The estate of Brent Hinds has answered Mastodon's answer. The band had called the lawsuit meritless; the estate now says the argument being had in public is not the one in the filing.
“Public discussion has largely focused on Mastodon's inclusion of Brent's image in artwork for a new album and has sometimes portrayed the lawsuit as an effort by his family to obtain a windfall,” the statement reads. “That is not what the case is about.”
What it says the case is about: “After Brent was excluded from Mastodon, he sought an accounting, valuation, and orderly separation of interests he held in entities owned by the founding members. He passed away before that process was finished. Brent had not yet received compensation for any of his interests.”
The artwork matters, the estate argues, only as an illustration: it “relates to whether Brent's exclusion from the band discontinued his, and now his Estate's, entitlement to share in Mastodon's merchandising revenue”.
The lawsuit became public earlier this month, two weeks after Marrow Deep, the first Mastodon album since Hinds died in a motorcycle accident in March 2025.