“My mom would still be bugging me, like, ‘You need to go to college and get a real job.’ I’m in the van, getting baloney sandwiches on 100 bucks a night. And I’m 30!” Bill Kelliher and Mark Morton on how Leviathan and Ashes of the Wake changed everything

Bill Kelliher and Mark Morton.

Though they’re two very different bands – the former a precision thrash force with a penchant for groove, the latter a Southern-fried psych trip of percussive prog – both shot to prominence in the early ’00s while redefining the American metal landscape. Sure enough, they’ve been prolific vanguards for heavy music ever since.

This summer, they’re looking back to their gloriously pummeling past through the joint Ashes of Leviathan arena tour – a 20th-anniversary celebration of Lamb of God’s powerfully political Ashes of the Wake and Mastodon’s massive-sounding Moby-Dick tribute, Leviathan.