Mastodon has filed its first legal response to a lawsuit brought by the estate of its late guitarist Brent Hinds — and the heavy metal band is pointing out what it sees as key foundational errors in the case.
Surviving Mastodon members Brann Dailor, Bill Kelliher and Troy Sanders urged an Atlanta judge on Monday (Nov. 2) to dismiss some of the legal claims brought by Hinds’ father in September. The guitarist died in a motorcycle crash in August 2025, a few months after Mastodon announced he’d be ending his 25-year run with the band.
Hinds’ family is suing to cash out his 25% stake in the band’s operations, arguing that an $80,000 check they received after his death was far too low. But Mastodon’s Monday court filing, obtained and first reported by Billboard, disputes this characterization of the facts. The band members say the amount of money due to Hinds’ estate will be hammered out later but that first, they want the court to trim away certain claims that “fail as a matter of law.”
“His contributions to the band’s legacy are undeniable, and his death was a profound loss. None of that is in dispute,” reads the court filing. “But honoring Hinds’s legacy does not require rewriting the agreements governing his business interests or imposing obligations on his former bandmates that Georgia law does not recognize.”
Among the claims that Mastodon wants cut from the lawsuit are counts for breach of fiduciary duty and conversion (a legalese term for theft). The band members say that even if Hinds’ family is owed more money for his shares, this should be dealt with as a simple contract matter rather than twisted to allege some larger wrongdoing.
Mastodon also wants the judge to dismiss claims over the artwork for the band’s August 2026 album Marrow Deep, which debuted at No. 2 on Billboard’s Top Hard Rock Albums chart. Hinds’ estate alleges that the album cover featured the guitarist’s likeness without its permission, but Mastodon argues that the lawsuit uses a technically flawed legal claim to make that point.
“These distinctions matter,” write the band’s lawyers in the motion. “Defendants therefore seek dismissal only of those claims, or portions of claims, that lack a legal basis on the face of the complaint. The parties’ remaining factual and contractual disputes — and the truth — will be addressed in due course.”
Reps for Mastodon and the Hinds estate did not immediately return requests for comment on Tuesday (Nov. 3).
Hinds was 51 years old when he died in Atlanta last year. At the time, he had been in the middle of negotiating the terms of his exit from Mastodon, and no final paperwork had been signed. Hinds said the decision was not a mutual one: “They kicked me out,” he wrote in an Instagram comment a week before his death.
