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)
Cultivate
Mudvayne Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Guilty toys for your insides
Just plead and I'll conduct you
Believe in me, I'm the juice
Receive from me the hand of truth
In still your trust I'll take you there
I penetrate and run through
Branded forearm
Synthetic high that drains you
Accelerated poles
Blood rush through
Branded forearm
Mudvayne returned
Inner mutiny lost tranquility
Broken people fixed again plumming christened with disorder
? took a spell to possess you
You embrace me for the high
Unfocused black swells as you die
Inner icon solicits sympathy
Departed being struggles so desperately
I'm so outside myself
Breathless body betrays my cry for help
Rest in earth,
Rest in peace
Await rebirth as I roll up my sleeve feel
Roll up my fuckin' sleeve
It so warm
Branded forearm
Masticate you as I cultivate through
You're life I loathe,
Motherfucker!
Scrambled being your impressions leaking
Sins been bastioned in you
Do what I do just to see through you
Your life is death now
Consequences been plowed under earth
Ashes to ashes dust to dust
Want you dead so much
The lyrics of Mudvayne's song "Cultivate" are reflective of the mindset of a cult leader. It speaks about his delusions and his beliefs that he is in control of his followers. The very first line of the song "Got the disease in my mind that chaos runs through in you" suggests that the cult leader has a twisted and disturbed mindset, and may see himself as the cure to the "chaos" that he thinks his followers possess.
He offers a synthetic high to his followers, as suggested in the line "Guilty toys for your insides". The lyrics suggest that he prays on their vulnerabilities and offers them a fake sense of security, and once they have embraced him and are fully under his influence, he conducts them as he sees fit. The line "In still your trust I'll take you there" points towards his manipulation tactics.
The lyrics speak of a scrambled being whose impressions are leaking, which suggests that the cult leader believes that his followers have lost their sense of self and need him to guide them. The lyrics also suggest that the cult leader is obsessed with death, and wants his followers to die so that he can have complete control over them. The line "Your life is death now" points towards this disturbing mindset.
Line by Line Meaning
Got the disease in my mind that chaos runs through in you
I share the same chaotic mindset that's present in you, it's like a disease that's within me.
Guilty toys for your insides
I'm hesitant to cultivate you. You're like a toy that I'm playing around with and affecting your inner self.
Just plead and I'll conduct you
You need my help to lead you to the path of truth, all you have to do is ask and I'll guide you.
Believe in me, I'm the juice
I'm the source of the truth and enlightenment that you're seeking.
Receive from me the hand of truth
I offer my assistance to help you find what's real and true in life.
In still your trust I'll take you there
You can trust me to lead you to the truth and enlightenment.
I penetrate and run through
I'll get through to the core of your being and enlighten you from inside out.
Feel it so warm
The truth and enlightenment that I offer is comforting and welcoming.
Branded forearm
I have a permanent reminder on my forearm which signifies my commitment to the truth and enlightenment.
Synthetic high that drains you
The temporary pleasure that other people seek is nothing compared to the enlightenment that I can offer.
Accelerated poles
The highs that other people try to achieve are useless and unnecessary to get to the truth.
Blood rush through
The process of enlightenment is invigorating and energizing.
Mudvayne returned
I am back to bring enlightenment to those who need it.
Inner mutiny lost tranquility
People are struggling within themselves, and they need enlightenment to find peace and tranquility.
Broken people fixed again plumming christened with disorder
People who were broken can be fixed again by opening their minds to the truth and enlightenment.
? took a spell to possess you
It takes a certain skill to enlighten someone, to open their mind to the truth.
You embrace me for the high
People seek me out for the temporary elation they feel, but the ultimate goal is to achieve enlightenment.
Unfocused black swells as you die
Those who resist enlightenment will eventually spiral out of control and destroy themselves.
Inner icon solicits sympathy
People are crying out for help and sympathy, they're seeking something greater than themselves.
Departed being struggles so desperately
People are struggling to find meaning and purpose in their lives.
I'm so outside myself
I'm beyond the physical self, I'm searching for something greater beyond the material world.
Breathless body betrays my cry for help
The physical body isn't enough to achieve enlightenment, it requires something greater, something beyond the material world.
Rest in earth,
When we die, our bodies return to the earth.
Rest in peace
Enlightenment brings peace to those who achieve it.
Await rebirth as I roll up my sleeve feel
Once we die, we await rebirth, and my commitment to enlightenment remains unchanged.
Roll up my fuckin' sleeve
I'm committed to enlightenment, no matter the cost.
Masticate you as I cultivate through
I'm penetrating and enlightening you, no matter what resistance you put up.
You're life I loathe,
Those who resist enlightenment are wasting their lives, missing out on the truth and purpose of life.
Motherfucker!
A forceful statement of commitment to enlightenment, no matter the opposition.
Scrambled being your impressions leaking
People are lost, confused, and their true selves are leaking out.
Sins been bastioned in you
People hold onto sins, which prevent them from achieving enlightenment.
Do what I do just to see through you
I'm enlightening you and giving you the opportunity to open your mind to the truth.
Your life is death now
If you don't open your mind to enlightenment, you're merely existing, not truly living.
Consequences been plowed under earth
The consequences of our actions remain with us, even after we've passed on.
Ashes to ashes dust to dust
Just as our bodies return to the earth, all of our physical and material possessions mean nothing.
Want you dead so much
If you refuse to open your mind to enlightenment, you're already dead inside, and I want to bring you back to life.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: CHAD L. GRAY, GREG TRIBBETT, MATTHEW MCDONOUGH, SHAWN BARCLAY
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind