Mastodon’s Bill Kelliher has updated fans on the forthcoming album, along with revealing that the band have written a song for the highly anticipated film Bill & Ted Face The Music.

Speaking with the RRBG podcast, Kelliher said: “We got asked a couple of months ago to be a part of the new Bill & Ted movie, to put a song in there. So we wrote a song which we’re wrapping up now. It’s pretty fun.”

He went on to describe the difficulties of Mastodon creating a track for the upcoming movie, saying director Dean Parisot had reservations over the song when he first heard it.

“We wrote a killer fucking song and the music director – the one that chose us – he loves the song, but the director was like, ‘This is clashing with that.’ I’m like, ‘You’ve had it for months. Why didn’t you tell us months ago?’ Especially now with the pandemic. Nobody’s in the same room together!” Kelliher added.

Speaking of Mastodon’s new material in compared to their 2017 album Emperor Of Sand, Kelliher said that Mastodon have “about 20 rough songs recorded”, though they’ve temporarily ceased working on the project amid COVID-19 restrictions.

“It’s different than Emperor Of Sand, but there’s definitely a vibe going on. It’s definitely got more Neurosis heaviness, simplified guitar parts – and Brann Dailor, he always demos most of the vocal ideas because he always has melodies. He’s been singing on a lot of it, at least for the demo purposes,” he said.

“With Emperor Of Sand, my mum was really sick with brain cancer and tragically passed away when I was in the heart of writing that,” Kelliher continued, adding, “I was getting a lot of my demons in my riffs out for that record in particular. With this new record, it’s kind of the same. I’ve definitely been writing like a madman, like crazy.”

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“The vocals are kind of Asleep In The Deep style – kind of Radiohead-ish: real melodic with a lot of vocal harmonies.”

Check out the ‘The Motherload’ by Mastodon:

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