the chorus was actually the chorus. I'm not a guitar player or a drummer or a bass player, I'm a singer. So sometimes with my band even, I'll be like, ‘This is what I hear for the chorus.’ And they’ll go, ‘No, dude, that's the bridge.’ I discussed it with Troy, because he and I were the ones that sang it mostly, and went back and forth.
“Because it's not just Mastodon with me doing guest vocals, we really wanted it to be collaborative. I was originally hoping that that we would write 50/50, lyrics, but it didn't work out that way. But I’d done 75 per cent, and Troy said he had brought some. Even in the studio, we added a line or two we came up with, which just happens when you're together, not when you're emailing stuff back and forth.
“It was a collaborative effort. It wasn't like strangers asking me, ‘Hey, will you do guest vocals, and we'll give you this credit,’ or whatever. These are my friends. They want to make music with me, so let's make music together. And that's truly what it felt like. That's one thing I love about it. I love making music with my friends. I have my own band, but I also love making music with all my friends, because a lot of my friends are musicians.”

Where did the idea for the Triton stuff come from?
Randy: “Well, if you if you look at the lyrics, there's sort of an apocalyptic feel to them, sort of a disastrous feel. We threw around a bunch of titles, and I was thinking of some stuff that didn't really work. And then I believe it was my friend right here, I'll let him answer that…”
Brann: “I think we were having a conversation about Triton while we were in the studio, and we just started talking about the mythologies surrounding Triton, son of Poseidon. We were discussing tridents and things, and how we all desperately wanted to own a trident of our own, at the house, in case of a burglary. Could you imagine some guy comes running down the stairs, naked, with a trident? Yeah, you're gone. You're leaving.
“Anyway, the imagery was in my mind from having a conversation when we were having fun in the studio. But going through the lyrics and going through everything, I don't know, I kind of had the ocean, I had the flood… There’s the lyric that Randy came up with: ‘A flood is coming.’ I had this image of Triton causing that flood. That’s where it came from. I like to name things.”
Randy: “Yeah, you're good at naming things.”
Brann: “I know. So, there you go. We had a bunch of different names, but even as I would type them out and send them, I'd be like, ‘That's not it.’ You just have to be patient and know that a name will strike that chord, and usually everyone is into it. It conjures up imagery, that’s the most important thing about a song title, I think. It sort of creates a little scene in your mind, even if you haven't seen the actual art. But that looks fantastic as well. What I'm trying to say is, I love it when a plan comes together…”

And how was the tour together? The show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado looked a bit special...
Brann: “It was alright… No, it was great! The air was a bit thin up there, but, yeah, we were working hard, but it was a great show for both bands.”
Randy: “Brann's dad was there. My mom was there. Lots of family and friends were out there. It was packed. So, it was a great show. I don't normally like seated venues, but there's something magic about that place.”
Brann: “We all agreed it slotted in the top five all-time Mastodon shows. Sometimes you can play these big historic venues, and you want it to go so good, but it doesn't always pan out that way. It's just the luck of the draw. Whatever happens on that day happens and you go, ‘Okay, I don't think anybody noticed we didn't have the best show.’ Sometimes the gods of metal will try to throw a wrench in the in the spokes there for you, but everything went really great and it became magical. I even looked down at one point and there were two or three ladybugs on my kick drum. I said, ‘Oh, that's a sign from nature.’”

How was it going out with Malevolence?
Randy: “Great! We’d done gigs with them in Europe before, and I was like, ‘These guys are great. They’re cool, they don’t whine, they don’t complain.’ If you're a younger band and you act like a shithead, none of us are going to carry you out. That's a little advice to young bands: don't be a shithead. And Malevolence made the most of their time on this tour. On days off they were always going to go do crazy shit, like, ‘We're gonna go cliff jumping,’ or, ‘We're gonna rent a four-wheel drive and then go mudding in the desert.’ They really made the most of their time and had a good time, and it was a joy to have them out.”
Brann: “I tried to see every band as much as I could, and I thought they were awesome. When I saw their name come up that they were going to be opening, that was awesome. And Kerry King's new band is awesome, and it's Kerry King, so I knew it was going to be a fun summer.”

Are there any thoughts of coming over to the UK together?
Brann: “Interesting that you say that… I don't know.”
Randy: “Maybe, maybe not…”

Floods Of Triton is out now via Loma Vista

Read this next:

• Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe: My life in 10 songs
• How collective grief shaped Mastodon’s most grandiose, gut-wrenching album ever
• “The sound of master craftsmen flexing their creative muscles”: Our original 2006 review of Lamb Of God’s Sacrament