Brent Hinds was a complex character. For 25 years, the guitarist was Mastodon's restless soul, the band’s loose cannon, an unpredictable, untameable, and frequently self-destructive, force of nature.
Born William Brent Hinds in Helena, Alabama, on January 16, 1974, and grew up in nearby Birmingham, or "Boring-ham", as he once described his hometown. Talking to Guardian writer Stevie Chick in 2009, Hinds would describe his younger self as "a total hellion, straight outta hell, with red eyes and everythin'."
"I was very dysfunctional at school," he added, "just a jackass. I'd take LSD and come to class still tripping. I was too creative, never doing my homework, just filling my notepad up with drawings of skulls."
