Metal Anarchy

During a recent interview with Bloodstock TV, Mastodon talked about covering Black Sabbath’s “Supernaut” during the band’s “Back To The Beginning” concert in Birmingham, England. Notably, they also revealed that they are planning to record a studio version of the track.

Drummer/vocalist Brann Dailor said the following about getting invited to the show:

“It was probably about six months, I think, before [it took place]. Maybe there was an original six bands that got chosen or whatever before some other bands got added later. And so we got an e-mail asking about it, if we were interested. And at first it was, like, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure you don’t have the wrong people or something?’ Our manager actually joked that it was the fastest reply that they had ever gotten from us collectively.”

Guitarist Bill Kelliher continued:

“We replied, like, I think 0.10 seconds before they actually asked us to do it. We had already replied ‘yes.’”

Dailor went on to say that it was “the honor of a lifetime”:

“It’s better than anything that anybody could ever bestow upon you to be called upon by the giant oak tree that is BLACK SABBATH. In other genres of music, the founders, they’re not alive. So it was really, really an incredible honor just to picked to do it. And, yeah, so then it was the arduous task of picking the [SABBATH] song [to play at the event].”

Kelliher also explained how the band chose “Supernaut”:

“‘Supernaut’, I’ve loved that song. I mean, all their songs are great, but that one I couldn’t imagine coming to practice one day as [SABBATH guitarist] Tony Iommi and saying, ‘I’ve got a good riff, man. You guys wanna see what I’ve got’, and playing that riff, and just being like… You must have sold your soul to learn that riff. The devil gave you that riff. So to see that it wasn’t chosen yet was — ‘That’s the one. Let’s do that.’”

Dailor added:

“So, obviously, there was the songs that SABBATH themselves were gonna do. And so they were doing their biggest hits and their biggest songs. Initially I wanted to do ‘Children Of The Grave’ just ’cause our band, we live in 6/8 [tempo], that heavy metal shuffle that that ‘Children Of The Grave’ invented for us. We have a lot of songs that are in that; that’s a very, very comfortable wheelhouse for us. But I saw LAMB OF GOD had already picked that, which I figured it would be scooped up — that one — pretty quickly, being such an amazing song. But then [we saw] ‘Supernaut’ [was available], and I was, like, ‘What about ‘Supernaut’?’ I felt like I could sing it, so it was kind of gonna kind of maybe come down to that, if I could pull it off, playing drums and singing it. And then when we got picked to open, I was, like, ‘Man, I think if we crush this, it’s gonna be the perfect opening kind of song.’ It’s a high-energy one. Some of the doomier ones might have been a little too slow to really kick things off. But this was the perfect one, I think.”

Kelliher also confirmed that a studio version of “Supernaut” is being discussed:

“We’ve been talking about it, for sure. We have to. We’ve been playing it every night. We’ve recorded it a few times live, and it’s come out… Who knows? Maybe we’ll do a live version, do a studio version.”

Dailor concluded:

“We’re definitely recording it.”

[via Blabbermouth]