CHAD GRAY On Whether HELLYEAH Can Be Reactivated: 'Putting It Back Together Without VINNIE PAUL, After A Hiatus, It Seems Weird To Me'

In a new interview with Rock Feed, MUDVAYNE and HELLYEAH frontman Chad Gray spoke about his announcement that he will perform songs from both bands at a special solo concert, set to take place on April 24 at Fremont Country Club (venue upgraded from Backstage Bar & Billiards) in his hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada. The gig will mark Chad's first-ever solo performance and will take place during a year when MUDVAYNE is not scheduled to do any touring. It will also be an opportunity for Gray to play songs from HELLYEAH, which has been inactive since early 2020 when its U.S. tour was canceled in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the meantime, Gray had reunited with his previous band MUDVAYNE, which played its first two shows in 12 years in 2021 and has since completed several tours, in addition to releasing two new songs, "Hurt People Hurt People" and "Sticks And Stones".

A few months before the pandemic hit, HELLYEAH had completed a couple of U.S. tours in honor of its drummer, PANTERA legend Vinnie Paul Abbott, who passed away in June 2018 at the age of 54 in his sleep at his home in Las Vegas. The official cause of death was dilated cardiomyopathy, an enlarged heart, as well as severe coronary artery disease.

After acknowledging that it has been around six years since he last performed 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. [Laughs] It's kind of somewhere in this vague [space] between respect and disrespect kind of thing."

Addressing his reasons for staging a solo show at this point in his career, 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."

Asked if there is any chance that he could play more solo shows in other parts of the country and the world in the coming months, Gray said: "I'm surrounding myself with really good people" — including MUDVAYNE touring guitarist/backing vocalist Marcus Rafferty and HELLYEAH guitarist Christian Brady — "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 [laughs], and vice versa. There's probably some HELLYEAH people that are, like, "Fuck 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."

Vinnie Paul recorded a total of six albums with HELLYEAH over a decade, including its latest, "Welcome Home", for which he laid down his drum tracks before his passing.

STONE SOUR drummer Roy Mayorga stepped in as Vinnie Paul's replacement for the touring activity in support of "Welcome Home", which came out in September 2019.

Mayorga's addition to HELLYEAH was made official in May 2019. At the time, the band said Roy was the perfect guy to take Vinnie Paul's place. "These men had so much love and mutual respect for each other, this makes our transition so much easier," HELLYEAH said in a statement.

Mayorga previously played with HELLYEAH bassist Kyle Sanders in MEDICATION, the early 2000s outfit which also featured guitarist Logan Mader (MACHINE HEAD) and singer Whitfield Crane (UGLY KID JOE).

MUDVAYNE guitarist Greg Tribbett sat out the band's summer/fall 2025 "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, 2025 in Dubuque, Iowa and concluded on October 26, 2025 in Uncasville, Connecticut.

In 2024, 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 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 Gray.

"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.