MUDVAYNE's CHAD GRAY Says His Upcoming U.S Solo Tour Will Be 'The Big Test': 'Do People Really Wanna See This?'

In a new interview with The Logan Show, vocalist Chad Gray of MUDVAYNE and HELLYEAH spoke about his upcoming U.S. tour celebrating his 30-year career. Dubbed "30 Years Of Madnesss" (sic),these unique events will feature Gray performing hits of MUDVAYNE and HELLYEAH with a backing band consisting of Marcus Rafferty (touring guitarist for MUDVAYNE) on guitar, Devin Attard on drums, Nick Villarreal on bass, and Joe Bonasorte on guitar. Support on the trek will come from BUTCHER BABIES and DEVIL'S CUT.

The "30 Years Of Madnesss" concerts mark Chad's first-ever solo performances and are taking place during a year when MUDVAYNE is not scheduled to do any touring. It is also 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".

Asked if "there is a little bit more pressure now" that he is "carrying all of the weight" as a solo artist, Chad told The Logan Show (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, the pressure is that I know that if I go play a MUDVAYNE show that people are gonna be there. I knew that when I went and played a HELLYEAH show, people were gonna be there. And these first [solo] shows that we've done, the first five, three of them were sold out. Two of them did fucking phenomenal. One of them sold 200 less tickets than when MUDVAYNE played that venue, which was amazing. So, I have the idea stuck in my head that people do wanna see this. But now that I'm doing a full tour, this is kind of the big test. Like, do people really wanna see this? Like, if I go to fucking Paducah or fucking wherever… I don't know why I mentioned Paducah, Kentucky. But if I go to Cleveland or if I go to fucking Minneapolis or if I go to wherever America, am I gonna have people standing in front of me or am I gonna be standing in front of 100 fucking people? It's, like, 'Well, 'cause it's not MUDVAYNE, it's not HELLYEAH, so it's just Chad Gray.' All I can say to people is that the fucking band I have backing me is insane."

He added: "Yes, it's not MUDVAYNE. Yes, it's not HELLYEAH. But it's me. I'm the voice of both of those bands and with an incredible backing band. So if you like these songs, you're gonna get these songs."

Gray also once again explained his motivation in launching a solo project five years after MUDVAYNE announced its comeback, saying: "The only fucking reason that I even put this together was because MUDVAYNE came back four years ago. We've toured once a year for four years. So it's, like, a lot of sitting, eating at home. I've been going out once a year for six weeks, seven weeks, for the past four years, and I've been writing, recording, and touring for 25 years. I've been busy my entire career until we put MUDVAYNE back together. And then we did the [Rob] Zombie tour, and then we did one of our own tours, and then we did the MEGADETH tour — we opened for MEGADETH — and then we did the 25th-anniversary 'L.D. 50' MUDVAYNE tour, which was fucking phenomenal. I mean, that tour, it was so great. Obviously, with the Zombie thing, fuck, we were playing to 10 to 17,000 people a night. People really wanted to see that, but you're with Rob Zombie, which is... Let's look at his lineage. WHITE ZOMBIE, which I was a fucking huge WHITE ZOMBIE fan. But I've been a Rob Zombie fan for a long time. Rob's a great dude and definitely brings it. But that package, as far as attendance, that was the best package of the four years that we were on. But we did this 25th-anniversary MUDVAYNE tour, or 'L.D. 50' tour, and holy fucking shit, man. We were playing, like, 4,000 seaters, and it was just fucking nuts to butts. If they weren't sold out, they were, like, five people from selling out. Every single venue… It was a lot of fucking fun, but then, all of a sudden, it was, like… We had done those last four tours for the last four years. We went to South America. We went to Australia. But we haven't been to Europe. And I'm just sitting around going, like, why are we not going to Europe? Why are we not going to fucking Japan? Why are we not going to the places that MUDVAYNE has played? And, basically, all that shit just comes down to dollars and cents."

Chad continued: "So, we get done doing the 25th-anniversary tour, the 'L.D. 50' tour, and the band's just kind of, like, 'Well, we think we're gonna take 2026 off.' And I'm, like, 'What? Fucking take a year off? Fuck this shit.' As far as I'm concerned, I've been taking the last four years off, 'cause I'm touring once a year for the last four years, and I'm not used to that. In fucking HELLYEAH, in MUDVAYNE too, we toured 'L.D. 50' for 26 months, and then we broke for two weeks. We got a residential studio, went in, fucking wrote 'The End Of All Things To Come', set that album up for probably a couple weeks, went out, toured that album, came off of that tour, fucking went back in, fucking did 'Lost And Found', fucking went back in, did the next one and da, da, da. And then here comes HELLYEAH, and I'm playing in both bands. I was playing in MUDVAYNE and HELLYEAH, so if I wasn't writing in MUDVAYNE, but if I was writing in MUDVAYNE, I was touring in HELLYEAH. If I was touring in HELLYEAH and I was writing in MUD… That two years of my life was the most insane shit ever 'cause I was constantly working. And then MUDVAYNE does the hiatus, and I'm in HELLYEAH, and it was the same shit, man. We did the first album. We toured the first album. We took a couple of weeks off. We went in, we did the second album. We toured that, did that whole cycle. We took two weeks off. We did that. We went and did the third album. We did 'Band Of Brothers'. We took two weeks off. We did 'Blood For Blood'. We took two weeks off. We did... We're talking fucking full album cycles, man. These are fucking year-and-a-half, two-year cycles that we're doing, constantly, constantly, constantly touring. I did that for 25 fucking years, man. And then all of a sudden I'm touring once every year for six weeks. And I'm just fucking sitting around here with my fucking dick in my hand doing nothing. And then this happens and it's, like, 'Oh, we're gonna take 2026 off.' And I'm, like, 'I'm not taking 2026 off.' I don't give a fuck."

Earlier this year, Chad was asked by Jesea Lee if he is open to the idea of releasing new music under the Chad Gray banner. The singer responded: "I'm certainly not opposed to it. But just promoting music and everything is just done differently now. It's about having those tools. It's about having the right people plugged in to be able to let people know that you have new music."We released the new MUDVAYNE songs ['Hurt People Hurt People' and 'Sticks And Stones' in 2025], and everybody was super stoked about those. But I thought for sure 'Sticks And Stones' would be a Top 10 single, and it topped out at [Top] 20. It was weird, because everybody at radio fucking loved that track. It's just it's done a little bit differently now than it used to be. It's not saying that it's not able to be done now, because people do it. But I'm not sure we were plugged into completely that world."

Asked if the disappointing performance of "Hurt People Hurt People" and "Sticks And Stones" contributed to MUDVAYNE's decision to take a break from touring and recording in 2026, Chad responded: "No. Not at all. It was just merely, like, boom, boom, boom, boom. Four years in a row of just hitting it. Like, let's chill. Let's put it on ice for a minute and see what kind of opportunities come, having put it on ice for a year. Just see what happens. 'Cause we just headlined [a tour]. So who knows? [We weren't interested in] headlining again within such a short amount of time. We want things that we do to be successful, and we want people to be excited to see us, and sometimes when you kind of know you're gonna be able to see them next year, you kind of pass. 'Ah, maybe I'll pass this year, and I'll just go see them next year.' So it's just one of those things, where you're just, like, 'Eh.'"

Referencing his solo project, Chad said: "I'm excited. I'm excited about what we did. I'm excited I decided to do this. I think the fans really enjoyed [the first show]. I think the fans are gonna continue to enjoy it. I know I enjoyed it, and I'm gonna continue to enjoy it. And I think I'm doing it for the right reasons."

After Lee noted that some fans will likely be excited about the prospect of seeing songs from both MUDVAYNE and HELLYEAH performed on the same night, Chad concurred. "That's exciting for me, too," he said. "You can't always guarantee that MUDVAYNE fans are gonna be HELLYEAH fans and that HELLYEAH fans are MUDVAYNE fans. They were two separate things. They were two completely kind of different things. And with HELLYEAH, it was funny, 'cause [late HELLYEAH and PANTERA drummer] Vinnie [Paul Abbott] used to say, like, 'Man, it's frustrating to me because people look at our band like a wall between me and PANTERA and you and MUDVAYNE.' And that's not what it is at all. It was just some dudes getting together in a room and going for it and just having some fun. But people did kind of look at it like, 'I'm not gonna like HELLYEAH because HELLYEAH is keeping Chad away from MUDVAYNE, or keeping Vinnie away from doing the PANTERA reunion,' or something like that. And we always wanted HELLYEAH to kind of stand on its own. That's why we never played MUDVAYNE songs and we never played PANTERA songs in our sets. We just wanted HELLYEAH to be what HELLYEAH was. It was a very true band that was real. There was a lot of passion in that project. It was a passion project, is what it really was. And there was a lot of passion in that project. We worked really hard in that band for fucking 12 years."

Back in March 2021, Gray released a solo single, a cover of "Always On My Mind" — a song made famous by Willie Nelson. The track was originally recorded for his fall 2020 wedding to SiriusXM on-air personality Shannon Gunz.

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 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.