Mastodon's 'Jonah Hex' Soundtrack: "Spacey, Pink Floyd-Like"

When "Mastodon" and "Megan Fox" are used in the same sentence, it's usually because a chemically-enhanced dude is describing the imaginary bounties of metalhead heaven. Well, the gates have opened: Meet Jonah Hex, the film adaptation of the comic book series starring the great actors and featuring an all-new soundtrack from the Atlanta quartet!

Director Jimmy Hayward, a big fan of Mastodon's 2006 album 'Blood Mountain,' personally asked the group to write the score for 'Jonah Hex.'
"Jimmy called us out of the blue as a fan," bassist Troy Sanders said in an interview. "It was the most beautiful, authentic way to collaborate."

For their first film scoring experience, Mastodon recorded the tracks for 'Jonah Hex' by viewing movie footage and actually composing spontaneously in the studio. This method of experimental and immediate composition proved to be a daring, daunting and ultimately fun way of creating music together over a short period of time. The EP tracks include 'Death March,' 'Clayton Boys,' 'Indian Theme' and 'Train Assault.'

Bassist Troy Sanders discusses the new music, which is their most experimental yet.
"Some of it was heavy, some of it was very moody," Sanders said. "A lot of it was spacey, Melvins B-sides, Pink Floyd-like, surreal outer space, like Neil Young's Dead Man. Swirling, nausea music."

Sanders added that the collaboration felt natural: "Since day one, we've always written albums thinking the music was the score of a movie. Then we'll create the lyrics or story line on top of that, as if we're writing the dialogue to match the movie's cinematography."

The whole soundtrack is an hour-long instrumental, including five full songs and numerous smaller musical themes. Selections were added to scenes in the film by composer John Powell (Shrek, The Bourne Identity), and others has been adapted for the London Orchestra for exceptionally epic moments. "We wrote variations on themes for each character, different variables for a bunch of riffs: faster, slower, heavier, lighter," Sanders explained. "It's the Darth Vader approach."

Buy and download Jonah Hex: Music From The Motion Picture EP at Amazon.com