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)
Rain. Sun. Gone
Mudvayne Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
No stars, to give me one wish so lost in the dark
Feels like I'm caving in from the outside, all right, all wrong
See you again so long, nothing matters anymore at all
Nothing matters anymore
Life's not meant to be disposable, lost, found, dead
Ready and willing, can't stop the bleeding
Left robbed unwilling, can't fight the feeling
So low, overwhelming clinging to a tragedy
So clear, hear weeping voices tears fall in the dark
Feels like I'm carving in from the outside
So lost, so gone, so wrong
Life's not meant to be disposable, lost, found, dead
Ready and willing, can't stop the bleeding
Life's not meant to be expendable, rain, sun, gone
Left robbed unwilling, can't fight the feeling
It's never ending, never goes away, but you did
It's never ending, never goes away, but you did
Why, why the body's just a vehicle to hold
Until we find another space
Find another place to start this over
The enemy, the action I can't condone
Do you suffer with me
Can I give you my loss to feel, to hold close
Can I give you my pain, to feel
To be eaten alive by conscience
Suffer, fucking suffer, suffer like me
Life's not meant to be disposable, lost, found, dead
Ready and willing, can't stop the bleeding
Life's not meant to be expendable, rain, sun, gone
Left robbed unwilling, can't fight the feeling
In the song "Rain. Sun. Gone" by Mudvayne, the lyrics speak about the feeling of being lost and overwhelmed, clinging to a tragedy, and feeling like nothing matters anymore. The first verse describes a feeling of being stuck in the dark, with no hope or wishing star to guide the way. It's as if the singer is caving in from the outside and is lost in every aspect of life. They have reached a point where nothing seems to matter anymore.
In the chorus, the message is repeated that "life's not meant to be disposable, lost, found, dead." The singer repeats that they are unable to stop the bleeding and can't fight the feeling. They feel robbed and unwilling to move forward, stuck in a never-ending cycle of pain and loss. The lyrics convey a sense of desperation and hopelessness, as the singer struggles to find meaning in their life.
The final verse changes tone and perspective slightly but still maintains the overall theme of the song. The singer questions why our bodies are merely vehicles and indicates that there must be another space or place where we can start anew. The lyrics make reference to conscience, suffering, and the idea of sharing one’s pain. This verse brings the song full circle, conveying the message that life is difficult and full of pain, but it is up to us to find the strength to endure and move forward.
Line by Line Meaning
So far, left with nothing hanging by a memory
Feeling empty and abandoned, with only the past to hold onto.
No stars, to give me one wish so lost in the dark
Feeling helpless and lost, with no hope or guidance.
Feels like I'm caving in from the outside, all right, all wrong
Feeling overwhelmed and collapsing under pressure from external forces, unsure of what's right or wrong.
See you again so long, nothing matters anymore at all
Saying goodbye to someone or something, feeling like nothing has any meaning anymore.
Nothing matters anymore
Feeling completely apathetic and detached from everything.
Life's not meant to be disposable, lost, found, dead
Believing that life has value and is not meant to be thrown away or easily discarded, but can be found or lost and will ultimately end in death.
Ready and willing, can't stop the bleeding
Feeling prepared and determined to face the pain, but unable to stop it from hurting.
Life's not meant to be expendable, rain, sun, gone
Believing that life is not something that can be used up and thrown away, like the passing of weather patterns.
Left robbed unwilling, can't fight the feeling
Feeling violated and powerless, unable to resist the emotions overwhelming them.
So low, overwhelming clinging to a tragedy
Feeling helpless and trapped in a painful situation, unable to move on.
So clear, hear weeping voices tears fall in the dark
Feeling the pain and sorrow so acutely that it seems to be all there is and hearing the voices of others crying as well.
Feels like I'm carving in from the outside
Feeling like something is eroding the self and the person is losing control.
So lost, so gone, so wrong
Feeling completely untethered and adrift, with no sense of direction or purpose.
It's never ending, never goes away, but you did
Feeling like the pain and suffering will never stop, although the person who caused it is no longer there.
Why, why the body's just a vehicle to hold
Questioning the purpose of the physical body and its role in containing the self.
Until we find another space
Suggesting that there might be a future beyond the current suffering.
Find another place to start this over
Looking for a fresh start after having been worn down and battered by life.
The enemy, the action I can't condone
Referring to something that the person is opposed to, but feels powerless to stop.
Do you suffer with me
Asking if someone else can understand the pain and struggle of the person.
Can I give you my loss to feel, to hold close
Offering to share the burden of grief and pain with someone else.
Can I give you my pain, to feel
Expressing a desire to have someone else understand the depth of the pain the person is experiencing.
To be eaten alive by conscience
Feeling like the internal struggle is consuming the person and there's no escape.
Suffer, fucking suffer, suffer like me
Challenging someone else to experience the same pain and suffering, as if it will somehow make it more bearable.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: CHAD L. GRAY, GREG TRIBBETT, MATTHEW MCDONOUGH, RYAN MARTINIE
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind