MUDVAYNE Singer Says There Are No Plans To Tour In Support Of New Album

ARTISTdirect.com editor Rick Florino recently conducted an interview with MUDVAYNE frontman Chad Gray. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

ARTISTdirect.com: This [new MUDVAYNE] album feels like the culmination of everything that MUDVAYNE has been working towards for the past decade. Everything comes to fruition here.

Chad: MUDVAYNE isn't the kind of band that's trying to keep in the now — what's going on now. We just do the things that we do and put them out. It's like I've said to you many times before, Rick, we don't really question what we do. Therefore the criticisms just fucking bounce off of us like we're super people because it doesn't matter anyway. We're doing what we want; we don't give a fuck about what anyone else wants. It's important to our artistic integrity to do the things that are important to us.

ARTISTdirect.com: That shines through on this album. "Beautiful and Strange" pulls the listener into the record immediately. The same sounds begin and end the album, making it a complete thought.

Chad: Yeah, there's a thread of themes to this record. We don't like to stay right on the path. We like to veer off and do our own thing — especially me with lyrics. I like to write about things that I still want to write about, and I just try to bring them back to the theme and the concept of the record somehow. If I wake up one day and I want to write about whatever, then I write about that. I just figure out a way to twist it back in to where it has something to do with what we have in our heads about what we're going to do as a band [for the entire album]. It does tend to hit some valleys and veer off to the right and the left, but I feel really good about the record. Basically, like you were saying, it's a complete thing. It's cohesive and together.

ARTISTdirect.com: There are all of these wonderful little detours from that main road though, and those detours give the album a lot of color.

Chad: I think that's important. Sometimes you lose that when you're writing about one specific thing from point A to point B as the entire record. Point A to point B has to be the song itself. I've said it before many times, each song has to be its own global hole, and each individual global hole makes up the universe of the record. Everything has to be unique. That brings the color, and that brings the different flavors that make the whole record interesting.

ARTISTdirect.com: Were you reading or watching anything while you were writing these lyrics?

Chad: Yeah, I was [Laughs]. I was reading, and I was watching. That's all I'm going to say [Laughs].

ARTISTdirect.com: You always are. Does reaching outward allow you to gain an inward perspective on what you're writing about?

Chad: Absolutely, I think everybody needs a handle. Everybody draws inspiration from different things. We just don't draw from music. You know what I mean? I don't draw inspiration from other music. I don't listen to other music when I'm writing. I don't listen to other music when I'm tracking. It's turned into pretty much my whole life [Laughs]—to either be writing or recording a record. I don't listen to a lot of music anymore. I listen to my solids. I could live with that first 25 years of music that I have for the rest of my life — METALLICA, CLUTCH, MÖTLEY CRÜE and the thousand other bands that I'm not thinking of right now that fell in before all of this started. There's a handful of current bands that I really listen to. I'm not trying to be a music snob at all; it's just there's so much out there that I don't really know what to listen to. So I might get turned on to something and I'll listen to it, but I don't draw inspiration from anything new that's going on because I don't feel like anything within me is broken. I'm not reaching out trying to find something new to grab on to. I think you've got to look in to figure that out.

ARTISTdirect.com: Where do you typically write lyrics? Is it all in the studio or are you constantly jotting down ideas?

Chad: I always write with music. I'll have ideas. I'll get thoughts and concepts and start building on them, but when I actually sit down to write the lyrics outside of an idea or spot that I want to end up, I always do that with music, either in the writing studio or recording studio — whichever we are in. I wrote probably five songs for "The New Game" while recording. For "Lost and Found", though, I had the whole record done before we even went into the recording studio. That was great. It was probably the most comfortable record I ever wrote because I already had everything written out. Little parts change. Greg [Tribbett, guitar] basically sits by the machine and tracks the vocals as I write them. I sit and write. Because I kind of know where I'm going, we'll just go for it. That's how the lyrics come about. As melody comes in my head, lyrics generally come with it. It's a matter of tapping into something. You're tapping into a really cool energy — that is the music. I'm sitting right there, and I'm ready to do my part. The music filters through my head, and I hear melodies. From melodies, I get literal, lyrical ideas. I might have an idea, but I actually start penning the lyrics right there as I'm listening to the music. It gives me a little hand, and I follow it wherever it's taking me. Obviously, more aggressive music tends to lead to a more aggressive style of lyrics. More mellow music leads to darker lyrics.

ARTISTdirect.com: Have you been writing anymore lately?

Chad: No, we haven't. We haven't done anything. We're not even doing anything behind this record. We're not touring, we're not doing shit. We're just putting it out.

ARTISTdirect.com: It's a good way to let people live with the music.

Chad: It's the anti-climax of MUDVAYNE — the ultimate anti-climax, put the record out, don't do anything. It doesn't necessarily pay the bills, but it's the ultimate statement of what we're about. We don't believe in the fucking hype. We've covered a lot of territory in the past year, and we're like, "See ya!" I'm not saying we'll never do it again, we will. I'm sure we'll eventually tour behind this record, but it's not going to happen any time soon. Let people live with the music. Let it sit, and let it fester a little bit, and hopefully people are excited about it. You've got to be careful nowadays because everything about the world is very fast food. You've got to be careful about how long you're gone.

Read the entire interiew at ARTISTdirect.com.

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