During a recent interview with The Metal Voice, Bill Kelliher revealed that Mastodon are hoping to release a new song this year. If everything works out, the track may arrive around their upcoming tour with Gojira and Lorna Shore.

Kelliher said the following when asked if new material is in the works:

“There’s no shut-off valve for writing and riff writing and stuff like that; it’s always happening. I’m always writing. 75 percent of my day I’m usually playing guitar and I’m always writing stuff. I’ve got lots of ideas.

We’re trying to be ambitious enough to write a song before we leave for this next GOJIRA tour and have it come out at some point — during the tour, before the tour, in between the two legs. Who knows?”

He also added the following when asked if the band are already thinking about their next full-length album:

“Absolutely. I’m always assembling riffs. I’ve got a few skeleton ideas. But it’s been tough. Even though we’ve had this down time, I’ve still been busy doing other things. Life doesn’t revolve around MASTODON for me. I’ve got two kids and a wife that I need to be there for, and my two dogs. There’s a lot of stuff going on. But I’m definitely eager and really ready to get started writing the next record.

There’s no shortage of riffage or ideas or anything. We’ve still got a lot of creativity left in our band, and as four different individual guys, and we’re all a hundred percent committed to our band. So as soon as we get home from this touring cycle, which… We’ll probably write a few ideas on the road. I’m ready to show the guys some of the stuff I’ve got and get a jumpstart so when we get home from the tour, it’s, like, ‘All right. We’ve got some ideas.’

I own a recording studio, and that’s where we did our last record, so it’s real easy just to book some time there and just go down. And when we feel like being creative, we can. It’s just different now that we have our own studio, instead of having to book time, and then you’re on a schedule, and you’re always looking at the clock. I feel like now we can be more creative and take our time, like we did on the last record.”

[via Blabbermouth]