Brent Hinds, who sang and performed guitar within the Grammy-winning steel band Mastodon till he left the group this 12 months, died Wednesday evening in a motorbike crash in Atlanta. He was 51.
His demise was reported by Atlanta’s WANF, which cited a police report that mentioned Hinds was driving a Harley-Davidson bike when he was struck by an SUV whose driver had did not yield whereas making a flip. Hinds was pronounced useless on the scene, police mentioned.
In an Instagram put up, Hinds’ former bandmates mentioned they had been “in a state of unfathomable sadness and grief” and that they had been “still trying to process the loss of this creative force with whom we’ve shared so many triumphs, milestones, and the creation of music that has touched the hearts of so many.”
Recognized 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 not really a metal band,” throughout an interview with The Instances in 2017. “I feel we’re more like a really heavy, groovy rock band with some prog elements and some pretty deep emotional lyrics. They’re loosely based on tragedy and things that really shake up human beings in real life.”
Mastodon fashioned in 2000 and made two albums for the revered indie label Relapse Information — together with 2004’s “Moby-Dick”-steeped “Leviathan,” which Hinds instructed the New York Instances allegorized “the struggle between man and music” — earlier than signing to the Warner Music imprint Reprise for 2006’s “Blood Mountain,” which earned a Grammy nomination for finest steel efficiency.
The band — by 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,” gained a Grammy for finest 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 total hellion” and mentioned he was “very dysfunctional at school.” He added that he would “take LSD and come to class still tripping. I was too creative, never doing my homework, just 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 fashioned 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 “Game of Thrones.”
In March, Mastodon introduced that Hinds had left the band in an announcement that mentioned they’d “mutually decided to part ways.” But Hinds later wrote on Instagram that his former bandmates, whom he referred to as “horrible humans,” had fired him “for embarrassing them for being who I am.” He went on to accuse them of utilizing Auto-Tune within the studio and mentioned he had “never met three people that were so full of themselves.”
Info on Hinds’ survivors wasn’t instantly obtainable.
