MUDVAYNE and HELLYEAH frontman Chad Gray is back on the road. On Wednesday, October 7, he resumed his "30 Years Of Madness" solo tour at the Fremont Country Club in Las Vegas, two days after calling off the House Of Blues in San Diego and the Observatory OC in Santa Ana because of what he described as deep vocal issues.
Hours before the Las Vegas show, Gray posted a video update explaining what had gone wrong. His voice, he said, had never felt right from the start of the tour. He first blamed allergies, but when nothing improved, his vocal coach sent him to an ear, nose and throat surgeon in New York. The scope showed heavy inflammation and a broken blood vessel on a vocal cord, meaning the cord had hemorrhaged at some point.
Gray got through the remaining dates by dropping an octave where he could, then rested at home during an 11-day break. A Las Vegas doctor scoped him twice more and saw the inflammation going down, clearing him to continue — with extreme caution, since pushing too hard could cause permanent damage. Then he caught his wife's cold and arrived at Aftershock barely able to make a sound, which is what led to the two cancellations. "I wasn't at close to my best, and I just needed to rest," he said, adding that he is still "a little under the weather" but on the mend.
Earlier this month, Gray admitted on The Jesea Lee Show that he was "scared to death" of permanent damage. "It's not only my instrument — it's my life, it's my career," he said, calling recovery "a hurry-up-and-wait thing" that only time can fix.
The run celebrates three decades of Gray's career with songs from both the MUDVAYNE and HELLYEAH catalogs, with BUTCHER BABIES and DEVIL'S CUT in support. It continues through Texas and across the country, wrapping up on October 20 in Nashville, Tennessee.