In an interview with Popdust, MUDVAYNE frontman Chad Gray spoke about the band’s first two new singles in 16 years, “Hurt People Hurt People” and “Sticks And Stones”, which were made available via Alchemy Recordings. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I’m gonna be straight with you, man. This is the only reason I came back to this band. I was in HELLYEAH, and my drummer died; Vinnie Paul [Abbott] died. And I was a bit lost there. I was grieving. And [the surviving members of HELLYEAH] went back out and we did a ‘celebration of life’ couple tours that we did to celebrate his life, with a great friend of ours who was a drummer, Roy Mayorga. And I got done with that, and I was really just kind of lost. I didn’t know what to do. And I was talking to my buddy who’s now my lawyer for this band. And he’s just, like, ‘What do you wanna do now?’ I’m, like, ‘I don’t know, dude.’ And he’s, like, ‘You can go back to MUDVAYNE.’ And I’m, like, ‘Man, I really don’t wanna go back to MUDVAYNE.’ I was just really not that excited about it. And he’s, like, ‘Okay, okay.’ We talked again. He’s, like, ‘Dude, you guys went away before people were ready for you to go away.’ He’s, like, ‘This gives you an opportunity to continue the MUDVAYNE legacy. ‘Cause you guys just went away, and people weren’t excited about that.’ He’s, like, ‘You could totally come back, continue the legacy, create new music.’ And that was the first thing that kind of perked my ears up. I was, like, ‘That sounds cool. Maybe I will do that.'”
Reflecting on how the MUDVAYNE reunion came together, Chad continued: “[We] had those initial conversations and stuff, which were kind of hard conversations, putting it all back together and stuff. And then that was always my plan, was to keep creating. And then it just turned into this thing where it’s just, like, we toured. That first tour back, I think with [Rob] Zombie or whatever, and then the next year we toured again, and then the next year we toured again. And this past year, I’m just, like, ‘This is not why I came back to this… So, I was, like, ‘We have to do this. We have to do this.’ And [acclaimed American rock festival producer] Danny Wimmer, obviously the king Danny Wimmer that had brought Europe to America with the festivals and done such a great job with those, he has his label, Alchemy, and he just showed a lot of interest. So, we did a deal with him — not a full record deal; just a four-song deal with him. [And then] we got in a room, and did it. We tried to do it about a year ago, or whatever, maybe two years ago, and it just didn’t work out. And I was questioning, like, ‘Do we still want the same things?’ Which is fine if you don’t. We hadn’t been together for 12 years. It’s, like, you can get in a room and go, ‘I don’t wanna fucking do that.’ So, ‘Do we still wanna do the same thing?’ Or, ‘Can we come to a common ground to continue on as artists?’ And it took us a minute, but we got back in and we got it done.”
Regarding why MUDVAYNE took so long to complete the first two songs, Chad said: “The thing we were missing the first time was a producer. I mean, that makes everything just a lot better, because they manage the egos, they manage the personalities, they keep this person away when that person’s… It’s weird. It’s a weird dynamic, ’cause you’re creating together. You’re fucking creating. You have a very, very distinct vision of maybe what you want and there has got to be compromise. And the producer is the guy that will make that compromise happen. ‘Cause you’re inviting an outside person into your band — literally. So you use them a lot as a sounding board. So [we used] Nick Raskulinecz, who’s done all the new ALICE IN CHAINS stuff. He’s done two FOO FIGHTERS records. He’s done some of the DEFTONES stuff. He’s phenomenal. He got his start working at Sound City [studios], which I don’t know if you guys remember Sound City or not in L.A. They did a whole documentary on Sound City. You’re talking Stevie Nicks and FLEETWOOD MAC and THE BEATLES — crazy-ass bands worked there. And he kind of started there as a runner and then became an engineer and then became the first engineer and stuff like this. So he’s got a great pedigree. And his laundry list of bands he’s worked with is phenomenal. And he really came in and got us focused on what we needed to do.”
On the topic of the musical direction of the new MUDVAYNE material, Gray said: “I’m really proud of how these songs turned out. I knew how we had to do it. ‘Cause we’re MUDVAYNE. We’re a heavy band. I wasn’t gonna come back with [a radio] single first. I wanted to come back, like, ‘Here we are, motherfucker. Wham!’ And we did ‘Hurt People’. That’s what we did. And then, obviously, ‘Sticks And Stones’. But the content of everything, how it works out, how it played out musically, I’ve heard a lot of people say, man, it’s been a long time, it’s been 16 years since we released anything, and they’re just, like… The apprehension that people have, like, ‘MUDVAYNE, new music. Ugh. What’s it gonna sound like? And what’s it gonna be?’ And they’re, like, ‘This is exactly what I’ve been expecting to hear for the last 16 years.’ We kind of did exactly, I think, what people are expecting, and that’s a cool feather in the cap. Like, cool. We came back and we did it.”
He added: “We’re a legacy band and people know what we’re about. People know that we’re not easy and we’re a little smarter than the average bear. It’s a little more difficult music. So there’s a level of the extremity of MUDVAYNE, but there’s also a level of subtlety that’s the best parts of MUDVAYNE too.”
As previously reported, MUDVAYNE guitarist Greg Tribbett is sitting out the band’s ongoing “L.D. 50 25th Anniversary” tour after his wife reportedly lost her year-and-a-half-long battle with cancer.
The “L.D. 50 25th Anniversary” tour kicked off on September 11 in Dubuque, Iowa and will conclude on October 26 in Uncasville, Connecticut.
Last year, Greg sat out the remaining shows on MUDVAYNE‘s “Destroy All Enemies” tour with MEGADETH due to what at the time was described as a “family issue”. Filling in for him was MUDVAYNE‘s touring guitarist Marcus Rafferty, who has served as a guitar tech for several metal bands over the years, including LAMB OF GOD and HATEBREED. He also worked for HELLYEAH, which originally featured both Tribbett and MUDVAYNE vocalist Chad Gray.
“L.D. 50” was MUDVAYNE‘s debut studio album, arriving in August 2000 via Epic, and established the band as a new yet major player in the hard rock scene. It eventually went on to achieve a gold certification. Years after its release, both Revolver and Metal Hammer deemed the album an essential of the ’00s metal class, rightfully so. The tour will feature support from STATIC-X, while VENDED will open.
“Sticks And Stones” and “Hurt People Hurt People” were released through Alchemy Recordings, a record label created in partnership between Dino Paredes, former American Recordings vice president of A&R, and Danny Wimmer, the founder of Danny Wimmer Presents, the premier production company for rock music festivals in the United States. Other Alchemy artists include STAIND and CHEVELLE.
Prior to the arrival of “Hurt People Hurt People”, the reunited metallers hadn’t put out any new material since 2009, which means more than a decade and a half had gone by without a single fresh MUDVAYNE song.
MUDVAYNE formed in 1996 and has sold over six million records worldwide, earning gold certification for three albums (“L.D. 50”, “The End Of All Things To Come”, “Lost And Found”). The band is known for its sonic experimentation, innovative album art, face and body paint, masks and uniforms.
Gray spent 15 years fronting HELLYEAH, which released its sixth studio album, “Welcome Home”, in September 2019 via Eleven Seven Music. The disc marked the group’s final effort with drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, who passed away seven years ago.
MUDVAYNE did not tour behind its fifth album, which was barely promoted and sold weakly upon release.
Released in 2000 via Epic, “L.D. 50” produced three singles — Dig”, “Death Blooms” and “Nothing To Gein”. “L.D. 50” peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart and No. 85 on the Billboard 200. It was certified gold by the RIAA for shipment in excess of half a million copies in the U.S. alone.
MUDVAYNE completed its first headlining tour in over 14 years, “The Psychotherapy Sessions”, in the summer of 2023. Support on the 26-city trek, which was produced by Live Nation, came from COAL CHAMBER, along with GWAR, NONPOINT and BUTCHER BABIES.
Previously, MUDVAYNE made waves in 2022 when they embarked on the “Freaks On Parade” tour co-headlined with ROB ZOMBIE. The 2023 tour, however, marked MUDVAYNE‘s first headlining endeavor since 2009.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source blabbermouth.net ’
