Mastodon singer-bassist Troy Sanders recently sat down with Hysteria Magazine during the band’s residency on Australia’s touring Soundwave Festival. During the interview, Sanders took the opportunity to dispel the rumors once and for all about a reported altercation between Mastodon and System of a Down, which put Mastodon singer-guitarist Brent Hinds in the hospital.

In 2007, it was reported that a brawl involving System bassist Shavo Odadjian and Hinds after the MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas resulted in the Mastodon musician suffering a broken nose, two black eyes and a brain hemorrhage. While Hinds did suffer those injuries, Sanders explains that Odadjian was not the culprit.

“It was a life-changing event,” says Troy Sanders. “It was a near-death experience, so it was very horrible. It was a very uncertain time – this is 2007, so that’s been five years. There were a lot of question marks at that time and thankfully we prevailed from that whole period and created the music from ‘Crack the Skye.’ We felt like that was a triumphant way to round out that two-year period of creating music and working together.”

Sanders continued to comment on Shavo’s supposed involvement in the brawl. “This is a giant piece of false information,” Sanders reassures fans of both bands. “Mastodon and System of a Down — we’re all friends. System of a Down was there, but they’re our friends. It was a different individual that this altercation went down with, so to set the record straight, to this day all of the System of a Down guys and Mastodon — we’re all friends. We have no problems with each other whatsoever. It just got blown up in the wrong way through storytelling and through the Internet and through press of all sorts. So to clear the record, System of a Down and Mastodon have no qualms whatsoever and we never have.”

Reports that came out after the incident named an Odadjian associate, William Hudson, as the primary suspect. All of the parties involved were said to be taking part in a drinking game following the VMAs.

Mastodon are set to hit North America in early April with Opeth and Ghost for one of 2012′s most anticipated tours.

Watch Hysteria Magazine’s Full Interview With Mastodon’s Troy Sanders

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