Formed in 2000, the band's lineup of Troy Sanders (bass/vocals), Brent Hinds (lead guitar/vocals), Bill Kelliher (rhythm guitar/backing vocals) and Brann Dailor (drums/vocals) has remained unchanged since 2001.

The song "Colony of Birchmen" from the band's third album (released in 2006), Blood Mountain, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 2007.

[7] The band recorded a nine-song demo in June 2000,[8] which featured Eric Saner on vocals,[5] and they sold it to fans at early shows.

It featured the song "Crusher/Destroyer" (which was included on the Tony Hawk's Underground soundtrack) and the band's first single, "March of the Fire Ants".

This version of the album contained a cover of the Thin Lizzy song "Emerald" and a bonus DVD featuring a professionally filmed live set recorded at The Masquerade in Atlanta.

The band performed the song "Colony of Birchmen" on NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien on November 1, their first appearance on network television, to a viewing audience of around 2.4 million people.

[46] In a MusicRadar interview, guitarist Bill Kelliher confirmed the album is about an "out-of-body experience", and looks at the concepts of astral travel, wormholes, Stephen Hawking's theories and the spiritual realm.

Mastodon was a headliner at the Scion Rock Fest on February 28, 2009, performing a set containing three tracks from Crack the Skye, the first time these songs were played since being finalized and recorded.

The tour was called Blackdiamondskye, a portmanteau of the three bands' latest albums (Black Gives Way to Blue, Diamond Eyes, and Crack the Skye).

[55] Drummer Brann Dailor revealed during interviews the title of the band's new album and described the new material as not so much proggy or riff-oriented and "a little more stripped down".

The first taste of The Hunter came in July 2011 when Mastodon released, via YouTube, the song "Black Tongue", set to a video of AJ Fosik creating the sculpture used for the album cover.

On October 12, a UK tour was announced that will run through February 2012 with fellow bands The Dillinger Escape Plan and Red Fang as support acts.

A seventeen-date European tour was announced that featured dates in Scandinavia, Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands and Latvia.

Some of the confirmed tracks were: "Tread Lightly", "Buzzard's Guts", "Scent of Bitter Almonds", "High Road" and "Aunt Lisa".

A few more tracks that have been confirmed are: "Diamonds in the Witch House" (which has Scott Kelly from Neurosis on a guest vocal appearance), and "Ember City".

6 on The Billboard 200 chart making it the band's first consecutive top 10 debut, with their previous album, The Hunter, peaking at No.10 after opening with 39,000 copies in 2011.

[73] On January 18, 2015, it was reported that Brent Hinds was working on a new Mastodon album, showing a picture with him playing the 13 string pedal steel.

[74] The same report was later confirmed by Troy Sanders, who stated: "Every record that we do is gonna sound different, because we always want to evolve and create our own musical path.

[77] Hinds and Kelliher once again returned to Game of Thrones as wights among the White Walker army for the season 7 finale episode, "The Dragon and the Wolf".

[87] In 2019 they released a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" dedicated to the memory of their dear friend and manager, Nick John.

[90] The album is produced by David Bottrill, who has worked previously with such artists as Peter Gabriel, Muse, Tool, and Rush.

"[98] The band's earlier material such as the EP Lifesblood was described as "In the Eyes of God-era Today Is the Day [...] butting heads with the more technically demanding school of Relapse-style hardcore/metalcore (e.g., Dillinger Escape Plan or Burnt by the Sun, although Mastodon is much less hyper).

A lot of times for me personally, just having the metal tag itself seems kind of limiting on us because we have such an appreciation for all styles of music and we like to incorporate bits and pieces of those into our songs.

[103]Scott Kelly of Neurosis has appeared to perform guest vocals on a track on every Mastodon album from Leviathan (2004) to the compilation Medium Rarities (2020).

The title, as well as some lyrical content, is a tribute to Skye, the younger sister of drummer Brann Dailor, who committed suicide at the age of fourteen.

Themes touched on within the album include "dark magic(k), astral travelling and the role of Rasputin in the downfall of Czarist Russia".

Mastodon pays tribute to the memory of longtime friend and manager Nick John with their first ever double-album and a surrounding death mythology.

"[69] Following their first tours in the early 2000s, Mastodon have performed at many major festivals such as Download, Roskilde, Coachella, Bonnaroo, Big Day Out, Rock Werchter, Pinkpop, Metaltown, Ottawa Bluesfest, Sonisphere and Soundwave.

[98] The BBC stated about Mastodon: "They might be bonkers of lyric, full of fantasy mumbo jumbo, but the band is unashamedly committed to its complex-of-composition craft, and the results have frequently stunned ever since their 2002 debut, Remission.

"[113] Rolling Stone stated: "Mastodon are a bunch of doom-haunted, myth-obsessed, meat-and-potatoes Southern badasses who have become the most important new band in metal.