The group consist of Chad Gray (lead vocals), Greg Tribbett (guitar, vocals), Ryan Martinie (bass guitar) and Matthew McDonough (drums). Formed in 1996, Mudvayne became popular in the late-1990s Decatur, Illinois underground music scene. The band released an EP, Kill, I Oughtta, in 1997 and a successful debut album, L.D. 50, in 2000. They had global success with The End of All Things to Come, Lost and Found and The New Game, the band went on hiatus in 2010 and reunited in 2021.
The band was inactive since 2010, with its members performing in other projects and making guest appearances. Chad Gray is the vocalist for the heavy metal supergroup Hellyeah, to which Greg Tribbett was also a member until 2014. Gray founded an independent record label, Bullygoat Records, which produces heavy-metal albums. In early 2015, Chad Gray noted that the band's return seemed very unlikely, unless "everybody licked their wounds and got over it".
Early days (1996–97)
Mudvayne, formed in 1995 in Bloomington, Illinois, originally consisted of bassist Shawn Barclay, guitarist Greg Tribbett and drummer Matthew McDonough. The band's original lineup finalized when Chad Gray, who was earning $40,000 a year in a factory, quit his day job to become its singer. In 1997 Mudvayne financed its debut EP, Kill, I Oughtta.
During the EP's recording Barclay was replaced by Ryan Martinie, former bassist for the progressive-rock band Broken Altar. After self-distributing Kill, I Oughtta, Mudvayne adopted stage names and face paint.
L.D. 50 (1998–2000)
In April 1998 local promoter Steve Soderstrom introduced Mudvayne to its original manager, Chuck Toler, who helped obtain a contract with Epic Records and record the 2000 debut studio album L.D. 50. For the album, Mudvayne experimented with a ragged, dissonant sound; a sound collage, prepared for the album, was used as a series of interludes. L.D. 50 was produced by Garth Richardson, with executive production by Slipknot member Shawn Crahan.
L.D. 50 peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart and No. 85 on the Billboard 200. The singles "Dig" and "Death Blooms" peaked at No. 33 and No. 32 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Although the album was praised, some critics found the band hard to take seriously.
To promote L.D. 50, Mudvayne played on the Tattoo the Earth tour with Nothingface, Slayer, Slipknot and Sevendust. Nothingface guitarist Tom Maxwell became friends with Mudvayne vocalist Chad Gray, and they explored the possibility of a supergroup. The following year, Nothingface again toured with Mudvayne; although plans for a supergroup continued, 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.
The End of All Things to Come (2001–02)
In 2002 Mudvayne released The End of All Things to Come, which the band considers its "black album" due to its largely-black artwork. Isolation inspired the album's songs. During its mixing, Gray and McDonough stopped at Bob's Big Boy and Gray remembered overhearing someone "say something like, ' ... and he's got to cut his own eye out'". When he asked McDonough if he heard the conversation McDonough said he hadn't, and Gray thought it was someone discussing a scene from a screenplay.
The album expanded on L.D. 50, with a wider range of riffs, tempos, moods and vocals. Because of this experimentation, Entertainment Weekly called this album more "user-friendly" than its predecessor and it was one of 2002's most acclaimed heavy-metal albums. The music video for the single "Not Falling" demonstrated the Mudvayne's change in appearance from L.D. 50, with the musicians transformed into veined creatures with white, egg-colored bug eyes.
Lost and Found (2003–05)
In 2003 Mudvayne participated in the Summer Sanitarium Tour, headlined by Metallica, and in September Chad Gray appeared on V Shape Mind's debut studio album Cul-De-Sac. The following year the band began work on its third album, produced by Dave Fortman. As for the previous album, Mudvayne withdrew to write songs; they moved into a house, writing the album in four months before recording began. In February Gray and Martinie expressed an interest in appearing on Within The Mind - In Homage To The Musical Legacy Of Chuck Schuldiner, a tribute to the founder of the metal band Death, but the album was never produced.
In 2005 Chad Gray established independent record label Bullygoat Records and Bloodsimple's debut album, A Cruel World (with a guest appearance by Gray), appeared in March. On April 12, Mudvayne released Lost and Found. The album's first single, "Happy?", featured complex guitar work and Gray described "Choices" as "the eight-minute opus".
In August former Mudvayne bassist Shawn Barclay released his band Sprung's debut album, mastered by King's X guitarist Ty Tabor. That month rumors 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. A spokesperson for Alice in Chains told the press that the band was unaware of any tribute album, and Mudvayne's manager said that reports of the album were only rumors.
In September the band met with director Darren Lynn Bousman, whose film Saw II was in production and would include "Forget to Remember" from Lost and Found. Bousman showed them a scene of a man cutting his eye out of his skull to retrieve a key. 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. Gray appeared briefly in the film, and the music video for "Forget to Remember" contained clips from Saw II.
The New Game and Mudvayne (2006–09)
In 2006, Gray, Tribbett and Tom Maxwell were joined by former Pantera and Damageplan drummer Vinnie Paul for the supergroup Hellyeah. On March 8, when Mudvayne and Korn performed at the KBPI Birthday Bash in Denver, Thornton waitress Nicole LaScalia was injured during Mudvayne's set. 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. During the summer, Gray, Tribbett, Maxwell and Paul recorded an album as Hellyeah. 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). The album debuted at number 51 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling about 22,000 copies in its first week.
After Gray and Tribbett returned from touring with Hellyeah, Mudvayne began recording The New Game with Dave Fortman. After the album's 2008 release, Fortman told MTV that it would be followed in six months by another full-length record.
For its self-titled fifth album Mudvayne hoped to create a "white album", describing its cover art. Mudvayne was recorded in the summer of 2008 in El Paso, Texas. The album, printed with blacklight paint, was only visible under a black light (a light whose wavelength is primarily ultraviolet).
Hiatus and break-up (2010–2021)
In 2010, Mudvayne again paused to allow Gray and Tribbett to tour with Hellyeah, and because of the supergroup's album releases the band would be on hiatus until at least 2014. With Hellyeah, Gray and Tribbett have recorded three albums: Stampede, Band of Brothers and Blood for Blood. In 2012, Ryan Martinie toured with Korn as a temporary replacement for bassist Reginald Arvizu, who remained at home during his wife's pregnancy. The following year Martinie played bass on Kurai's debut EP, Breaking the Broken, and in 2014 Tribbett left Hellyeah.
In a new interview with Songfacts in 2015, Gray said that Mudvayne's return seemed unlikely: I don't know if the full band will [ever reunite]. Who knows — they might be putting something else together. We were talking for a while and that whole thing with Greg [Tribbett's 2014 departure from Hellyeah] went down and everything kind of fell apart. Our relationship, which was the only truly solid relationship in the group, although Matt [McDonough] and I are still great, Ryan [Martinie] and I still briefly talk. I mean, the only way I personally would want to do Mudvayne is if everybody licked their wounds and got over it. There's a lot of things in that band that tore us apart. Maybe Mudvayne was the martyr for people that stopped supporting music. You sell 159,000 records the first week, and then the next record is like, 'Whatever, f--k it.' Maybe it's a subliminal message if you don't support things... Mudvayne's probably bigger now than it ever was. So, people want what they can't have.
In 2015, former Mudvayne members Tribbett and McDonough formed the band Audiotopsy with Skrape vocalist Billy Keeton and bassist Perry Stern. Audiotopsy describes its sound as "progressive hard rock."
Musical style and influences
Mudvayne is noted for its musical complexity. The band's music contains what McDonough calls "number symbolism", where certain riffs correspond to lyrical themes. Mudvayne has incorporated elements of death metal, jazz fusion and progressive rock. In addition to these styles, L.D. 50 featured world music and speed metal. Although Mudvayne has been inspired by Obituary, Emperor, Tool, Pantera, Mötley Crüe, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, King Crimson, Porcupine Tree and Metallica, according to them they are not influenced by other metal bands. They 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.
Although the band has described its style as "math rock" and "math metal", drummer Matt 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.
Music critics and journalists have categorized the band as alternative metal, experimental metal, extreme metal, hard rock, heavy metal, industrial metal, math metal, metalcore, neo-progressive metal, neo-progressive rock, nu metal, progressive rock, progressive metal and shock rock.
Appearance
Although Mudvayne was known for its appearance, Gray described its aesthetic as "music first, visuals second". When L.D. 50 was released, the band performed in horror film-style makeup. 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. The members of Mudvayne were originally known by the stage names Kud, sPaG, Ryknow and Gurrg. 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.[ After 2002, Mudvayne changed makeup styles (from multicolored face paint to extraterrestrials) and changed their stage names to Chüd, Güüg, Rü-D, and Spüg. According to the band, the extravagant makeup added a visual aspect to their music and set them apart from other metal bands. Since 2003 Mudvayne has largely abandoned makeup, but said that a future return to it is not out of the question.
Discography
L.D. 50 (2000)
The End of All Things to Come (2002)
Lost and Found (2005)
The New Game (2008)
Mudvayne (2009)
Choices
Mudvayne Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
They're perfectly insane
But if they'd point the finger at themselves
Who would be left to blame
Lead into grace
Lead to corruption
Ini-Mini-Miny-Mo
Ini-Mini-Miny-Mo
King or con has to be chosen
Ini-Mini-Miny-Mo
Way of life complete or broken...broken
Choices
No more, choices
No more, choices
No more, choices
Leaders are guilty of nothing
They're perfectly insane
But if they'd point the finger at themselves
Who would be left to blame
Follow truth or stutter through a lie
Ini-Mini-Miny-Mo
Will to push or give up and fall behind
Ini-Mini-Miny-Mo
Live with peace or nurture your tragic life
Ini-Mini-Miny-Mo
Bite the bullet or swallow it whole
Leaders are guilty of nothing
They're perfectly insane
But if they'd point the finger at themselves
Who would be left to blame
Point the finger at yourself
There's no choice
Anymore anyway
We don't have a choice
Anymore anyway
We don't have a voice
Anymore Anyway
There's no choice in freedom
There's no voice in freedom
We don't have a choice
Anymore anyway
We don't have a voice
Anymore anyway
There's no choice in freedom
There's no voice in freedom
Leaders are guilty of nothing
They're perfectly insane
But if they'd point the finger at themselves
Who would be left to blame
They're lost system of destruction
Flush all hope down the drain
But if they'd point the finger at themselves
Who is left to blame
Who is left to blame
We don't have a choice
Anymore anyway
We don't have a voice
Anymore anyway
There's no choice in freedom
There's no voice in freedom
We don't have a choice
Anymore anyway
We don't have a voice
Anymore anyway
There's no choice in freedom
There's no voice in freedom
We don't have a choice
Anymore anyway
We don't have a voice
Anymore anyway
We don't have a reason
Anymore anyway
We don't have control
Anymore anyway
We don't have opinions
Anymore anyway
There's no choice in freedom
There's no voice in freedom
Freedom, buy in
Freedom, sell out
Freedom, betray
Freedom, lay down
Freedom, corrupt
Freedom, opinion
Freedom, give up
Freedom, give in
The lyrics of Mudvayne's song "Choices" highlight the idea of deliberate and conscious decision-making in life. The lyrics suggest that leaders are often guilty of wrongdoing, but the blame cannot be assigned to anyone else, and they must take responsibility for their actions. Ultimately, the decision to choose one’s course of life is up to the individual, and one should follow the truth, even if it leads to pain or life-changing consequences, and not give up or fall behind. The lyrics suggest that choices made in freedom do not exist, and people do not have a voice in freedom.
The use of "Ini-Mini-Miny-Mo" is a children's rhyme that is known for choosing things randomly. The repetition of this phrase in the chorus implies a lack of control over important decisions. The repetition of the phrase “Choices, no more choices” suggests that people do not have the freedom to choose their path or voice their opinion.
Interestingly, this song marked a departure from Mudvayne's usual nu-metal sound, as it is acoustic-driven and relies on clean guitars rather than the band's usual distorted guitars. The song garnered mainstream attention due to its inclusion in the soundtrack for the video game "Madden NFL 07." It was also featured in the film "Saw III."
Line by Line Meaning
Leaders are guilty of nothing
Leaders seem to be doing fine although they can be responsible for some troubles around them
They're perfectly insane
They're doing things in ways that do not align with common sense and rationality
But if they'd point the finger at themselves
But if leaders played an accusatory role, urged by conscience
Who would be left to blame
Nobody else would have any responsibility
Lead into grace
Direction towards positive results of grace and favor
Lead to corruption
Direction towards decay and destruction of moral values, ethical standards and lawfulness.
Ini-Mini-Miny-Mo
Random selection or decision making
A truth or lie has to be spoken
One has to decide whether to tell the truth or lie
King or con has to be chosen
One has to choose between the choices of either supporting the rulers or the con-men
Way of life complete or broken...broken
The path that provides direction to life could either be strengthened/ supported or disrupted/fixed
Choices
Alternatives decisions that can be made.
No more, choices
Nothing else can be chosen among options.
Follow truth or stutter through a lie
Either follow the truth or lie incompetently
Will to push or give up and fall behind
To keep on fighting or leave the struggle and surrender.
Live with peace or nurture your tragic life
Either choose to live peacefully or continue living a life of tragedy
Bite the bullet or swallow it whole
Either face the difficulty and move on or accept a situation with full impact
There's no choice
Anymore anyway
There may be a situation where there is no further possibility for a choice.
We don't have a voice
Anymore anyway
Under certain circumstances, we lose our freedom of expression.
There's no choice in freedom
There's no voice in freedom
Even when it is thought to be free, there is sometimes no choice or a voice.
They're lost system of destruction
Flush all hope down the drain
A system that's lost and causing destruction on everything else, just spoiling the hope)
But if they'd point the finger at themselves
Who is left to blame
If someone accepts the blame, there will not be anyone left to blame
We don't have a reason
Anymore anyway
Under some circumstances, you will not be able to find a reason for something being done or happening.
We don't have control
Anymore anyway
Sometimes, you don't have the power to manage or influence an aspect of your life.
We don't have opinions
Anymore anyway
Under some situations, they could lose their opinions and ability to express.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: CHAD L. GRAY, GREG TRIBBETT, MATTHEW MCDONOUGH, RYAN MARTINIE
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind