Mastadon's new album will explore the loss of of their manager Nick John. John passed away back in September 2018 following a battle with pancreatic cancer. In an interview with Revolver, drummer vocalist Brann Dailor said about their upcoming album, “As far as the subject matter is concerned, it’s gonna be about Nick John after everything’s said and done. Of course, it’s going to be a fantastical representation to mask the true emotion of the situation, but it’s probably going to be Nick John-centric because that was our guy and we lost him and he deserves nothing less than an album’s worth of material that’s centered around his passing.”
He continued, “That was a huge blow to us. We lost one of our favorite human beings, and it just came out of nowhere. It really sucks. So that’s what we’re thinking about — plus all this shit that’s happening now. It’s the craziest time that we’ve experienced as human beings, so how are you not gonna reflect that in what you’re creating artistically? It would be impossible to sidestep it. It’s going to be about going insane in your f*cking house.”