Brent Hinds, who sang and performed guitar within the Grammy-winning steel band Mastodon till he left the group this 12 months, died Wednesday night time in a bike crash in Atlanta. He was 51.
His dying was reported by Atlanta’s WANF, which cited a police report that mentioned Hinds was using a Harley-Davidson motorbike when he was struck by an SUV whose driver had didn’t yield whereas making a flip. Hinds was pronounced lifeless on the scene, police mentioned.
In an Instagram publish, Hinds’ former bandmates mentioned they had been “in a state of unfathomable disappointment and grief” and that they had been “nonetheless attempting to course of the lack of this inventive power with whom we’ve shared so many triumphs, milestones, and the creation of music that has touched the hearts of so many.”
Identified for its sophisticated riffs and its high-concept storytelling, Mastodon constructed a big and devoted viewers with intricately plotted albums about sickness, suicide and “Moby-Dick.” The band’s music drew clear inspiration from Black Sabbath and Slayer and influenced subsequent steel acts like Baroness and Pallbearer.
But Invoice Kelliher, Mastodon’s different guitarist, mentioned, “We’re probably not a steel band,” throughout an interview with The Occasions in 2017. “I really feel we’re extra like a very heavy, groovy rock band with some prog components and a few fairly deep emotional lyrics. They’re loosely primarily based on tragedy and issues that actually shake up human beings in actual life.”
Mastodon shaped in 2000 and made two albums for the revered indie label Relapse Data — together with 2004’s “Moby-Dick”-steeped “Leviathan,” which Hinds informed the New York Occasions allegorized “the wrestle between man and music” — earlier than signing to the Warner Music imprint Reprise for 2006’s “Blood Mountain,” which earned a Grammy nomination for greatest steel efficiency.
The band — through which Hinds, bassist Troy Sanders and drummer Brann Dailor took turns as lead singer — made 5 extra LPs for Reprise; “Sultan’s Curse,” from 2017’s “Emperor of Sand,” received a Grammy for greatest steel efficiency. Mastodon’s most up-to-date album, “Hushed and Grim,” got here out in 2021.
Hinds grew up in Birmingham, Ala., the place he discovered to play the banjo earlier than turning to guitar. In a 2009 interview with the Guardian, he described his youthful self as “a complete hellion” and mentioned he was “very dysfunctional in school.” He added that he would “take LSD and are available to class nonetheless tripping. I used to be too inventive, by no means doing my homework, simply filling my notepad up with drawings of skulls.”
He met Sanders when the latter got here to Birmingham to play with an earlier band; Hinds quickly moved to Atlanta to make music with Sanders, then the 2 shaped Mastodon with Kelliher and Dailor. In 2009, Mastodon performed the Coachella pageant and toured with Metallica; six years later, Hinds appeared as an additional in an episode of HBO’s “Sport of Thrones.”
In March, Mastodon introduced that Hinds had left the band in an announcement that mentioned they’d “mutually determined to half methods.” But Hinds later wrote on Instagram that his former bandmates, whom he known as “horrible people,” had fired him “for embarrassing them for being who I’m.” He went on to accuse them of utilizing Auto-Tune within the studio and mentioned he had “by no means met three folks that had been so stuffed with themselves.”
Data on Hinds’ survivors wasn’t instantly out there.
