In a new interview published today, March 03rd, Chad Gray of HELLYEAH/Mudvayne fame was asked by Songfacts about the possibility of the band ever returning to active duty. Gray replied:
“I don’t know if the full band will. Who knows – they might be putting something else together. We were talking for a while and that whole Greg thing went down [Greg left HELLYEAH in 2014] and everything kind of fell apart. Our relationship, which was the only truly solid relationship in the whole group, although Matt and I are still great, Ryan and I still briefly talk. I mean, the only way I personally would want to do Mudvayne is if everybody licked their wounds and got over it.
There’s a lot of things in that band that tore us apart. Maybe Mudvayne was the martyr for people that stopped supporting music. You sell 159,000 records the first week, and then the next record is like, “Whatever, fuck it.” Maybe it’s a subliminal message if you don’t support things. Mudvayne‘s probably bigger now than it ever was. So, people want what they can’t have.
I’m a strong believer in supporting these guys. I still support these guys. I still buy records. I still buy things that touch me, and I know the game. I think it’s an important part of the economy, it’s an important part of life, and I think the more people just let it go and forget about it, it’s bad. I married myself to heavy metal music because it saved me and I almost feel like sometimes it’s like, “Wow, thanks for pulling me out of a burning building. Go fuck yourself.”
You save me or you helped me through a hard time, but I guess it feels like some people – I’m not saying everybody, because I know a lot of people still do support us very much, and we’re very grateful to those people – but it’s not a lighthearted thing. It’s an industry.”
The interview itself also delves into some Mudvayne and HELLYEAH tracks specifically, you can find it here.
