Metal
Brent Hinds’ estate has issued a statement to set out what it’s actually claiming from Mastodon. “Unfortunately, the public conversation has focused mostly on the inclusion of Brent’s likeness on the cover of a new album, and has sometimes framed the case as an attempt by the family to cash in. That’s not what this is,” it reads.
The statement explains that once he’d been pushed out of the band, Hinds “requested an accounting, a valuation, and an orderly separation of the interests he held in the founding members’ companies,” and that he died before the process was finished: “He had not received any compensation for any of his interests.” The lawsuit, filed on 3 September in Fulton County court, says the family received a cheque for $80,000 after his death to buy out his stake — one they have not cashed.
On the «Marrow Deep» cover, the estate maintains that what’s really at stake is the merchandising: the band cannot “invoke Brent’s identity when it’s commercially useful while simultaneously denying the continued relevance of his contributions when it comes to counting his interests.”
Hinds left Mastodon in March 2025, after twenty-five years, and died that August in a motorcycle accident in Atlanta, aged 51. Brann Dailor, Bill Kelliher and Troy Sanders, the defendants, responded on 11 September that they “flatly deny the allegations of bad intent” and plan to mount a strong defence against a lawsuit they consider baseless.
Text by Roger Estivill