Mudvayne | |
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![]() Mudvayne performing at the Aftershock Festival in 2021. Left to right: Ryan Martinie, Chad Gray, Matthew McDonough, Greg Tribbett | |
Background information | |
Origin | Peoria, Illinois, U.S. |
Genres | |
Works | Mudvayne discography |
Years active |
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Labels | |
Spinoffs | |
Members | |
Past members |
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Website | mudvayneofficial |
Mudvayne is an American heavy metal band formed in Peoria, Illinois, in 1996. [2] Known for sonic experimentation, face and body paint, masks and uniforms, the band has sold over five million records worldwide. [3] The group consists of lead guitarist Greg Tribbett, drummer Matthew McDonough, lead vocalist Chad Gray, bassist Ryan Martinie and live rhythm guitarist Marcus Rafferty. The band became popular in the late-1990s Peoria underground music scene, [4] and found success with the single "Dig" from their debut album L.D. 50 (2000). After releasing four more albums and touring for nearly a decade, Mudvayne went on hiatus in 2010. They reunited in 2021 and continue performing live. [5] [6]
Mudvayne, formed in 1996 in Peoria, Illinois, originally consisted of guitarist Greg Tribbett, drummer Matthew McDonough and bassist Shawn Barclay. [7] The lineup was finalized when Chad Gray quit his day job to become its lead singer. [8] In 1997, Mudvayne financed its debut EP, Kill, I Oughtta . [9] [7]
During the EP's recording, Barclay was replaced with Ryan Martinie, formerly of Broken Altar. [10] After self-distributing Kill, I Oughtta, [9] [7] Mudvayne adopted stage names and face paint. [7] [11] [12]
Chuck Toler managed the band as they recorded their 2000 debut album L.D. 50 . [12] [13] Mudvayne experimented with a ragged, dissonant sound. A sound collage was used as a series of interludes. [7] [14] L.D. 50 was produced by the band and Garth Richardson, [15] with executive production by Slipknot member Shawn Crahan and Slipknot manager Steve Richards. [7] [13]
L.D. 50 peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart and No. 85 on the Billboard 200. [16] The singles "Dig" and "Death Blooms" peaked at No. 33 and No. 32 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. [16] Although the album was praised, [17] some critics found the band hard to take seriously. [18]
Mudvayne played on the Tattoo the Earth tour with Nothingface, Slayer, Slipknot and Sevendust. Nothingface guitarist Tom Maxwell befriended Chad Gray, and they explored the possibility of a supergroup. The following year, Nothingface again toured with Mudvayne. Plans for a supergroup continued, but they were put on hold due to scheduling conflicts. Gray and Maxwell had discussed five names for the group, and Mudvayne guitarist Greg Tribbett approached Maxwell "out of the blue" to join it. Although Nothingface drummer Tommy Sickles played on the group's demo, the search for another drummer began. [19]
In 2002, Mudvayne released The End of All Things to Come , which the band considers its "black album". [20] Isolation inspired the album's songs. At Bob's Big Boy, Gray overheard someone "say something like, ' ... and he's got to cut his own eye out'". Gray thought it was a scene from a screenplay. [21]
The album expanded on L.D. 50, with a wider range of riffs, tempos, moods and vocals. [22] Entertainment Weekly called this album more "user-friendly" than its predecessor. [23] It was one of 2002's most acclaimed heavy-metal albums, eventually certified Gold by the RIAA in 2003. [24] The music video for "Not Falling" demonstrated Mudvayne's transformation into veined creatures with white, egg-colored bug eyes. [25] In 2003, Mudvayne participated in Metallica's Summer Sanitarium Tour. [26] In September, Gray appeared on V Shape Mind's debut studio album Cul-De-Sac . [27]
In January 2004, the band began work on its third album, produced by Dave Fortman. [26] [28] Mudvayne wrote the album in four months before recording after the Summer Sanitarium tour. [26] [29] In February, Gray and Martinie expressed interest in appearing on a Chuck Schuldiner , founder of Death, [30] tribute album but it was never produced.
In 2005, Gray established Bullygoat Records. Bloodsimple's debut album, A Cruel World (with a guest appearance by Gray), appeared in March. [31] On April 12, Mudvayne released Lost and Found . The first single, "Happy?", featured complex guitar work, and Gray described "Choices" as "the eight-minute opus". [26]
In August, former Mudvayne bassist Shawn Barclay released his band Sprung's debut album, mastered by King's X guitarist Ty Tabor. [9] That month, an unfounded rumor spread that Bullygoat Records would release We Pay Our Debt Sometimes: A Tribute to Alice in Chains , with performances by Mudvayne, Cold, Audioslave, Breaking Benjamin, Static-X and the surviving members of Alice in Chains. [32]
In September, the band met with director Darren Lynn Bousman, whose film Saw II would include "Forget to Remember" from Lost and Found. Bousman showed them a scene of a man cutting his eye out. When Gray told Bousman about the conversation at Bob's Big Boy two years earlier, Bousman said he holds his production meetings at the restaurant and Saw II was based on a screenplay he wrote years earlier. [21] Gray appeared briefly in the film, and the music video for "Forget to Remember" contained clips from Saw II. [21]
In 2006, Gray, Tribbett and Tom Maxwell formed Hellyeah with former Pantera and Damageplan drummer Vinnie Paul. On March 8, Mudvayne and Korn performed at the KBPI Birthday Bash in Denver, Thornton. Waitress Nicole LaScalia was injured during Mudvayne's set. [33] Two years later, LaScalia filed a lawsuit against radio station owner Clear Channel Broadcasting, concert promoter Live Nation, the University of Denver and members of Mudvayne and Korn. [33] During the summer, Gray, Tribbett, Maxwell and Paul recorded Hellyeah album. [34] After a tour with Sevendust, Mudvayne released the 2007 retrospective By the People, for the People (compiled from selections chosen by fans on the band's website). [35] The album debuted at number 51 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling about 22,000 copies in its first week. [21] [36]
After Gray and Tribbett returned from touring with Hellyeah, Mudvayne began recording The New Game with Dave Fortman. [37] After the album's 2008 release, Fortman told MTV that it would be followed in six months by another full-length record. [38]
For its self-titled fifth album, Mudvayne hoped to create a "white album", describing its cover art. [20] The album, printed with blacklight paint, was only visible under a black light (a light whose wavelength is primarily ultraviolet). [39] Mudvayne was recorded in the summer of 2008 [40] and released in 2009.
In 2010, Mudvayne paused to allow Gray and Tribbett to tour and record with Hellyeah, and would be on hiatus until at least 2014. [41] Tribbett has recorded three albums with Hellyeah: Hellyeah , Stampede and Band of Brothers . [42] Gray has contributed to an additional fourth, fifth and sixth albums, Blood for Blood , Unden!able and Welcome Home . [43] In 2012, Ryan Martinie toured with Korn as a temporary replacement for bassist Reginald Arvizu. [44] The following year, Martinie played bass on Kurai's debut EP, Breaking the Broken, [45] In 2014, Tribbett left Hellyeah. [46]
On April 19, 2021, Mudvayne announced that they had reunited and would play their first shows in 12 years in the fall, including festival appearances at Inkcarceration Music & Tattoo in Mansfield, Aftershock in Sacramento and Welcome to Rockville in Florida. Concert promoter and festival organizer Danny Wimmer stated that these would be the band's only live appearances for 2021. The band were scheduled to appear at Louder Than Life in Louisville, before the performance was canceled on September 21 due to Gray and some staff members contracting COVID-19. [5] [47] The members of Mudvayne have reportedly discussed the possibility of new material. [48] The band's reunion resumed in the summer of 2022 with appearances at Upheaval Festival in Grand Rapids and Rock Fest in Cadott, [6] [49] followed by their first US tour in 13 years, co-headlining the Freaks on Parade tour with Rob Zombie. [50] The tour's stop in Tampa made headlines when Gray fell off the stage while performing "Not Falling". [51] Gray noted the irony, and joked it was "amazing" [52] and "unbelievable". [53]
The band released "Hurt People Hurt People", their first song since their reunion on Aug 27, 2025. [54] [55]
Mudvayne is noted for its musical complexity, [56] [57] complex meters and polyrhythms. [58] The band's music contains what McDonough calls "number symbolism", where certain riffs correspond to lyrical themes. [12] Mudvayne has incorporated elements of death metal, [12] [22] jazz, [59] jazz fusion, [22] [60] progressive rock, [12] [22] [59] [61] [62] speed metal, [12] thrash metal [59] and world music. [18] [63]
Mudvayne's influences include Tool, Pantera, King Crimson, Genesis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Carcass, Deicide, Emperor, Miles Davis, Black Sabbath, Rush, [64] [65] Metallica, Slayer, Korn, and Deftones. [66] Mudvayne have repeatedly expressed admiration for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey , and were influenced by the film during the recording of L.D. 50. [67]
Although Mudvayne has described its style as "math rock" [68] and "math metal", [63] [69] [70] drummer Matthew McDonough said in 2009: "I honestly don't know what 'math metal' is. I made a joke early on in Mudvayne's career that we used an abacus in writing. It seems I should be careful making jokes in interviews. I don't really see Mudvayne as an innovator in anything." [71] Music critics and journalists have categorized the band as alternative metal, [72] [73] [74] [75] nu metal, [76] [77] [78] [79] experimental metal, [75] extreme metal, [75] [80] hard rock, [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] heavy metal, [33] [69] [86] math metal, [70] [75] groove metal, [87] [88] neo-progressive metal, [75] neo-progressive rock, [89] progressive rock, [12] [61] [62] and progressive metal. [61] [70] [75] [90] Eli Enis of Revolver magazine wrote that the band "wriggled between nu-metal, alt-metal, prog and hard rock in a way that remains completely unrivaled to this day. No one else has or ever will sound quite like them." [91]
Although Mudvayne was known for its appearance, Gray described its aesthetic as "music first, visuals second". [26] When L.D. 50 was released, the band performed in horror film-style makeup. [13] Epic Records initially promoted Mudvayne without focusing on its members; early promotional materials featured a logo instead of photos of the band, but its appearance and music videos publicized L.D. 50. [13] The members of Mudvayne were originally known by the stage names Kud, sPaG, Ryknow and Gurrg. [7] At the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards (where they won the MTV2 Award for "Dig"), the band appeared in white suits with bloody bullet-hole makeup on their foreheads. [92] After 2002, Mudvayne changed makeup styles (from multicolored face paint to extraterrestrials) for promotional photos and changed their stage names to Chüd, Güüg, Rü-D, and Spüg, [93] though they would continue to perform in the horror-style makeup live. According to the band, the extravagant makeup added a visual aspect to their music and set them apart from other metal bands. [94] From 2003 up until their dissolution, Mudvayne largely abandoned the use of makeup to avoid image comparisons with the band Slipknot. [26] With their 2021 reunion, they began wearing makeup again when performing live. [95] [96]
Current members
Touring musicians
Former members
Studio albums
MTV Video Music Awards
Year | Nominee / work | Award | Result |
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2001 | "Dig" | MTV2 Award | Won |
Grammy Awards
Year | Nominee / work | Award | Result |
---|---|---|---|
2006 | "Determined" | Best Metal Performance | Nominated |
Mudvayne's "The End of All Things to Come" was one of last year's most acclaimed metal releases
Nicole LaScalia was knocked to the floor of Magness Arena and trampled by concertgoers moments after the heavy metal band Mudvayne took the stage.
We had time, and there wasn't anything going on last summer, so we went in, and recorded it.
Mudvayne, the Grammy-nominated progressive rock and metal band, is helping keep rock on a roll in Rochester.[ permanent dead link ]
The Peoria, Illinois, progressive metal quartet has named their new album The End of All Things To Come
Well-calculated alterna-metal band Mudvayne makes a whole bunch of money at Rams Head Live with 10 Years and a band called Snot.
...Mudvayne has been added to an ever growing list of metals: experimental metal, alternative metal, extreme metal, progressive metal, neo-progressive metal and the impressive pocket protector favorite, math metal.
extreme metal quartet Mudvayne
And fans will witness Mudvayne trying to remake itself from a costume-wearing shock-rock act into a just plain menacing hard-rock act.
Metallica, the elder statesmen of metal, assembled an untouchable lineup of metal acts to join them on a tour that reads like a who's who of heavy-metal heavyweights: Mudvayne and the Deftones, Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit.
The music, too, has a lot of Mudvayne's combination of groove and progressive epic-ness ...
You know Trapt aren't vying for the affections of neo-prog Mudvayne fanatics when their singer, Chris Brown, feels Genesis got good only after Phil Collins took the mic.