MUDVAYNE Frontman Discusses Upcoming Album

October 11, 2007

MUDVAYNE frontman Chad Gray has told MTV.com that the band won't be done with its fourth studio LP for a while — despite earlier reports that the CD would be finished in time for an early 2008 release.

"We basically have a record done, but I stepped away from it for a while, while doing this HELLYEAH thing," he said, referring to the side project he's touring with through early December that has him and MUDVAYNE guitarist Greg Tribbett teaming up with NOTHINGFACE guitarist Tom Maxwell, DAMAGEPLAN bassist Bob Zilla and PANTERA drummer Vinnie Paul. "I started seeing some themes inside of what we were doing that we could, like, really go for. I kind of pulled off the initial direction and concept for the record, and I started seeing some things I was really into. I need more content, so I can go as far as I can with the concept of the newest record."

"Ultimately, music is art," he added. "If you're creating it for other people, you're missing the whole damn point. It has to mean something to you first. We've always written for ourselves. We never wrote for radio; radio came to us. This record is a really important record — as they all are — and now I've wrapped my head around it and have brought some other outside ideas into the mix. With this new record, I had one thing I was drawing material from, but the more I stood back and stared at it, the more I was like, 'You know what? I can introduce this and this, and I can expose this process of thought.' So this thing, to me now, has become a lot bigger than what it might have been before. It might have been a little more linear. Now it's growing, and I'm really excited about it."

"Music isn't always about being easy. Art's not always easy," Gray continued. "You can look at a Georgia O'Keefe [painting], and it's right there. If you look at a Jackson Pollock or a Barnett Newman, it's a whole different bag of tricks. And to try and really get where the artist is coming from isn't easy. That's what we've tried to do with our music — challenge our listeners a bit. There's enough cattle-call stuff out there, and we like to try and challenge our fans. Because of that, we haven't sold millions of records. You go one way or the other. You can write no-brainer, 'Did it all for the nookie' stuff and sell 8 million records. That appeals to more people because not everybody wants to think or work for entertainment."

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