Mastodon to Record Their Cover of Black Sabbath’s “Supernaut”

Earlier this summer, one of the most iconic days in heavy metal history took place when the late Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath organized one massive, final gig to say farewell to the fans called ‘Back to the Beginning’. It was a huge event that featured a veritable who’s-who of metal artists playing quick sets that usually included a cover from one of the night’s dignitaries’ careers.

One of the bands that played was Mastodon and after ripping through “Black Tongue” and “Blood and Thunder,” they careened into Black Sabbath’s “Supernaut” off the 1972 album Vol. 4 with Gojira’s Mario Duplantier, Tool’s Danny Carey, and Slipknot’s Eloy Casagrande playing along on small percussion kits.

Roughly one month later while at this year’s Bloodstock Open Air, Mastodon’s Brann Dailor and Bill Kelliher spoke with Bloodstock TV‘s Oran O’Beirne to chat about that experience and how it all came about.

According to Dailor, Mastodon was among the select few that knew about the show about six months before everyone else. Of course, the band knew they were going to play.

“Maybe there was an original six bands that got chosen or whatever before some other bands got added later. And so we got an e-mail asking about it, if we were interested.

“At first it was, like, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure you don’t have the wrong people or something?’ Our manager actually joked that it was the fastest reply that they had ever gotten from us collectively.”

To be able to send off two of metal’s biggest icons was a major honor to anyone that participated and that was especially the case for the dudes in Mastodon, Dailor said.

“It was probably the honor of a lifetime to be asked to perform at Back To The Beginning. It’s better than a Grammy. It’s better than anything that anybody could ever bestow upon you to be called upon by the giant oak tree that is Black Sabbath. In other genres of music, the founders, they’re not alive. So it was really, really an incredible honor just to be picked to do it.”

Yet when it came to choosing which song they’d perform live, they ultimately landed on “Supernaut” for a couple reasons. For Dailor, it made sense given Mastodon’s place as the show’s opener.

“I felt like I could sing it, so it was kind of gonna come down to that, if I could pull it off, playing drums and singing it. And then when we got picked to open, I was, like, ‘Man, I think if we crush this, it’s gonna be the perfect opening kind of song.’ Some of the doomier ones might have been a little too slow to really kick things off. But this was the perfect one, I think.”

For Kelliher, the choice was an easy one because it was one of his favorites.

“‘Supernaut’, I’ve loved that song.

“I mean, all their songs are great, but that one – I couldn’t imagine coming to practice one day as [Sabbath guitarist] Tony Iommi and saying, ‘I’ve got a good riff, man. You guys wanna see what I’ve got,’ and playing that riff, and just being like… You must have sold your soul to learn that riff. The devil gave you that riff. So to see that it wasn’t chosen yet was — ‘That’s the one. Let’s do that.'”

People dug the cover so much that Kelliher said people wondered if they were gong to record it. After some uncertainty from the guitarist, it was Dailor that broke through and said what we all wanted to hear.

“We’re definitely recording it.”

When that recorded version of “Supernaut” will be made available remains to be seen. The band is busy touring while simultaneously grieving the loss of their founding guitarist Brent Hinds.

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