Bill Kelliher spoke to Las Vegas Weekly about MASTODON's plans for the remainder of 2019 following the completion of its recent tour, which celebrated the tenth anniversary of its fourth album, 2009's "Crack The Skye".

"I just like to take it easy for the rest of the year, really," the guitarist said. "Just relax, spend time with my family, work on some projects at home. You know, slowly get back into writing. We're all always writing; there's lots of riffage and ideas floating around. But I don't want to rush anything. We've got big shoes to fill with the last record, I feel like. I want to put out another great album like that, with heartfelt material that we've all worked on together. It'll happen.

"I think we need a little time to regroup," he continued. "The band can't be your entire life — just constantly touring and touring and touring, and then go home and write and write and write, and then go back out and tour, tour, tour. We're all getting older; we have kids and families growing up. They need our attention, too. I live and breathe MASTODON for so long, and I think it might be good to step away for two months and then get back together and start picking up where we left off and start writing again.

"I mean, I'm going to try and write as much as I can on this tour, on my days off, sitting around the hotel room. I'm not really worried about it. The next album will be great."

MASTODON singer/bassist Troy Sanders recently said that the band will begin work on its new album in the fall. The effort will mark the group first release since 2017's "Emperor Of Sand", which won MASTODON a Grammy in the "Best Metal Performance" category for the song "Sultan's Curse".

MASTODON and COHEED AND CAMBRIA's "The Unheavenly Skye Tour" kicked off May 28 in Louisville, Kentucky at the Iroquois Amphitheater and made stops in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and more before wrapping July 3 in Irving, Texas at The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory.

"Emperor Of Sand" was also nominated for "Best Rock Album" at the 60th annual Grammy Awards in January 2018 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It was the fourth and fifth time MASTODON had received Grammy nominations, having missed out on the three previous occasions — "Colony Of Birchmen" (2007), "Curl Of The Burl" (2012) and "High Road" (2015) — it had been up for the "Best Metal Performance" award.