HELLYEAH's CHAD GRAY Recalls 'Emotional' Recording Session For 'I Don't Care Anymore'

HELLYEAH's cover of the 1982 Phil Collins hit "I Don't Care Anymore" is featured on the band's new album, "Unden!able". The song includes a guitar track from late PANTERA guitarist — and HELLYEAH drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott's brother — "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, which the siblings first recorded 14 years ago.

HELLYEAH singer Chad Gray told Killpop how the idea to redo the song came about. "It came from just… I mean, it was so weird," he said. "I was what I call 'in the oven,' which is a very small, dark room, writing lyrics, and those [other] guys [from the band] were in the live room having a blast — probably parties, probably chicks jumping out of cakes. 'Keep the singer over there writing the content that everybody's gonna tap into.' And Christian [Brady, guitar] just brought up how cool it would be to do 'I Don't Care Anymore'. And Vinnie's just, like, 'Me and my brother recorded that fourteen years ago.' And then, all of a sudden, it's this cycle that starts. Vinnie, being Vinnie, gets on the phone with Sterling [Winfield], a dear friend of ours [who's] engineered some PANTERA records, he's engineered some HELLYEAH records. He gets on the phone with him. And PANTERA probably has five warehouses full of things that shoot fire. So he's, like, 'Do you think you can locate that track?' whatever format it was. [We didn't know] how much of the track we had, 'cause we thought we might just be peppering little bits of him through it, whatever we could recover. And then it turns out we got the whole track. We got a new unit. We got it off there. Somehow they converted it into a Pro Tools file. So it's literally, start to finish, it's Dime playing guitar on it, which, that tone…. His tone was just unmistakeable. And you could really feel the energy."

Gray also recalled the vocal-recording sessions for the song, which he described as very emotional. He said: "So I go in. And Kevin's [Churko, producer] got me all stoked to do this. So we go in and then we sit down. And I kind of sit up on top of this stool. I kind of sit on the back, a little perched, like a gargoyle, when I sing. And he got the mic all placed. And he's, like, 'Okay, are you ready? Are you ready to do this?' I mean, he's so stoked for it. And I was, like, 'Why is this guy so stoked for it?' And he's just, like, 'I just know you're gonna crush this.' Just the emotion of it and everything like that… So as he's walking out, he shuts the lights off in the studio, and I'm, like, looking at him: 'What's the deal?' He's, like, '[I'm] setting the mood, man. I'm setting the mood.' And I start singing the lines. And it's just… Whatever the timbre of my voice was that day, or whatever, it was just really awesome and perfect in a very non-perfect way. And he's just got his down and he's just… He just comes up and just hits the talkback and he's, like, 'Dude, you're gonna be singing this song for the rest of your life."

"Unden!able" was released on June 3. The disc marks the first time that HELLYEAH's current lineup — which includes Gray, Abbott, Brady, guitaristTom Maxwell and bassist Kyle Sanders — has recorded together as a unit.