EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Chad Gray Finds Independence, 30 Years Later

Chad Gray Is Finding His Independence
Mudvayne first got together to create music in 1996. Less than a year later, they released their debut EP, Kill, I Oughtta. Since then, the band has become known for their extreme and intense live shows, a unique pummeling brand of metal and a refusal to give into any sort of expectation. Along the way, frontman Chad Gray pursued another lane of rock 'n' roll alongside Vinnie Paul and others, starting the supergroup Hellyeah. Thirty years into all of it, Gray is still pushing himself in directions that are brand-new to him.

Over the course of three decades, Chad Gray has led the charge for two massively successful bands, Mudvayne and Hellyeah. With 12 albums and countless shows across the globe between the two, Gray has always found himself busy, and perhaps more important, focused.

The idea of taking a break is something he has never willingly given any credence to; from an early age, music – and more specifically, rock 'n' roll – has been a life-saving force in Gray's life.

So when a potential break loomed on the horizon, he knew he couldn't sit still.

"The whole thing started because Mudvayne decided to take 2026 off," Gray explains to Loudwire Nights host Chuck Armstrong about the five shows that were announced earlier this year for his 30 Years of Madnesss tour.

"Being onstage is where I'm happy, where I'm able to give back, where I'm able to help people. Metal helped me. Metal saved my fucking life. I don't just want to go away."

Gray quickly admits there are plenty of other bands that can satisfy fans' palates, but for him personally, he knew with a break from Mudvayne, he needed to remain active.

"It was an unrealistic ask," he shares.

"I get it. We've been grinding it for four years and shit, maybe it could use a break, but I'm a worker. I'm a fucking worker bee. I've been doing this for 30 years, I've been writing, recording and touring, one of those three for the last 30 years, you know what I mean ... Six albums with one band, six albums with another band, pretty much nonstop. And then just boom, I'm home 45 weeks a year and I'm just like, this is not good."

As Gray confronted the potential reality of a break, he was fortunately in touch with a like-minded brother.

"Marcus [Rafferty] is like me, he always wants to work, he's the guy that stepped up for Greg [Tribbett] when his wife passed," Gray explains.

"That dude would get in a van and tour 52 weeks a year and he's just like, 'Are you just going to sit?' And I'm like, 'Well, you know man, I've been thinking about, what if we did this and we just kind of did it acoustically, just me and you, we'll just go play and we'll just go, and he's like, 'Oh fuck yeah, it sounds awesome.'"

That was the seed that quickly grew into the idea for a one-off show in Las Vegas on April 24. Gray and Rafferty would come together onstage and celebrate 30 years of Mudvayne and Hellyeah in an acoustic setting. But as the idea grew, it didn't take long for it to evolve.

"It's the night before Sick New World," Gray says about the first 30 Years of Madnesss show.

"I [wondered] if I could put together a band, but then that opened a whole new fucking can of worms. It's like, you've got to find the people that can play this shit. You're talking Vinnie Paul and Matt McDonough, you're talking Ryan Martinie and Kyle Sanders, you're talking fucking Tom [Maxwell] and Greg and [Christian] Brady and fucking just a lot of killer players."

That didn't stop Gray. The process began to make this show worthy of his three decades and worthy of being a sort of kickoff to Sick New World.

"We're just like, fuck it, let's do it."

"Fuck It" — Or, the Chad Gray Way of Saying "Yes"

As the plans began to take shape for Las Vegas, Gray's wife, Shannon, tossed out a simple but profound question: Do you want to do more? And Gray had a familiar response.

"I'm like, fuck it," Gray says.

"We hit up Kevin Zink [of the Machine Shop in Flint, Mich.] independently, like, 'Hey dude, what do you think about this?' And he's like, 'Fuck yeah.' He was down to do the acoustic thing and he heard about this, he's like, 'Oh man, full band, fuck yeah.' He was totally on board."

From the Machine Shop, Gray and his wife set up another show at the Epic Event Center in in Green Bay, Wis., which led to another show at the Rust Belt in Moline, Ill.

"It was just like, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it," he says, laughing about the journey of these shows.

"The next thing you know, one show that's going to be acoustic turns into a full band and then five shows. It's a fucking exercise in autonomy. It's a way for me to be independent, to truly celebrate the 12 fucking albums of material that I've recorded over the last 30 years."

Gray admits the idea of exercising any sort of autonomy as an artist with this music is brand-new for him. Whether it was Mudvayne or Hellyeah, he was never able to be the guy from both bands. He committed, happily, to each, when it was needed.

"It's a way for me to be independent, to truly celebrate the 12 fucking albums of material that I've recorded over the last 30 years."

Beyond his own independence, though, Gray sees these shows as accomplishing something even bigger and more important.

The Other Celebration of Vinnie Paul's Legacy

Gray has always been outspoken about his love of Pantera. Having seen the original lineup 14 times, he was blown away at the possibility of making music with Vinnie Paul. When Gray got Paul's phone number years ago, he gave him a call and a week later, was writing songs with him.

Now, nearly eight years since Paul passed away, Gray is hopeful that these shows will not only celebrate his own career, but the career of Paul.

"This is just an idea that I came up with to be able to kind of pay for my tribute to Vinnie, you know what I mean," Gray shares.

"Allowing his music to continue to live which in turn allows him to keep living and continues his legacy. He was just such an inspirational part of my career and just such a genuinely warm person. He really cared about me, really took me under his wing, really let me fly."

Gray and Paul built up a quick trust between each other as they created music for Hellyeah.

"We got thrown together on that first album, first time that _, Greg and Vinnie had ever been in a room together," Gray recalls.

"Vinnie and Dimebag were fucking two of my biggest metal heroes."

"And we fucking write a song, first day. It's just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. We had a lot of time to wrap our head around what Hellyeah was, it just kind of happened, which was great, and through the years, trial and error and stuff like that, I really felt like everything came together."

For Gray, having the chance to work with Paul – and to continue to celebrate his legacy – is a deeply personal thing beyond simply being bandmates.

"[Vinnie and Dimebag Darrell] were fucking two of my biggest metal heroes," he says.

"I built a lot of who I am off the back of Pantera and Metallica and Slayer and so many bands ... I want to continue to be able to play Hellyeah music. I think it's cool. We had a lot of fucking fans, we made that band successful, we'd grind that, we'd grind that shit for 12 years, man, just nonstop trying to figure out what we were."

From Misfit Reject to Metalhead

Gray is quick to lift up his musical heroes like Metallica, Slayer and Pantera, but when he was a young kid, there was one band that opened the door for everything else – and one band that began to save Gray's life.

"I was a really, really fucked up kid, a really fucking troubled household, an alcoholic home and all that kind of shit and everything that went along with that," Gray says.

"And some fucking kid handed me a Motley Crue Too Fast For Love tape."

Gray explains that music was always a part of his life, but it wasn't always music like Motley Crue.

"My mom was 17 years old when she had me," he remembers.

"I was three years old, she was cruising the strips, flirting with boys and shit. I'm in the backseat of the car, sitting on the floorboard, playing Hot Wheels on the backseat, listening to Peter Frampton and the Eagles, what we call classic rock now. That was what was on the radio then. So, the earliest days of my life, I came up with music. I was always around music."

And while Gray was happy to call that music great, he says nothing ever connected with up like that Too Fast For Love tape.

"Fucking 'Live Wire' came on and I'm like, 'What the fuck is this,' like, jaw drop, what is this," he says.

"And then it just, it got its teeth in me. I show up to school and I'm the poster child for 'fuck with that kid' at that time in my life. Dirty clothes, mismatched socks, all this shit. We were poor, extreme poverty, and I just got fucked with all the time at school. And then I get this tape and I get this music and it touches me. I show up at school one day and I just see these kids and I'm just like, 'Oh yeah, these kids,' you know what I mean? Then I'm like, [I found] my crew."

Gray explains that he immediately felt like he was part of a tribe; not only did he have music that changed his life, but he had the people that came with it.

"I get this tape and I get this music and it touches me. I found my crew."

"In a sense, that's truly what saved my life," Gray admits.

"I was the fucking total bum, outcast, hobo kid, and now I'm just hanging out, treated like one of the dudes, because we just had this passion for this music that I just got turned onto."

From Motley Crue, Gray fell deep into the world of metal. Metallica and Slayer led him down the road to even heavier music from bands such as Obituary.

"It couldn't get heavy enough."

Chasing the Dream (With Some Advice From Grandma)

Though Gray was now a changed kid thanks to the power of heavy metal and rock 'n' roll, he never felt the specific urge to actually create the music that saved his life; it just sort of happened.

"I'd sung in church and I sung in chorus in school," he says.

"I just kind of got good at it. To me, I sounded good, but these are my heroes and I'm emulating them now ... It gives you that drive and one day far, far down the road from when that happens, somebody fucking handed me a microphone."

Gray was in a basement with some friends who had just started a band and out of nowhere, he started singing with them. They were covering Exodus ("The Toxic Waltz") and other songs by Megadeth and Metallica, but there was never a sense that this band was going anywhere. They were having fun playing basements and garages throughout Peoria and Gray seemed okay with it, too.

After all, the more shows he played, the better he got at singing. After awhile, though, Gray eventually made the decision to leave Peoria and move back to Decatur.

"Then, the idea of Mudvayne kind of landed in my lap."

About a year after moving back to Decatur, someone he had played with in Peoria hit him up and said he was putting together his dream band, which included Gregg and Matt.

The problem was, Peoria is about 85 miles away from Decatur and Gray had a decent job at Firestone, making good money.

"The idea of Mudvayne kind of landed in my lap."

"I'd drive up there every day I had off, make that fucking 180-mile round trip and come home," he explains.

"I did that for probably eight or nine months and I was just like, I don't want to fucking do this."

So, Gray did what any smart Midwesterner would do: He went to his grandma.

"She was just so elated that I had that good-paying job, man," he shares.

"But I was just like, I'm not happy. I feel like I need to do this. I feel like I need to chase this. I feel like this is my dream – and she gave me her blessing."

Even more important than her blessing was the advice she gave to her grandson as he walked out the door, ready to quit his job at Firestone and pursue his dream with this band in Peoria.

"She's just like, 'Don't fuck up.' All right, Grandma. You got it, babe. I love you. And I fucking loaded my shit up in my car."

His Purpose — Chad Gray Doesn't Have to Dig For a Reason

The common theme in Gray's life seems to be this idea of never forcing something to happen. Whether it was hanging out in a basement and being handed a microphone or working a job in Decatur and being approached about staring something new in Peoria – or writing that first song with Hellyeah or putting together a one-off show in Vegas that quickly turns into five shows across the country – Gray has always been ready to work, ready to push himself and ready to try something new.

The driving force behind that, going all the way back to playing Hot Wheels in the back of his mom's car, has been the connection and support that he's had with music. For the last 30 years, he's been able to give back to his fans by creating new connections – and he plans to continue to do that with these celebratory shows in 2026.

"Music helped me so much," he states.

"It's allowed me to release so much...I think a big part of the drive in my music is for me to remind people that they're not alone. That world is a very isolated world. You don't scream that kind of shit from abuse and neglect, you don't scream that from the mountaintops. It's all internal. It's a very isolated life. So when people are listening to my music, if they listen to it [and] they're living in that same isolated world, they go, 'Sounds Ike he's been through what I'm going through.' Guess what? Now there's two of you."

"I want to be onstage, in front of my people ... There's an ownership now, you retake your life as an owner versus a fucking tenant."

The more Gray opens up about this, the more excited he seems to be to play these shows.

"It's not about fucking money or anything like that," he says.

"I want to be onstage, in front of my people. I want that [circulation] of energy that we have. I give them something, they give me something back. I give them something more powerful, they give me something more powerful back and we all walk out of there just like, 'Whatever you got, give it to me. I fucking got it.' There's an ownership now, you retake your life as an owner versus a fucking tenant."

Gray feels like that's a big part of his job, to help fans and listeners get to that point. That was the gig he signed up for 30 years ago and that's the gig he continues to do to this day.

And that's why he couldn't sit still this year while Mudvayne take a break.

"I'm not going to sit in my living room when I can be empowering people, when I can be lifting people up, when I can be motivating people to fucking take charge of their life," Gray says.

"Whatever you got going on in your life, just open your hand and let go of everything."

Listen To + Watch The Loudwire Cover Story Interview With Chad Gray

30 Years of Madnesss Tour Dates

April 24 - Las Vegas, Nev. @ Fremont Country Club
May 26 - Flint, Mich. @ The Machine Shop
May 27 - Flint, Mich. @ The Machine Shop
May 29 - East Moline, Ill. @ The Rust Belt
May 30 - Green Bay, Wis. @ Epic Event Center