In a recent interview with Guitar Player, Mastodon’s Brent Hinds admitted to not really liking heavy metal. Actually, his exact wording was: “I fucking hate heavy metal.” Apparently Hinds has been living a lie since the early aughts when Mastodon dropped Remission on metal mainstay Relapse records. Despite his hardened aesthetic, Hinds explained that his early music was much less abrasive:

I never really liked heavy metal in the first place. I came from Alabama playing country music, surf rock, rockabilly, and stuff like that. I just went through a phase in my 20s where I thought it was rebellious to play heavy metal. And then I met Brann [Dailor, Mastodon drummer] and Bill [Kelliher], and they were really, really, really into heavy metal. And ever since then, I’ve been trying to get Mastodon to not be such a heavy metal band, because I fucking hate heavy metal, and I don’t want to be in a heavy metal band.

Hinds isn’t exactly known as a ready-made interviewee, and he had more than a few things to say about how much he hates participating in conversations about his music:

It would be nice if magazines and all interviews would just go fall off the face of the earth along with all the cigarette smoke and all the other f**king things I hate in life. I don’t like doing interviews, I don’t read interviews, I don’t need to know how people go about doing things. It frustrates me to do interviews, because I have to talk about things I’ve talked about over and over and over and over again. So, no, there’s nothing that we can talk about that involved Mastodon that I’ll get excited about. After 15 years of doing this every fucking day of my life, the last thing I want to do is talk about doing it.

In other Mastodon news, the band recently guest-starred as wildlings on Game Of Thrones. Maybe someone should interview Hinds about that instead.