{"id":542001,"date":"2026-07-10T02:02:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T02:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/542001\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T02:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T02:02:18","slug":"mastodon-reflect-on-brent-hinds-death-in-candid-new-video-i-thought-thered-be-that-turnaround-where-wed-meet-apologise-hug-and-say-i-love-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/542001\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastodon reflect on Brent Hinds\u2019 death in candid new video: \u201cI thought there\u2019d be that turnaround where we\u2019d meet, apologise, hug and say, \u2018I love you\u2019\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mastodon<\/a> have shared a new video reflecting on the loss of co-founding guitarist Brent Hinds<\/a>, revealing they always believed the band would eventually reconcile before his death.<\/p>\n

Hinds departed Mastodon<\/a> in March 2025 after 25 years with the band. Five months later, he died in a motorcycle accident at the age of 51<\/a>. Since then, the band has continued with touring guitarist Nick Johnston, who is also expected to appear on Mastodon\u2019s upcoming studio album.<\/p>\n

Titled The Mastodon in the Room, the 35-minute video sees Troy Sanders, Bill Kelliher<\/a> and Brann Dailor address Hinds\u2019 departure and death publicly for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we enter a new chapter of Mastodon we want to do this the right way and talk about Brent,\u201d the video\u2019s description reads. \u201cWe\u2019ve all seen the clips, headlines and speculations, but we haven\u2019t told our story in our own words about our 25 year relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t easy to talk about Brent, he was our family, someone we all loved wholeheartedly. He was a wild man, our wild man and that came with some challenges. Both things are true and we aren\u2019t interested in chasing one truth over the other. Losing him has meant sitting with a type of grief we never expected. No more hugs, no more high fives, no more disagreements, no more making up. That part has been hard, it\u2019s real.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opening the discussion, drummer Brann Dailor admits he initially wasn\u2019t ready to speak publicly after Hinds\u2019 death.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t ready to address it. I wasn\u2019t ready to talk about it, I didn\u2019t even know what happened,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd to the fans, I\u2019m sorry I wasn\u2019t able to be more for them when that happened because I couldn\u2019t for myself. I\u2019m still unpacking it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band also revisits some of its defining moments with Hinds, including the guitarist\u2019s 2007 head injury after a drunken altercation that left him in a coma.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought the band was over,\u201d recalls Bill Kelliher.<\/p>\n

But despite fearing the worst, Kelliher says Hinds returned with a fresh burst of creativity: \u201cHe was really fucked up for a long time\u2026 But then there was the other side of the coin where we got back home and actually went to go see him and he was playing acoustic guitar a lot. He was like, \u2018I wrote all these songs\u2019\u2026 Then Crack the Skye happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conversation then turns to Hinds\u2019 final years in Mastodon, with the trio describing increasing struggles with alcohol, declining morale and increasingly inconsistent live performances.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could see the disconnect happening and the enthusiasm getting less and less, overall camaraderie as a four-piece dwindling,\u201d Sanders says. \u201cIt became quite obvious at the time, the onstage energy would just be hit or miss.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Sanders, those issues reached a breaking point during the Hushed and Grim era.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has always been ups and downs for the 25 years of our band, but I think it was at its peak unfortunately during these past five years.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says the band repeatedly tried to address the situation through sober, face-to-face conversations before ultimately concluding nothing was changing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew in our hearts that this was never going to change. I cannot tell you how many heart-to-hearts that the three of us had, daytime, sober, as a four-piece, pleading to someone that you\u2019ve been with for the bulk of your life to listen to us. It got to the point where the shows were declining in the live environment, and we were exhausted, exhausted at throwing all this love at something that straight up was not listening or not caring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelliher adds, \u201cYou\u2019re only as strong as your weakest link. The three of us could be out there practicing all day and rehearsing and we\u2019d go out there, and we would rely on him, and it was killing us, killing all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanders also recalls the last time the four founding members were together. During a band meeting, he read a letter outlining his concerns with the band\u2019s future, but Hinds stood up and walked out before he had finished.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s the last time I ever saw him again,\u201d Sanders says.<\/p>\n

He adds that he\u2019d believed at the time there would eventually be a chance to make things right.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought there\u2019d be that turnaround where we\u2019d meet, apologise, hug and say, \u2018I love you.\u2019 I didn\u2019t know when, but I knew it would happen. And I was fucking wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all thought that,\u201d says Dailor.<\/p>\n

Watch The Mastodon in the Room in full below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mastodon have shared a new video reflecting on the loss of co-founding guitarist Brent Hinds, revealing they always…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1484,93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-542001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-artist","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}