MASTODON's HINDS Says Scoring 'Jonah Hex' Movie Was A Frustrating Experience

April 17, 2010

Guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds of Atlanta progressive metallers MASTODON spoke to New York magazine about the band's contribution to the soundtrack of "Jonah Hex", the comic-book Western/horror film starring Josh Brolin in the lead role, with support from John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Will Arnett, Michael Fassbender and Michael Shannon.

MASTODON had been brought in by director, and former Pixar animator, Jimmy Hayward to collaborate on the score with composer John Powell back in September 2009. However, the reshoots and subsequent reediting meant Powell, who was already booked for Tom Cruise's "Knight and Day" and Doug Liman's Valerie Plame pic "Fair Game", had to leave. "There was no animosity," says Hinds. "He was just like, 'If you haven’t figured out what you’re doing cinematically, I gotta go.'"

In his place, composer Marco Beltrami ("Repo Men") was hired to work with MASTODON. "All of a sudden, there’s this new guy, who went in a different direction," continues Hinds, who by that point was on a world tour with the band. "And there was no way he could connect with me: They brought all the new scenes to us, but I was on tour this entire time, so I had no time to preconceive what I wanted the movie to sound like. Being so busy ... it's hard to be creative when you're going through the same motions every day [onstage]."

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).