Back in 2015, a project called Legend of the Seagullmen involving Mastodon's Brent Hinds and Tool's Danny Carey surfaced. With time, more details of the supergroup popped up until now where we have an official album announced. Their self-titled debut LP will be released on February 9th via Dine Alone Records. We recently spoke to guitarist Jimmy Hayward (known for animating work on Pixar movies and directing Jonah Hex and Free Birds) as well as drummer Danny Carey about the project, upcoming album, and more. Check it out below.
Let’s start off by establishing who’s in the band because it seems like you guys have quite a full crew contributing to this project. So yeah, who is in the Legend of the Seagullmen?
Jimmy Hayward: Well, we have Danny Carey on drums. Brent Hinds and myself on guitars. Also, Tim Dawson on guitar. Maddog is on synth. David "Doctor" Dreyer on lead vocals. And Pete Griffin on bass.
I also heard there were a couple other names attributed to helping out with the album: Dom Lewis and Troy Van Leeuwen may have been a part of the project too?
Jimmy: Yeah, Dom Lewis is a major film orchestral composer. He’s a close friend and did a movie with me. He’s a brilliant dude. Troy’s another real close friend of ours. All the Queens of the Stone Age dudes are close friends. We hang together with them socially all the time. Troy got involved when we were trying to decide on who to master the record. And Queens of the Stone Age were mastering with Gavin Lurssen at the time. I was around when they were recording and Troy was so stoked with Gavin doing such a good job with them, that we went with him for our album too.
Danny: Yeah, Troy wasn’t really involved in the album besides being our pal.
So Jimmy, I understand that you met with Brent of Mastodon through the Jonah Hex score, but when and how did you connect with Danny?
Jimmy: We’ve been really close to each other here in Hollywood. Birds of a feather flock together.
Danny: I came over to borrow some mayonnaise one day. We started hanging out together a decade back or so, then playing music together and jamming. I have a studio and Jimmy has a studio, they're about less than a mile from each other. We just started jamming together with our pals, so we started connecting with Doctor Dreyer and Jimmy. It all just fell in to place working with the other guys in the lineup.
Can you discuss the background of where the nautical theme was born?
Jimmy: Both Doctor Dreyer and I grew up right by the water on the coast dealing with nautical stuff and boating. The Doctor created this whole idea and developed all this lore and then he approached me, so I started writing the music for it. We're really stoked on this kind of stuff anyway. It's epic and creepy and has this deep story and it's also based on this maritime stuff, which we've been around our whole lives.
The nautical theme even shows itself in the actual music especially like “Ballad of the Deep Sea Diver.” Can you talk about the music writing process?
Danny: Most of the songs developed through the Doctor and Jimmy's ideas. It was just inevitable that they started to sound that way as they continued growing. Each one takes on it's own character. Every song is kind of it's own creation and it all fits into the lore.
Jimmy: Because I'm Irish and I grew up around a lot of traditional Irish music that shanty sort of stuff is in my blood. I come from from punk rock, metal, and all these other storytelling platforms too. So I think the nautical theme latched itself to that. Once I bring in a demo, we all start jamming on it and it takes shape. And the theme drives it.
So Danny, Tool is definitely a different entity than this project. Do you find writing for the Seagullmen and your other side projects sort of a breath of fresh air compared to the more proggy, serious connotations of Tool?
Danny: Yeah, I mean not that Tool is like this dark, heavy thing. We're still friends, but we are working. It's always playing music with your friends, but you have different conversations with different people. It's always a breath of fresh air to play with different people. And the more I do projects like this, the more my musical vocabulary increases. It all feeds off each other. It's a positive thing.
This whole band is full of busy guys with Brent in Mastodon, who just released a new album and EP, and you Danny are busy working on the new Tool record. Can you delve into how you managed to make time for this project? And are there any movies or music projects you’re working on Jimmy?
Danny: Jimmy and I are Los Angeles boys, so it's not difficult. I rehearse everyday pretty much with Tool, but that's like one to four in the afternoon. It's not that taxing because I've played professionally my whole life. It's not a burden to play with different people. It's what I have to do to keep my craft growing and keep getting better.
Jimmy: We live in the studio everyday. We're studio rats by nature. We're in studios all the time anyways, so it's actually not work for us. But yeah, I've got a lot of stuff in development like VR stuff. I just wrote a movie and I'm writing another one now. I'd say half my time is spent making music and half my time is spent on other projects. I like making rad stuff with awesome people, that's more important to me than anything.
Considering your experience in animation and movies, can we expect an epic music video soon for one of the songs off the upcoming album?
Jimmy: Yeah, we're cooking up something. Brent is just getting back from Europe. Once we're all in Hollywood, we got some plans to shoot. We have a tune called "The Fogger" and we have some pretty epic and unbelievable stuff planned. We'll be doing all of our visual effects in our studio in Europe. We're definitely going to spread our wings around the new year. Once the record comes out, we're gonna start doing some cool shit.
I know you guys are opening for Primus on New Years Eve, what can fans expect for the band's live show?
Jimmy: A real ass-whoopin'.
Danny: It should be pretty epic. The Doctor, our singer, has some deep lore going on. It's a pretty heavily conceptual project. We'll try to take it as far as we can take it. It's a project that's going to keep growing and developing over the years that we end up doing this. We're dedicated and it will be full on. People will not be disappointed.
Jimmy: We should have massive visuals. The New Years show is really special to us. Danny has done the show before. We're excited to do this and it's going to be all rock and roll. No icing, all cake.
With your guys’ busy schedule, do you foresee a Legend of the Seagullmen tour in the future or maybe more-so just one-off shows?
Danny: We'll tour as much as we can. We're all busy people, but there's always windows and we'll take advantage of them every way we can.
Jimmy: We're going to be out there.
Any news or updates from your other bands and projects?
Danny: Not too much, everything is a work in progress. I'm playing jazz with people and working on the Tool stuff. It's all coming out soon. There's always something to be working on. We're really excited about this band though.
Jimmy: We've been working on this for a long time and put a lot of effort and energy into. We dig it and we hope other people dig it as much as we do.
