{"id":10291,"date":"2012-07-15T13:10:17","date_gmt":"2012-07-15T03:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=10291"},"modified":"2012-08-22T07:49:04","modified_gmt":"2012-08-21T21:49:04","slug":"chad-gray-of-hellyeah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2012\/07\/chad-gray-of-hellyeah\/","title":{"rendered":"Chad Gray of HELLYEAH"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n<\/a>“It\u2019s like fuckin\u2019 militant, it\u2019s like going in to battle, there\u2019s only five of you facing the world, there\u2019s only one way you\u2019re going to win that war.\u00a0 That\u2019s the fight, that\u2019s the first wave, the second wave is you\u2019re gonna have each other\u2019s backs no matter what you know what I mean?”<\/p>\n

Hellyeah is a band we\u2019ve featured a few times here at May The Rock Be With You, and we are always willing to speak with the guys and get up to speed on all things Hellyeah.\u00a0 Now with a new album \u2018Band of Brothers\u2019 (can you believe it\u2019s been two years since Stampede?) and an attitude to go with this slab of metal, this album sounding amazing and is going to be taken notice of.\u00a0 I mean, read below to get what we mean.<\/p>\n

At a venue ready for a show and dodging traffic while talking to me, we once again had the chance to catch up with front man Chad Gray from Hellyeah to talk about their new album \u2018Band of Brothers\u2019, how they got the sound they wanted on it, Chad gives us a great insight into the track \u2018WM3\u2019 and also just how much he loved singing a Def Leppard cover\u2026<\/p>\n

Chad\u2026<\/p>\n

Congratulations on Australian release day!\u00a0 How pumped are you to get this record out to people?<\/strong>
\nThank you man, oh fuckin\u2019 I can\u2019t wait.\u00a0 I honestly believe that this is probably the record that people have been waiting for us to put out, since they heard that the members were getting together, but unfortunately for us it was never really possible because of the other band and keeping things separate, you know what I mean?\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want to play in both bands the same way, so Hellyeah was more of a \u2018hey let\u2019s get back to songs and music and do shit that we wouldn\u2019t normally do in our other heavier bands\u2019 you know what I mean?\u00a0 So, with Mudvayne being on hiatus and stuff indefinitely and doing back to back Hellyeah records, it occurred to me that I need that for my life, I\u2019m a metal head, I need\u2026 I\u2019ve got a killer job because I have a job where I can fuckin\u2019 get up there and rage and fuckin\u2019 release demons every single day.\u00a0 I need that balance in my life, I was really ready for this record and I wanted to write a heavy, a solely heavy record, my own style and Vinnie\u2019s own style and let us let Hellyeah stand on its own ten legs.<\/p>\n

The album seems to have taken on the best parts of all your past groups, which were of course there previously but it seems that you\u2019ve found your strides now and it\u2019s a monster, was there a realisation of when that actually happened?<\/strong>
\nI think that what we did was, we just, we just fuckin\u2019 quit being afraid of who we are. This is the first time that we actually went \u2018Fuck it\u2019 we\u2019re gonna be ourselves, I\u2019m gonna be Chad Gray, I\u2019m not gonna be Chad from Mudvayne, but I\u2019m gonna be Chad Gray, and that was the Chad from Mudvayne, on a level, writing songs like \u2018Alcohaulin\u2019 Ass\u2019, \u2018Pole Rider\u2019 and \u2018Hell of a Time\u2019, that shit was fun because I\u2019ve never done it before so I didn\u2019t know if I could do it.\u00a0 Now I know I can do it, but I like darker imagery, I like deeper darker lyrics, I like more helpless songs and shit like that, that\u2019s what I dig, that\u2019s what I always did with Mudvayne is play heavy music, Vinnie\u2019s drum tone has gotten more open over the years, more focused, versus Pantera where it was just fuckin\u2019 in your face and up the middle and the kick beaters just hit you in the head.\u00a0 We said, I want you to play like you play but I want that sound too, be Vinnie Paul, be the dude that fuckin\u2019 everybody fell in love with, you know what I mean?<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t have to hide from that, I want to be Chad Gray that people fell in love with, I want Greg Tribbett to be Greg Tribbett, let\u2019s just get out of this exterior metal shit and get back to honest and just really, really, really play music and I think by us doing that, I think that\u2019s given Hellyeah that was kind of like a sidecar to all the other bands, or keeping us tethered to something else, we\u2019ve kind of cut the cord because we\u2019ve all come and brought our styles and sounds to the table, it allowed Hellyeah to be its own thing.\u00a0 It made the people hush with the \u2018When\u2019s Mudvayne coming back?\u2019, \u2018When\u2019s Pantera gonna do a reunion?\u2019 blah blah blah blah, \u2018When\u2019s Nothing face ever coming back out?\u2019, \u2018Is Damage Plan ever going to do anything again?\u2019 I mean these are fuckin\u2019 questions we hear every day\u2026 There\u2019s a little bit of all those bands in what we\u2019ve done and you can hear it throughout the record and it\u2019s cool, we\u2019re not plagiarising anything, it\u2019s the honest \u00a0thing we\u2019ve ever done, we are the dudes from those bands, we\u2019re not stealing anything, we\u2019re just bringing what we\u2019ve done to the table under the umbrella that it\u2019s Hellyeah.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to ask about reunions don\u2019t worry\u2026<\/strong>
\nHa ha ha thank you, I appreciate it.<\/p>\n

So, the name speaks for itself, but what was the decision behind calling the album \u2018Band of Brothers\u2019?<\/strong>
\nI think it started with the song, I wrote the song first and the more we started thinking about it, the more we just felt like we were\u2026 we\u2019d seen a lot of success in our other bands and the way that we feel in Hellyeah is that we all kinda feel like underdogs, you know what I mean? And you\u2019ve gotta be careful when you bag an underdog in to a corner you know what I mean, because they come out fuckin\u2019 fighting and I think that was kind of our attitude with this record that we had this underdog kind of vibe to us because we felt feisty, we felt fuckin\u2019 we were salty about shit, we just wanted to refocus our anger and fuckin\u2019 frustrations and fuckin\u2019 helplessness and bring it to the table and do it together and that really is what we are, we are fuckin\u2019 bros.\u00a0 I\u2019d lay down in traffic for those guys and they\u2019d do the same for me, you know what I mean?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like fuckin\u2019 militant, it\u2019s like going in to battle, there\u2019s only five of you facing the world, there\u2019s only one way you\u2019re going to win that war.\u00a0 That\u2019s the fight, that\u2019s the first wave, the second wave is you\u2019re gonna have each other\u2019s backs no matter what you know what I mean?\u00a0 I think that\u2019s just the vibe to it, and the more I\u2019ve even thought about it and we kind of agreed on that as the name of the record, the more that I really thought about it and standing on stage and looking out and playing songs for the kids with their fists in the air and fuckin\u2019 whatever, I think that Band Of Brothers is more about the metal community than it is, almost even the five of us are a band of brother in itself but really we\u2019re just five dudes in a much larger band of brothers and that band of brothers is the metal fuckin\u2019 community.\u00a0 We all fight and go to the grave for something that we believe in very, very strongly which is music and it\u2019s heavy and it\u2019s relevant to our society that we create for ourselves.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I love the cover too, it\u2019s very much an all for one attitude\u2026<\/strong>
\nYeah, but like I said, it\u2019s bigger than the five of us.<\/p>\n

Tell us about the decision to cover of all things, a Def Leppard song, being \u2018High and Dry\u2019 on the album and how that came about?<\/strong>
\nAin\u2019t my idea ha ha ha.\u00a0 That wasn\u2019t my idea, they did it and showed it to me and aaid \u201cYou gotta sing on this\u201d and I was like \u201cReally? OK\u2026\u201d I always wanted to do something else but whatever.\u00a0 I\u2019m just the singer dude, I\u2019m just the guy up the front, the guy that loses his voice every night, who the fuck am I? Ha ha ha.\u00a0 They love Def Leppard, and thank God they didn\u2019t say \u201cHey let\u2019s cover Pour Some Sugar On Me\u201d because I would\u2019ve been like \u201cFuck You!\u201d that wouldn\u2019t have happened you know what I mean ha ha, at least they did a cool song off a cool record, I\u2019ll give them that.<\/p>\n

A song like \u2018WM Free\u2019 about the West Memphis Three, a topic that so many are passionate about, why was it important for you to write a song about it?<\/strong>
\nThey were released when we were doing it, around the time that we were making the record and you know, they way that I wrote that song I took a really different approach to writing that song and I\u2019d never done that before, the way I wrote that song I wrote it from the first person, I wrote it from my point of view, because as much as the song is a tribute to their freedom, I mean finally, thank God, figure it out, eighteen fuckin\u2019 years, really?\u00a0 I mean come on, it\u2019s almost disgusting, and it\u2019s beyond disgusting actually.\u00a0 I lived in a small town when I was young, early high school, middle school, those ages in there and stuff, because we\u2019re the same age, Damien Echols and me are the same age, I think he might be a year younger than me, and I think that I wrote that song from my point of view, of remembering (sings lyrics) “So I listened to Metallica, so I listened to Slayer” you know, doesn\u2019t make me a killer, you know, it\u2019s part of them and it\u2019s part of me because I was the same way.\u00a0 I listened to fuckin\u2019 heavy music, I wore black, had long hair and I did NOT fit in to a town of five hundred people, trust me, a little farm down, people would drive by me and a couple of friends of mine and they would just scowl at us or if we were walking down the street they\u2019d move to the other side, they\u2019d cross the street so they wouldn\u2019t have to walk by us.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if it was out of disgust or fear that they would cross the street ha ha but who cares, we were young kids and we were intrigued by dark things you know.<\/p>\n

I just know that if something, such a tragedy would\u2019ve happened in the town that I lived in, if three eight year old cub scouts ended up dead in my town, I\u2019d guarantee that I\u2019d have the cops knocking at my door.\u00a0 I guarantee that all the fingers would be pointed at us and I guarantee you that the motherfucker that did it would be some freako, but accepted person in the community in the town I lived in, that motherfucker would\u2019ve got off scott free.\u00a0 People probably would\u2019ve invented alibis for that person you know what I mean?\u00a0 Just to make us go away.\u00a0 So I kinda wrote from a first person view, almost like it was West Memphis Four and I was the fourth one, I wrote it like I was one of them because I could relate, I could absolutely relate to that in my life, so I thought it gave the song some life, some realism, a lot of what they didn\u2019t go through wasn\u2019t real enough but I wanted to write it from a place I was very familiar with so it was make more sense to me, so the song would have value within myself because you can look at someone else and say \u2018wow that;s really fucked up\u2019 but do you really hold that emotion?\u00a0 Do you really hold the emotion and what they went through?\u00a0 No\u2026 you can sympathise with it and all that shit, but you can\u2019t really hold it, and I like to write songs that hurt me, I like to write from an angry, helpless, fucked up place, it makes it more real to me.\u00a0 It was more real to me than to just write a song about them, to make myself one of them because like I said, I understood, I was familiar.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve made the trek to Australia a few times now; can we expect to see you back again soon?<\/strong>
\nOh dude, to be honest with you, I can\u2019t get there fast enough, probably one of my favourite countries outside of America.\u00a0 If I didn\u2019t have to live here, I\u2019d live there.\u00a0 I mean hands down, I love it, think it\u2019s awesome, the people are amazing, just the people on the street, the fans are amazing when they\u2019re in front of you, they go off, they always make for a good time and I love the vibe of the people, it\u2019s laid back, it\u2019s chilled and it God Damn beautiful.\u00a0 The country is so beautiful, all parts of it, I\u2019ve been from the East coast to the West coast and pretty much seen a whole lot of it, I\u2019ve never really done the whole outback thing which I would love to do, but usually we\u2019re down there working, not hunting or catching crocs.\u00a0 I hope that we\u2019re coming back, hope we\u2019ll come back soon.\u00a0 Not sure if we\u2019ll be able to get on Soundwave next year but we\u2019d love to come back down.<\/p>\n

Well when you come back we\u2019ll grab a beer again.\u00a0 Good luck with the record.<\/strong>
\nFuck yeah man, I\u2019m always up for beer.\u00a0 Thank you man, take care.<\/p>\n

Essential Information<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong> USA<\/p>\n

Band members: <\/strong>Vinnie Paul \u2013 Drums, Chad Gray \u2013 Vocals, Greg Tribbett \u2013 Guitar, Tom Maxwell \u2013 Guitar, Bob Zilla – Bass<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong> \u00a0http:\/\/hellyeahband.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Latest release: <\/strong>Band Of Brothers \u2013 (July 13 (Australia), Sony Music Australia, July 17 (USA), Eleven Seven Music)<\/p>\n

Check out our review of ‘Band of Brothers’ HERE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Check out our past interviews with Hellyeah below:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Greg Tribbett<\/a><\/p>\n

Chad Gray & Vinnie Paul<\/a><\/p>\n

Vinnie Paul
\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n

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