Mastodon are building a rehearsal studio in their hometown of Atlanta, bassist Troy Sanders has revealed.
Work on the band’s Ember City headquarters is underway and they are already using one of the rooms as their own rehearsal space. Once work is completed, Mastodon plan to open the doors to other local bands.
They were motivated to build a new facility as a number of other studios in the Georgia town have closed in recent months.
Sanders tells the Atlanta Business Chronicle: “We have one room that is completely built out where we’ve been rehearsing, but the remainder of the rooms are nearing completion.
“We’re excited to get this thing up and running. It’s been several months and a lot of hard work. It’s kind of like building a house – you’re excited to see the final product with the fresh paint and nice walls. It was a big deal for our band to move forward with buying a building. We’re almost there.
“We’ve got many rooms that are already framed and built out to have other bands rehearse there as well. The two big rehearsal facilities closed over the past year and there are dozens of bands searching for places to make music. There’s definitely a demand.”
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Mastodon are gearing up towards recording their seventh album. They will record the follow-up to 2014’s Once More ‘Round The Sun in Atlanta.
Sanders adds: “We’ve been working on it for the bulk of this year. We kind of dedicated 2016 to writing a record. We go into the studio in October and plan to have a new record out and on the shelves in early 2017.
“We’re going to record it in the Atlanta area, so we’ll get to go home and sleep in our own beds at night.”
Mastodon headlined the Atlanta leg of the Project Pabst festival at the weekend. A retro sex line-themed video advert for the event can be viewed below.