MASTODON SIDE-PROJECT FIEND HOPES TO TOUR OUT OF THE CLOSET

Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds is currently taking time away from the band and is now concentrating his effort on his surf-heavy rockabilly project Fiend Without A Face. The group recently played the Royal Flush Mazazine release party at New York City’s Bowery Ballroom, and it was an important show for the band.

Hinds talked to us about how Fiend Without A Face came about.

“Thirteen years ago I got a job working as an electricians assistant running wires under muskrat turd infested houses in cabbagetown and the guy that I was working for was his roommate and that was real early in the morning. He’s a construction worker, I was a construction worker, I would be there early in the morning, like 6:30 7:00 in the morning, and they had an acoustic guitar laying around so I started noodling around on it. He comes out, and he’s like, ‘Man, that’s pretty good.’ He goes, ‘Man, I play stand-up bass,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, cool. I always wanted to get a psycho-billy type surf band going on.’ And literally like a week later we were doing this, and that was like thirteen years ago. We’ve been doing this for a while now.”

The Mastodon guitarist shared what his mindset is between Mastodon and Fiend Without A Face.

“Yeah, it’s a completely different mental approach. I can’t play in Mastodon wasted, but I can play in this band wasted. Really, no. With this band it’s all about a good time, and it’s not as demanding as crucial for lack of a better word. Being in Mastodon, every time that band plays there’s a lot more people. We’ve been around doing…traveling, building a way bigger fan base than this band has. I think you’ll find out that this music is from ages 8 to 80. Mastodon is pretty much 14 year old boys to maybe some girls, and definitely 30 year old dudes or something.”

Hinds revealed that Fiend’s performance at the Royal Flush Magazine party was a very important gig.

“It’s kind of crucial from this show tonight because we’re playing tonight in front of Pinacle Booking, which is what books Mastodon, but they wanted to see fiend first to see what kind of market they can book us with. That’s pretty much the focus for Fiend is to get out there and play some more shows wherever the show might be. We’ve played in people’s closets with the lights out. It’s hard to do, but we’ve done it.”

Other artists at the Royal Flush Magazine party on Friday, August 31 included Beatallica, Hidden Hand Wino, and Clutch and was MC-ed by E-Street Band drummer Max Weinberg.