MUDVAYNE's CHAD GRAY: How I Finally Got Sober

Last summer, MUDVAYNE frontman Chad Gray celebrated two years since he quit drinking. The 52-year-old musician, who was born in Illinois but currently resides in Las Vegas with his Shannon Gunz, a radio host for several SiriusXM channels, opened up about his battle with the bottle in a new interview with the "Scandalous" podcast. He said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):  "I really don't talk about it, and I really haven't talked about it — this would be the first time I talked about it — but I quit drinking two years and 10 months ago. This probably will be the most vocal I've been about it, in this podcast or whatever. I'd mentioned it, but I haven't really talked about it.

"I grew up in that shit that I was in, and my grandmother, who was the love of my life, helped pull me out of that," he continued. "She helped get me the fuck out of that mess. And she was just devastated. I was her whole fucking world. I was her little boy, and she was mine. And I was taken very far away from her, and we were both just fucked up. And eventually I got pulled out of that mess and basically started living with her. And she got the most broken, destroyed fucking kid that you could ever get. And all of a sudden now I've got this fucking freedom, and I got some love around me, which I hadn't felt a long, long time. And I just went fucking crazy — like, I went crazy. I started fucking drinking. I was fucking 13, 14 years old. I started drinking, and probably the first time I drank, the first time ever, [I was] not drinking a beer or whatever. I probably just poured an old bottle of fucking vodka down my throat. First time I ever got drunk was probably fucking vomiting and fucking blacked out and fucking maybe close to fucking death. I don't know. But that's just how it was for me. It was helping with the pain. And because of all the crazy shit that I went through down there and that I'd been through my whole life up to that point, it gave me confidence. I mean, you ask anybody, the shyest motherfucker on the planet, you pour a couple of drinks down their throat and all of a sudden they're talking. Because it's liquid confidence. So I liked that aspect of it. So, I got addicted to that. I got addicted, because I've always been very much 'square peg round hole' most of my life and most of my situations, and I still have that, where I very much feel like I don't fit in. So I'm always kind of struggling with that. So that gave me that confidence to be able to fit in. I was funny as shit, and I was a lot of fun to be around. I had a lot of fun when I was drinking, and then it just kept progressing. And then, all through my life, 14 fucking on, my 20s. I was just a fucking wild man, period. I was just out of my fucking mind. You can ask anybody, even in this business or whatever, that knew me at the end of my drinking days. It's, like, 'That mother fucker was like…' I was the guy you didn't wanna invite to your party because I'd probably come into your house and fucking kick all your shit over and jump off your table. [I was] just a fucking wild man. I was just crazy."

Chad added: "But that was my whole thing. So all through my 20s and shit. And then I get in a band and then we start touring and that fucking lifestyle. And I just embraced the fuck out of it — drink, drink, drink, drink, drink as much as I could drink, some drugs. But it just continued to grow and grow and grow and grow and grow. There are different relationships that I had or whatever that were just fucking blown up. I'm quite sure that my drinking had something to do with it. It might not have been the full-blown reason, but it was definitely in the ballpark. It was definitely something that added to it. And then I met [Shannon], and when we met each other, we just fucking went for it every night, man. We just fucking partied our ass off, honeymoon stage. It just like fucking fun and having fun and shit like that. And then it just got to the point where it was just, like, she's gotta pick up all the fucking pieces from [what] destroyed me. And in alcoholism, there's a lot of self-centeredness, and I've never thought of myself as a self-centered person. I've always been very humble. I have humility. I think it's the most powerful trait any fucking human human being can have, is humility. I've always kind of prided myself in being approachable. I always treat my fans with a lot of respect and I just treat people in general with a lot of respect, unless I'm fucking drunk and turn into a fucking wild man. So I never looked at myself as a self-serving, self-centered type of person, and then I started thinking about, after I got sober, looking back on it, and it's just, like, I knew for a fact that when I [got] right out of bed, right the fuck out of bed, crack[ed] a beer or fucking [did] a shot or whatever, right before I took that drink, just looking at it and going, knowing in my head that at some point I'm gonna take this drink and I don't know if it's gonna be beer fucking eight, beer 15, shot fucking 10, whatever, at some point I'm gonna go off the rails. I'm gonna make shit uncomfortable and I'm gonna fucking bring all of you motherfuckers down with me — anyone who's hanging out with me. I don't know how much more self-centered you can get than that. I knew it every day, but I still fucking did it. That is fucking selfish. Any person I came in contact with, I would burn a fucking bridge down. I would burn bridge after fucking bridge after bridge. And then it happened to some really close friends of mine. And they're literally looking at me going… because of my behavior, my drunken psychotic fucking behavior that's still — I guarantee you — still fueled by a life of chaos from the time as far back as I can fucking remember, I burnt some bridges with some really fucking close people, and they literally looked at me, like, 'You know what?! I'm fucking done with you, man. I'm fucking done with you. I'm not gonna sit and watch you fucking kill yourself with booze. You're gonna die alone. You're gonna be alone. You're gonna lose everything because of what you're doing. You're gonna lose it all.' Fucking tough love. And at that moment, I was, like, 'Fuck this. Last time.' At that moment, I was, like, 'This is it. I'm done.' And I did it. And I quit."

Chad previously discussed his sobriety last September in an interview with Australia's "Everblack" podcast. He said: "I haven't really spoken about it yet 'cause I'm not one for a bunch of fucking fanfare. But I haven't even posted or done anything, but I've been sober now for two years. I just passed my two-year mark. The last day of ['The Psychotherapy Sessions'] tour [in late August] was my two years. And I just didn't make any — I haven't told anybody. I haven't really gone to the wire and been, like, 'Hey.' 'Cause I don't want a bunch of people to go, 'Fucking great, man'; I don't need all that. It's been two fucking years."

He continued: "You wanna think that when you quit drinking and shit — 'cause I was insane; I was a madman. I drank and I was volatile and I was fucking crazy as fuck and not a great drinker. I was just an asshole. I was just crazy — period. And I just got fucking fed up with that dude. I quit to try to help myself and to be a better me and to live a better life, and it just doesn't work that way. You wanna think that you stop doing shit like that and all the voices get quiet, and it's, like, dude, they're screaming. And everything becomes more amplified — all the feelings, all the emotions, all the depression, all the fucking shit, you know."

Gray added: "I've done so many things in my life to try to figure it out and be better. Am I better today than I was yesterday? I hope so. I assume I am. Am I better today than I was two years ago? Absolutely. I know that for a fucking fact. But I still have a lot of work to do on myself and I still have a lot of therapy to do on my own. And my therapy is writing those thoughts down and fucking creating and connecting. It helps me to be open and to be honest knowing that I'm going to connect with someone and knowing that I'm gonna help someone. And that's the reason that I want to continue to write music. My biggest thing is that — the connection that I know that I'm gonna make with someone. And that's my inspiration. And that's my muse."

Back in 2017, while Chad was fronting HELLYEAH, he told Antihero that he was "not drinking on the road anymore. I quit partying," he claimed. "I just came to the terms with myself like that. I wanted to give, be the best that I can when I'm playing. So I do all of the things that I do just to play. To give you, all the fucking kids that are standing in front of me, the best show possible. And it's hard to do when you're drinking. You're dehydrated, you're fucking hung over. I just feel better. I feel more confident in my voice and I feel better about myself. I look better. I lost weight. It's 'good good good'. The only bad is no drinking."

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. MUDVAYNE is Gray, Greg Tribbett (guitar, backing vocals),Matthew McDonough (drums, synthesizer) and Ryan Martinie (bass).

Gray spent a decade and a half fronting HELLYEAH, which released its sixth studio album, "Welcome Home", in September 2019 via Eleven Seven Music. The disc marked the group's final effort with drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, who passed away more than six years ago.