Brent Hinds, the former lead guitarist and co-vocalist of Mastodon, died in a motorcycle crash in Atlanta Wednesday night (August 21), local news outlets report. Hinds was riding a Harley Davidson when another vehicle failed to yield, causing a collision, according to Atlanta News First. Hinds was 51 years old.
William Brent Hinds was born in Alabama but moved to Atlanta in the mid 1990s, where he met future Mastodon bandmate Troy Sanders and joined his band Four Hour Fogger. After that group’s dissolution, the duo sought to form another, eventually picking up drummer Brann Dailor and guitarist Bill Kelliher to form Mastodon at the dawn of the 2000s.
Their 2002 debut album, Remission, on which Hinds and Sanders traded lead vocals over virtuosic, hardcore-infused metal, caused a sensation in heavy music circles. But it was the successor, the Moby Dick concept LP Leviathan, that elevated them to the upper echelons of metal in 2004, among both fans and critics. The studio follow-up, 2007’s Blood Mountain, earned them a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance. The band’s inventive, progressive tendencies came to the fore on subsequent LPs, starting with 2009’s Crack the Skye and 2011’s The Hunter, which was dedicated to Hinds’ late brother.
Hinds’ unceremonious departure from the band was announced this year.