Clockwise: Brann Dailor, Brent Hinds, Bill Kelliher, TRoy Sanders

"Has anyone seen Brent?" It's 1:30 on a cold, rainy Friday afternoon in late February. The members of Mastodon had planned on meeting a half-hour ago at El Myr, a colorful, run-down Mexican cantina that serves as unofficial HQ for the band here in their hometown of Atlanta. Drummer Brann Dailor is less on the hunt for his missing bandmate than he is bemusedly giving voice to Mastodon's semipermanent state of being. Guitarist Bill Kelliher, who worked at El Myr in Mastodon's early days, is at the bar with his wife and young son. Dailor and bassist-vocalist Troy Sanders are chatting with friends about tomorrow night's show, a daylong outdoor metal festival the band will headline. Guitarist-vocalist Brent Hinds is nowhere to be found.

Dailor, who arrived promptly at 1:00, seems less than surprised. "He'll be here eventually, going, 'What? No one told me 1:00.' "

An hour later, Hinds ambles in, offering a wave and a sleepy smile from beneath his grizzled, reddish beard. His gut, barely covered by a blue, long-sleeved T-shirt, hangs over a pair of tattered black jeans, and for some reason, he's wearing a fingerless white driving glove on his left hand.

"Sorry I'm late," he says, taking a sip from the Tecate someone has already plied him with. "I was sure it was 3:00 when we were supposed to meet. I thought I was early."

At around 6:00, the band members head to the Masquerade Music Park to soundcheck for the show. It's their first real performance in support of their new, Brendan O'Brien–produced album, Crack the Skye. When they arrive, the California stoner-metal outfit High on Fire are onstage going through their own warm-up. Hinds first met HOF frontman Matt Pike in the late '90s when Hinds and Sanders' former band, Four Hour Fogger, opened for High on Fire.

"Matt and I ended up doing mescaline and playing Street Fighter for 27 hours," Hinds recalls. "Now he's one of my best friends." Later tonight, the two best friends will drunkenly slug it out on the sidewalk outside El Myr after Hinds accidentally knocks Pike's beer from his hand. ("It was just dude stuff -- he clocked me in the eye, I hit him in the ear," Hinds laughs.)

Mastodon owe High on Fire a debt for their very existence. It was at a High on Fire gig in 1999 where Hinds and Sanders met Dailor and Kelliher, both of whom had recently relocated from Rochester, New York, where they'd played together in several metal bands. Kelliher, who had seen Hinds play with Four Hour Fogger, invited him to come by their practice space to jam.

"Brent showed up so wasted he couldn't even play," says Kelliher. "He was just playing one note turned up really loud. Brann and I were like, 'Fuck this guy.' " The next day, though, Hinds returned. "He grabbed one of my guitars and was playing all this cool shit. I was like, 'Where was this guy yesterday?' "