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Brent Hinds was hospitalized with a severe head injury after an altercation in Las Vegas following Mastodon’s performance at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards. The initial police-report account named both System of a Down bassist Shavo Odadjian and William Hudson in the encounter; later accounts from Odadjian and Mastodon members say Hudson threw the punch after which Hinds fell and hit his head. Odadjian has denied knocking Hinds out.
What happened after Mastodon played the 2007 VMAs?
Mastodon performed “Colony of Birchmen” with Josh Homme at the September 9, 2007, ceremony in Las Vegas. In a statement published three days later, the band’s management said Hinds had suffered a severe head injury after the performance and was hospitalized. That early report said an assault was rumored, but it did not yet confirm how the injury occurred. Blabbermouth’s September 12, 2007 report
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A later account, published September 21 and based on a Las Vegas Weekly summary of a Metro police report, placed the confrontation around 3 a.m. on September 10 near Mandalay Bay’s west valet area. The account said Hinds encountered Odadjian and Hudson, and that all three were involved in the altercation. It described Hinds striking Odadjian with his shirt and striking Hudson in the face and chest, then said both men punched Hinds and he fell. This is reporting about a police report, not the underlying document itself. Blabbermouth’s September 21, 2007 report
Did Shavo Odadjian knock out Brent Hinds?
The available accounts do not establish that Odadjian delivered the punch that caused Hinds’s head injury. In the 2007 police-report summary, Odadjian was identified as a witness, while Hudson was named as a suspect for possible battery with substantial bodily harm. The report said no charges had been filed at the time. Those classifications describe what the report was said to state; they do not determine the precise punch or cause of Hinds’s injury.
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In a 2009 SPIN interview, Odadjian said Hinds had been approaching him repeatedly, then swung at Hudson. Odadjian recalled Hudson swinging back, after which Hinds fell and struck his head on a curb. He told the magazine, “All of a sudden, I see Brent fall and hit his head on the curb.” Hinds described fragmented memories and waking after a period of unconsciousness in the same feature. SPIN’s 2009 feature
Odadjian rejected responsibility again in a 2025 account, saying he was five or six feet away when Hudson’s punch landed: “I never knocked out Brent Hinds.” The report also cited Hinds’s later attribution of the damaging punch to Hudson and Mastodon bassist Troy Sanders’s rejection of the claim that Odadjian caused the injury. Sanders had called that claim “a giant piece of false information” in a statement recounted in the article. Loudwire’s April 11, 2025 retrospective
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What injuries did Hinds suffer?
The 2007 police-report summary described a broken nose and black eyes. SPIN later reported a serious concussion and brain hemorrhaging, and said Hinds experienced vertigo for nine months. These details come from contemporaneous reporting and interview accounts, rather than a published medical record. Hinds told SPIN that he had been asleep for three days, a personal recollection rather than a general medical statistic.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How did Mastodon members later describe the incident?
In a 2026 Guitar World feature, drummer Brann Dailor recalled that someone Hinds had angered punched him, after which he fell and hit his head. Dailor said, “I think he fell over and hit his head, and I think that was what did the most damage.” That is a later band-member recollection, not a medical finding or a police determination. Guitar World’s July 9, 2026 feature
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