FUSE TV - Watch Metal Band Mastodon Teach a Class on Mastodons

Ever wonder why the hairy, thunderously loud metal band Mastodon is named after a hairy, thunderously loud extinct mammal? Neither did we, but we did jump at the opportunity to have bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders give us a lecture about the prehistoric creature.

Here are the most valuable lessons we learned from Troy Sanders thanks to Mastodon's Guide to Mastodons:

"Are you aware that the mastodon was the heaviest thing to walk this earth? Even heavier than Led Zeppelin II."

"Many times mastodons are confused with woolly mammoths. Which we find quite racist."

To learn how cavemen music critics rate Mastodon against T. Rex, and to hear about the "girth" of mastodons, watch the full lecture above. 

Fuse's Dan Brown also spoke with Sanders about Mastodon's remarkable popularity for a metal band in today's music scene. "We've always created music from the four of us and for the four of us," Sanders says. "That's the purist way we believe art should be created." 

Sanders dismisses fans who complain that Mastodon has diluted their sound over the years. "There's a lot of people, of course, who say, 'It's softer now, it's more melodic, you're singing,' but for every fan we lose I feel we're going to gain two more."

He also spoke on the band's (pre)historic meeting with Barney & Friends when the two touring acts unexpectedly shared the same venue on the same day last November. "We just [decided that we] had to meet these guys. They're dinosaurs, we're dinosaurs: We gotta be friends," Sanders says. "I've been following Baby Bop for 12 years now—we need to meet this creature."

For the full interview about Barney, Feist and Mastodon fans, watch the video below.