Mudvayne reunited after 11 years in 2021 at the Inkcarceration Music & Tattoo Festival. The band has since played numerous other festivals and even gone on tour with Rob Zombie. And much like any other reunion shows for any other band, the inevitable question of "are you doing another album?" has come up. In an interview with Revolver, vocalist Chad Gray said he and the band have been tossing around some riffs and seeing what they can come up with.
"That's obviously something we got to cross, right? There's two ways you can do it. You could go out, and you can go once around the rock and just play catalog. For sure, that's absolutely a possibility. Or you can try to put something together. You can gauge it, you can decide. I'm not going to say because I've been constantly writing, recording touring for the last 12 years with Hellyeah. So I don't think my well's dry by any means. And I'm excited, I would be excited to write with these guys.
"We've done a little bit of file sharing or whatever. Just some riffs. Greg [Tribbett, guitar] went into the studio in Texas. He lived in Texas. He went in there and just laid some stuff down, sent it to Matt. Matt put just a really simple metronome drum beat to it. I was working on it. It's pretty rad, different stuff. I've got a few different angles that I'm working with kind of how I want it to be, my parts anyway. But it's cool, it's cool. And obviously we're not going to put something out if I don't feel like it stands up."
Gray later added that the new material would have "fucking blow my hair back" to be released, adding that he doesn't want to disappoint fans after such a long wait between new material. When asked what the new material might sound like, drummer Matthew McDonough chimed in saying the band isn't just going to copy their former selves.
"I can't honestly say. Some of the stuff that we have messed around is heavy. We messed around with some typical [sounds], people wouldn't be terribly shocked, but the opportunity to experiment and given our past success, I think I feel a sense of freedom. There hasn't been any kind of pressure from any professional direction to try to, 'You guys going to write another 'Dig'.' Or 'Not Falling' or whatever; nothing like that. So the headspace and the culture around the band right now is incredibly positive. So I personally just would like to be wide open and excited and positive about it. I want to be surprised."
New Mudvayne would be the band's first efforts since their 2009 self-titled album.
