Chad Gray has fronted two bands that sold out rooms on name recognition alone. This autumn he finds out what his own name is worth.
The MUDVAYNE and HELLYEAH vocalist is mounting "30 Years Of Madnesss" (sic), a U.S. run celebrating three decades of work, on which he will perform material from both bands with a backing group of Marcus Rafferty (MUDVAYNE's touring guitarist), Joe Bonasorte on guitar, Nick Villarreal on bass and Devin Attard on drums. BUTCHER BABIES and DEVIL'S CUT open.
Speaking to The Logan Show, Gray was frank about the difference in stakes. "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 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?"
His pitch to anyone hesitating is simple enough. "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."
The project exists because MUDVAYNE decided to sit 2026 out, and because Gray is temperamentally incapable of doing the same. Since the band's 2021 return he has toured roughly six weeks a year — after a quarter century of continuous album cycles across MUDVAYNE and HELLYEAH, often overlapping. "I've been writing, recording, and touring for 25 years. And then all of a sudden I'm touring once every year for six weeks."
He is emphatic that the band's break is not a reaction to the modest chart performance of 2025 singles "Hurt People Hurt People" and "Sticks And Stones". "Not at all. It was just merely 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."
The solo shows also revive HELLYEAH's catalogue, dormant since early 2020. That band, Gray notes, never played MUDVAYNE or PANTERA songs precisely because it wanted to stand alone — a principle that no longer applies now that he is the one carrying both.
Source: blabbermouth.net