In a recent conversation with Rock Feed, Mudvayne and Hellyeah vocalist Chad Gray discussed his decision to headline a one-off solo show in Las Vegas, where he plans to perform material from both bands. The concert is scheduled for April 24 at Fremont Country Club, following an upgrade from its originally announced location, Backstage Bar & Billiards. Set in Gray’s hometown, the event will mark the first solo performance of his career and comes during a year in which Mudvayne has no touring plans.
The show will also allow Gray to revisit songs from Hellyeah, a band that has remained inactive since early 2020, when its U.S. tour was scrapped due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, Gray has focused on Mudvayne, reuniting with the band in 2021 for its first live performances in 12 years. The group has gone on to complete multiple tours and release two new tracks, “Hurt People Hurt People” and “Sticks And Stones.”
Prior to the pandemic, Hellyeah had wrapped up several U.S. tours held in tribute to late drummer and Pantera icon Vinnie Paul Abbott, who died in his sleep at his Las Vegas home in June 2018 at the age of 54. His death was attributed to dilated cardiomyopathy, an enlarged heart, and severe coronary artery disease.
Reflecting on the fact that it has been nearly six years since he last took the stage with Hellyeah, Chad told Rock Feed:
“It’s, like, [people say], ‘Why don’t you just put Hellyeah back together since Mudvayne‘s taking the year off?’ It’s, like, there’s a lot of pain, there’s a lot of heartache with that. And putting Hellyeah back together without Vinnie — like re-putting it back together without Vinnie… Doing a ‘celebration of life’ tour to celebrate his life and what he meant to us, that’s one thing, but putting it back together without him, after a hiatus, it seems weird to me. It seems odd to me. I’m not necessarily gonna say it seems disrespectful, but it’s not not. It’s kind of somewhere in this vague [space] between respect and disrespect kind of thing.”
When speaking about his reasons behind organizing a solo show, Chad said:
“I’m not doing anything anyway. And I need to play. I wanna play. I wanna keep playing and keep doing what I do. A few people love what I do, so [I’ll try to] please those people as best I can, like I do every night. And I’m nervous about it. I’m sure Phil Collins, when he broke away from Genesis and did his own thing, or Tom Petty, or even there are people… Ozzy [Osbourne] was a band guy. He was in [Black] Sabbath. He did a solo career. I’m not saying I wanna chase this whole solo career thing or anything like that… It’s just this is a nice buffer for this break that’s apparently taking place with Mudvayne. This just gives me something to do — not only just playing the shows, but I wanna create. I feel like that’s what I was put on this earth to do, is create. And that’s where I’m happiest — that’s where I’m happiest. And so I think I’m just kind of doing this for me, and I’m doing it for the fans. I hope that people would like to hear both fans in the same night, in the same set. I would hope so.”
When asked if there is possibility of playing more solo shows around the country and worldwide, Chad replied:
“I’m surrounding myself with really good people, very incredible professionals that I’ve worked with for a lot of years of my career, and they wanna be a part of it. And that feels really good. It feels really good, that my professionals in Mudvayne and past professionals in Hellyeah and stuff want to be a part of this. Like, literally, they’re just, like, ‘Let’s go.’ ‘Cause my people, my professionals I have relationship with. I’m close — I’m very close with them. So this is great for me, it’s great for me personally to see these people come and be, like, ‘Yes, we wanna be a part of this.’ ‘Yes, we think this is a cool idea.’ ‘We think your fans will love it.’ And if there was that, which I know there was a little bit about, a lot of Mudvayne fans looked at Hellyeah as the wall between me and Mudvayne, I know a lot of Pantera fans looked at Hellyeah as the wall between Vinnie and Pantera. We just wanted to play. That’s all we wanted to do, man. It wasn’t about that. It was just, like, we wanted to get together and create something new that was different from both of those bands and just see what happens. And I think we did that. And I love the idea of getting maybe some Mudvayne fans in the room that just absolutely banished Hellyeah, and vice versa. There’s probably some Hellyeah people that are, like, ‘F**k Mudvayne.’ ‘Cause I know a lot of people are, like, ‘I like Hellyeah better than Mudvayne.’ It’s more straightforward than Mudvayne. But I think all the tracks are like, all the songs are — it’s me, man. So there’s a lot of emotion on both sides of it. There’s a lot of aggression, but there’s a lot of storytelling and a lot of life work and life stories and stuff in both bands.”
