Mastodon have plans to eventually lay down a studio version of their cover of Black Sabbath‘s 1972 track “Supernaut“. The Atlanta, GA progressive sludge metal band first took on that track at this past July’s ‘Back To The Beginning‘ live farewell concert for Ozzy Osbourne and the pioneering heavy metal band he fronted, Black Sabbath.
With Osbourne passing away just weeks after that July 05th show, Mastodon‘s sonic tribute has taken on a new meaning for the band, making its way into their sets as a away to honor the aforementioned heavy metal icon.
During an appearance at the ‘Bloodstock Open Air‘ festival earlier this month, the band’s vocalist/drummer Brann Dailor and guitarist Bill Kelliher were asked about getting invited to perform at that event. Dailor described the opportunity to play the show as, “the honor of a lifetime.” He went on to say:
“It’s better than a Grammy. 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 song.”
As for how they settled upon “Supernaut“, Kelliher offered:
“‘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 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.”
While Lamb Of God were quick to release a studio version of their “Children Of The Grave” cover, Mastodon have yet to lay down their rendition, though they intend to. Kelliher said of that:
“…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 went on to add, “We’re definitely recording it.”
[via Blabbermouth.net]
