Gone Is Gone is another hard rock supergroup whose lineup reads like any metalhead’s wet dream. The band is comprised of Mastodon’s Troy Sanders, At The Drive-In’s Tony Hajjar, Queens of the Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen, and keyboard maestro Mike Zarin.
As Rolling Stone reports, the four-piece are set to unveil their self-titled debut EP this July and they’ve already premiered the EP’s lead single. A sludgy stomper titled ‘Violescent’ was premiered via Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 radio show earlier this week.
According to RS, Gone Is Gone came out of Hajjar and Zarin’s joint sessions for various movie trailer and film scores. They eventually decided to flesh out one of their songs with a full band lineup, tapping Van Leeuwen and Sanders to join.
But in addition to producing one of the most eagerly anticipated heavy releases of the year, Gone Is Gone cements a newly created music industry rule: every new heavy supergroup that forms must have at least one member of Mastodon involved.
We’re not sure when this was decided or just what the punishment is for not including one of the members of the mighty Atlanta outfit in your new supergroup project, but we’ve been keeping an eye on this trend for a while.
It can be traced back to 2014, when Sanders joined members of Soulfly, The Mars Volta, and The Dillinger Escape Plan to form Killer Be Killed. The Max Cavalera-fronted outfit released an acclaimed debut LP and played last year’s Soundwave festival.
Then, early last year, Mastodon axeman Brent Hinds formed Legend of the Seagullmen with members of Tool and Off!. The band, which featured Tool drummer Danny Carey and Off! and Burning Brides guitarist Dimitri Coats, recorded a batch of sea shanties with director Jimmy Hayward as producer.
Then Hinds joined Alice in Chains frontman William DuVall, Dillinger Escape Plan guitarist Ben Weinman, Dethklok bassist Pete Griffin, and former Mars Volta drummer Thomas Pridgen to form Giraffe Tongue Orchestra, whose earlier sessions featured vocals from Juliette Lewis.
We’ll continue to speculate over what the next project to involve a member of Mastodon will be, whilst praying all the extra-curricular activities don’t mean we have to wait a few more years for a new Mastodon record.
