Mutoid Man’s new album, Mutants, out July 28 on Sargent House, picks up right where the band left off six years ago with War Moans. It’s another blast of blistering guitar work, hooky melodies, and virtuoso drumming courtesy of percussionist-extraordinaire Ben Koller. With the addition of High On Fire bassist Jeff Matz, the band continue to push their technically challenging, yet incredibly catchy take on all things metal (and pop punk? See below) even further, crafting an album that lives up to the expectations their previous output has set.
Amongst other topics, vocalist and guitarist Stephen Brodsky took some time to speak with us about the new record, the lineup change and why Mutoid Man is special to him.
When did you begin working on Mutants?
Some of these song ideas have been kicking around since the last record, War Moans, which came out in 2017. So it’s been a good six years of marination with a bunch of these ideas. There were so many things that happened between the release of the last record and the recording of this new one that took my head out of the Mutoid game. When we actually got together with Jeff (Matz, bass) to start preparing the music for the new record, a lot of it just felt like it was fresh and it was exciting right off the bat, all over again, which was a good thing. It kind of speaks to the quality of stuff we have. Not to pat myself on the back by any means, but after six years, if you’re not feeling something, chances are there’s not going to be much that you can do to turn that around.
What transpired to have Jeff enter the band?
In 2019, Ben (Koller, drums) sustained an injury to his elbow that forced him to have to sit out on some touring that we had planned. We got Chris Maggio from Sleigh Bells and Trap Them and Coliseum, and several other bands, to fill in for Ben. In the process, we got a little chemistry going with Chris, and as things progressed with that lineup we started to struggle with Nick in the sense that he just wasn’t doing well on the road. It just was looking more and more like the best decision as a touring band would be to not subject him to our schedule of being on the road as much as we were at the time.
So when that was all coming to a head, Chris, who was at the time playing with High On Fire, suggested Jeff Matz, and he was like, “I just think it would be a great fit.” He was getting to know Jeff, and I didn’t know Jeff very well, but through Chris I was just of the understanding that Jeff was a real devoted musician, to the craft of just playing bass in all different facets—through being a music teacher, the amount of time he’s spent in High On Fire and his writing ability for the band. And then researching a little bit further with my friend Kurt Ballou, who plays in Converge and runs God City Studio and has worked several times with High On Fire—He also had nothing but great things to say about working with Jeff.
That’s really how the conversation started, so then Jeff was thankfully game to try something new. High On Fire is a West Coast-based band and he was down to get weird with a bunch of salty east coasters and see what happens.
Is there something different Jeff brings to the band, and particularly to these songs that were being shaped over all this time?
Absolutely—not across the board as far as song arrangements and song ideas and such. There were some things that were more or less set in stone, in a good way, where Jeff just sort of added his thing to it without the nucleus of the song changing much. But there were some songs that were just born from the ground up.
Like the song “Unborn,” that was a riff that Jeff came up with just messing around in five with the Drop B tuning. All but two songs in our entire catalog have been written in Drop B. But what’s great about handing that to Jeff is that it’s a tuning that he’s not familiar with, and I think he just had some fun wrapping his head around this style of playing that just doesn’t come naturally for him. As a result, we got some really cool, interesting stuff out of him. With me, I’ve been playing in that tuning since I was, like, 14 years old, so I know that tuning like I know the back of my hand, for better or for worse.
I would say my introduction to that sound and that tuning would have been from Tool Undertow, the song “Prison Sex.” That’s the song that really grabbed my ear because the first two seconds of that opening, I was convinced it was bass and then quickly realized it wasn’t. It was like, “What the hell is he doing?” and I had to find out.
Another great thing about Jeff is that being a music teacher he has incredible patience for the art of learning. He’s also devoted to all things Turkish music. His stamina for all things music is incredible. I’ve been known to really burn people out that I work with, like grinding shit down to a nub when it comes to trying to hone a song or a riff or whatever it is. Through Jeff, I feel like I met my match. This guy is inexhaustible; he’s reaching for a guitar or a bass or an instrument whenever he gets free time. It’s really inspiring and admirable.
What is the process for writing a Mutoid Man song?
There’s a few tried and true methods. Since the band started we’ve had this Dropbox folder called the riff bank, and over the years, we’ve made several deposits of all kinds into the riff bank: some iPhone demos, me just scatting some weird rhythm that came to mind and hoping to translate it to guitar or maybe drums at some point, or, like, a video of me in my underwear playing guitar at 6 in the morning with a fresh cup of coffee just seeing what caffeinated riff explodes from my brain and out through my fingers.
The way that anything ever comes together is usually through the excitement of Ben, when it comes to either combing through the riff bank and hearing something that really gets his mind going and gets his gears turning. Oftentimes it will just be a riff or two riffs in a voice memo that he’s really pumped on, and he’s got such a great imagination and such a powerful ability when it comes to song arrangement. That’s when things really get exciting because he’s the timekeeper. He’s the guy that literally is creating the time for us to exist in a musical form in this band. That’s a great responsibility, and we’re sort of beholden to that in a way. So if he’s excited to do something then that speaks volumes.
There’s been other instances, like the song “Headrush.” That song I sent a voice memo of me just kind of humming—I don’t even know if I had the lyrics. Now that I think about I do believe I had the lyrics and the vocal, basically what industry nerds like to call the topline. I had the topline and the guitar part basically 90% written. We may have made a few changes here and there, but it was me just playing through this tiny practice amp and just quietly singing the vocals and trying to get a balance that is somewhat listenable for an iPhone voice memo demo, and sending that over and Ben being like, “Wow, I don’t know that I can do much better than that, that’s great, let’s run with that.” There’s those rare instances as well, but the stuff that’s really fun, the stuff that really brings us together as a community in the band where everybody can jump in and build upon one small idea to the next—those are the songs that end up becoming the truly special ones.
How do you differentiate writing between different bands?
Cave In is a two-guitar band, so anything that I write for Cave In, I’m always conscious of how it’s going to sound with two guitars, Am I playing something that’s fitting for Adam (McGrath’s, Cave In guitarist) ability; is Adam going to like it, or can he add to it? Or if an idea necessitates the inclusion of a second guitar, then it’s most likely a better choice for Cave In than Mutoid Man. Sometimes the things that I’m playing in Mutoid Man, there’s a certain nuance, or certain expression, that would translate as a single guitar, or having a single guitar player be the lone expression of that instrument. Adam’s someone I’ve been playing music with since 1995, so I’m fairly aware and acquainted with his abilities and his tastes. Sometimes it’s pretty obvious that something that I write will be better suited for Mutoid Man, just for that reason alone.
Is Mutoid Man a vessel for you to experiment more?
As far as experimentation goes, it is a whole other challenge in my brain to compose for a single guitar than it is composing for two guitars in Cave In. The spirit of this band was largely born out of me finding my way after a major writer’s block. That writer’s block was a result of Cave In signing to a major label and then that record that we put out on RCA becoming essentially a commercial failure, and having this realization that creatively the way that we’ve been doing this band is not sustainable.
A large part of the creativity in terms of songwriting with Cave In up until that point was me having a real heavy hand, and so when that resulted in a commercial failure, it kind of sent me into a depression. That depression led to a writer’s block of sorts and it’s evident on the Cave In White Silence record, which came out in 2011. I wasn’t writing much on that record, I have maybe one or two songs on that record. At that point we had also taken so many steps independently of working within the realm of hardcore and punk—the place and the scene that birthed that band—that I had this feeling of, wow I feel so distant. Even if I wanted to write riffs of this nature, would it look like me crawling back to it with my tail between my legs, like there’s something pathetic about that. I was just so muddled in the head about that whole major label experience. I mean we all were in our own way, and we all handled it differently.
But leaving Boston and moving to New York and having my full stack just sitting in a closet for a year, until Ben Koller was like, “Hey, I have a rehearsal space right down the street; why don’t you bring your gear over, and let’s jam and see what happens.” That was like a rebirth of writing heavy music for me. It just rekindled that thing; it relit that pilot light that was out. I feel like Mutoid Man has its own special place in my heart and in my life for that reason. And I think everything that has come after that, especially with Cave In, is largely due to Mutoid Man helping me to find myself in that realm of heavy music again.
Power metal seems to be a growing influence on Mutoid Man’s music; is that something specific you’ve been honing in on?
I guess inadvertently. One of the things that I hated most about growing up as a young kid was having to go to what was called CCD. It was basically like a Catholic school, and I had to go once a week after school. Part of that also involved doing church activities on Sunday mornings, and the more that it went on, the more I hated it, especially when I started getting into heavy music.
I remember one day making a conscious decision to go to class, and at this point I was walking to class, so I would have a Walkman with me to accompany me, and I remember this one particular day I was listening to Iron Maiden No Prayer For The Dying, and I got to class and said, “I’m not going to turn this off, I’m just going to keep listening to this. This is speaking more to me than all this other bullshit.”
I have this mental image of my instructor mouthing something to me but I can’t hear; I’ve got my headphones cranked, and she’s getting more and more agitated and some kind of confrontation erupted out of that. My parents got a call from the CCD office and then that resulted in a conversation with them, and I was just like, “Hey, I’m done with this, I have my religion” (laughs).
Using Iron Maiden for different purposes in my life has worked out great. I guess that’s the ultimate power metal influence that anybody could ever draw upon. It goes deeper than the music is what I’m saying.
Is there a particular song or moment on Mutants that jumps out to you?
I think the song “Call of the Void” as a whole is a pretty big achievement for Mutoid Man because it touches upon power metal, which obviously plays a significant part of what makes Mutoid Man fun and exciting to listen. But there’s also what I don’t think too many people have talked about, and it might be more obvious if we just put it out there—There’s a pop punk influence in this band. The whoa whoa whoa parts, the millennial whoop whoop, all that shit, it’s lifted out of the pop punk 101 songbook. In a way I think we’d do just as well opening for Green Day as we would on a Maiden tour. One of these years, I’m just hoping that I can throw some gutter balls at Punk Rock Bowling. I’ve got my fingers crossed for that.
It seems like you always have a strong final track, and “Setting Sun” is as strong as any you’ve done. Do you put a particular emphasis on closing big?
That’s something cool that you pick up upon. I feel like I just read too many books that have shitty endings. That’s the last thing that I want for anybody investing their time and listening to my work.
This new record is no exception. Going into it, I was like, “Well we need something that is like a ‘Bandages’ or is like a ‘Bleeders,’ something that shows a bit more of a sensitive, introspective, almost ballad type side of the band. The curveball here is, let’s try a thrash ballad. What would it sound like if Motörhead was covering “I Remember You” by Skid Row or something, that kind of idea.
Lyrically it pulls from experiences in my life dealing with grief. Grief isn’t something that’s taught in school; you learn about grief outside of that. Life teaches you grief. All types of loss come with feelings of grief, so there’s some exploring grief lyrically in that song. It just seemed like the obvious closer for the record. I’m glad that you picked up upon it and it’s something that you appreciate it.
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Image courtesy of Jason Zucco
