White whale, holy grail: Mastodon’s ‘Leviathan’ turns 20
Mastodon‘s 2004 album, Leviathan, turns 20 on Saturday. In addition to being among the most acclaimed releases in the metal band’s discography, Leviathan is also a personal favorite of bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders.
Speaking with ABC Audio, Sanders references the “cliché of most musicians” — “‘I love of all of our records, they’re like children,’ that whole thing,” he says — while adding, “I do love all of our records, but Leviathan is the one that really took us from the basements to the arena supporting huge bands.”
That Leviathan catapulted Mastodon in that way was especially impressive, given that it’s a concept album inspired by Moby-Dick, which is maybe not the most accessible premise for a record. As Sanders explains, drummer Brann Dailor came up with the idea while reading the classic novel over several flights on the way to a European tour and realizing that Ahab’s maniacal pursuit of the white whale was a lot like Mastodon’s own pursuit of making it in music.
“We questioned ourselves, like … ‘Are we insane?'” Sanders says. “Is this crazy that we’re sacrificing everything at home — our friends, our families, our girlfriends, our kids — to do this dirty rock ‘n’ roll thing?”
The Moby-Dick comparison really clicked for Dailor when he read a passage calling the whale a “sea salt mastodon.”
“He’s like, ‘That’s who we are, that’s what we are!'” Sanders recalls. “‘This is us! We are Ahab, Ahab is us!'”
Reflecting on Leviathan now, Sanders remarks, “The music and the intensity, the riffs, the lyrics and everything just really came together.”
Mastodon has been playing Leviathan in full on a U.S. tour, which concludes Saturday in Omaha, Nebraska. The bill is co-headlined by Lamb of God, whose own 2004 album, Ashes of the Wake, was released the same day as Leviathan.
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