HELLYEAH VS MUDVAYNE WITH FANS?

With Chad Gray and Greg Tribbett of Mudvayne in Hellyeah, fans are obviously debating the merits of both bands, and Tribbett weighs in.

Mudvayne’s Chad Gray and Greg Tribbett have found a new outlet with the band Hellyeah, which also features Vinnie Paul of Pantera and Damageplan, bassist Bobzilla of Damageplan, and guitarist Tom Maxwell of Nothingface. The band is currently on tour, and fans of Mudvayne may be a little nervous as the tour rolls on into 2008.

Tribbett added that he was glad to see vocalist Chad Gray thrive in another band, and we asked him if there was a different mindset with Hellyeah as opposed to Mudvayne.

“Yeah. Absolutely. Mudvayne is a totally different thing than Hellyeah is. Mudvayne is more of a thinking process, and Hellyeah is more off the cuff. I think Chad has both those aspects down pretty much. I was glad to see him come out with the whole Hellyeah thing, the drinking, the partying, and he wanted it just as bad as all of us.”

We also asked if Mudvayne fans were open to Hellyeah.

[Maxwell] “I mean you’ve got those ones that just want to…” [Tribbett]”…and you’ve got your haters out there. We know who you are!” [Maxwell] “They want to keep Mudvayne in their front pocket and not take it out, same with Pantera, same with Nothingface. There’s haters, but that’s the balance, and you have to have that. We don’t care. We did it for us. Whether we got a record deal or whether we didn’t. We had a great time and got real close with [Vinnie Paul], I mean, come on.” [Tribbett] “Plus it was something that I needed. I needed a different outlet. I needed to get away from Mudvayne for a while because we had been writing and touring for years and when I go back I’ll have a whole different perspective on what Mudvayne’s going to be doing.”

Mudvayne recently released a fan-created best-of titled By The People, For The People. Hellyeah’s second leg of the More Balls, More Volume, More Strength tour ends March 3.

[Tribbett] “Yeah, it’s a lot of patience (by the Mudvayne guys), and so far it’s a challenge.” [Maxwell] “We didn’t expect it to create this wave that it’s created for itself. We only expected to tour through the summer and have our little vacation and then go back home and do what we do. It kind of dictated itself and here we are a year later.” [Tribbett] “Well we’re going to finish up this tour and then I’m going to go back to Mudvayne two weeks after this tour. We’ll start doing some writing and doing some other stuff, just kind of get together and figure out where Mudvayne is at and the schedule for this year.”