MUDVAYNE vocalist Chad Gray strongly disapproves of bands excessively depending on backing tracks during their live performances. The accomplished musician expressed his discontent in a recent conversation with The Underground, emphasizing his stance on what he perceives as an overabundance of imitative artists in today’s music scene.
“Even more than bands sounding like other f**king bands, the thing I’m f**king over is bands that don’t f**king play their music,” he said. “I’m f**king over that s**t. These motherf**kers that roll so much track, it’s, like, dude, when Ashlee Simpson — you remember that — when she was on ‘Saturday Night Live‘, and they f**ked up, and her drummer hit the f**king wrong song, it was straight-up lip syncing. That girl got f**king lambasted; she was murdered for that s**t. Dude, now that’s what people do.
“They just don’t wanna say it. It’s, like, motherf**ker, you are Ashlee Simpson — you are Ashlee Simpson. If you cannot get on stage and play your s**t without a f**king laptop, you are relying way too much on that f**king laptop. You are telling me that you cannot play your music without a piece of electronic equipment. And if you’re gonna talk about electronic equipment, it better be a f**king keyboard or a guitar or something electronic, not a f**king computer that has f**king track upon track upon track, **cking guitars stacked, bass stacked, vocals stacked, singing to f**king tracks of your own lead vocal. Like, dude, if I f**king piped my own lead vocal into my ears, I would sing perfect. Or if I got to sing along to a track of my own vocals, like a couple tracks of it, and my vocal could be pulled back and I just kind of sat in the back of it, dude, I’d be incredible. But I don’t do that. I don’t believe in that s**t.
He continued: “I was inspired by f**king great bands. And great bands never did that s**t. And I wanna carry that on. And you know what? If you don’t f**king care that people are doing it, guess what — they’re gonna do it and then they’re gonna do more of it and then they’re gonna do more and more and more. And the next thing you know, you’re gonna be paying too much money for a f**king overpriced f**king concert ticket and you’re gonna walk in there and you’re gonna listen to these motherf**kers dancing around on stage, lip syncing to their f**king albums. ‘Cause they don’t have the skills to play it. I’m telling you that I’m going back and playing guitar again. I’m learning all this s**t, I’m sitting and I’m f**king playing it and I’m bashing my head off the f**king table like, ‘F**k, this is so f**king hard. F**k!’ But I keep doing it and I keep doing it and I keep doing it, and I’m getting better and better and better.
“I just don’t think people wanna practice anymore. I think all people wanna do is get in the music business and be f**king successful. There’s more to being in the music business than being successful. You get in the music business because you want to be honest. You wanna be vulnerable. You wanna share that part of you with someone else. You wanna f**king give them a part of you that can’t be seen unless you put it to music. There’s a part of me that the world knows and they know about me because I share things within my music. I wouldn’t be able to share those things without my music. I wouldn’t just walk around and go, ‘Man, my whole f**king life, my dad neglected me, my dad beat the f**k out of me. My dad beat the f**k out of my mom, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I wouldn’t just walk around and say that s**t, but I can tell that story in my music, and I can remind people if you listen to this and it sounds familiar, you’re not alone. That’s one of my biggest messages, man, is to f**king remind people, man, that they’re not alone in this f**king crazy-a*s f**king world, that we’re all in this s**t together. And you f**king lean on me, I’ll lean back on you, and we’re gonna get through it.
“I wanna be the guy that motivates people and lifts people up. I don’t wanna be the guy that tears people down. I know it sounds weird coming from a guy that just said, f**k these people that can’t f**king do this, f**k these people that sound like that. But I’m very honest. I’m very honest in who and what I am. And it frustrates me. It makes me very, very f**kin frustrated because I play in, what I believe, two bands that didn’t sound like anybody else. We sounded like ourselves. MUDVAYNE and HELLYEAH. We prided ourselves on that. But it’s not easy. It’s f**kin hard work. You’ve gotta create your own sound.
“Dude, that’s like f**king reinventing yourself. It’s hard. I did it twice — I did it f**king twice in two different bands. So it’s a hard job, but you’ve gotta do the work. You’ve gotta do the work to see the result. It’s, like, ‘I don’t know why I’m fat. I’ve got a gym membership.’ ‘Well, do you ever go to the gym?’ ‘No.’ ‘Well, you’re not doing the work. You’re not doing the work, so you’re not gonna get skinny. You’re not doing the work, so you’re not gonna get fit.’ You can’t just buy a f**king membership. That’s what this f**king music business is now — motherf**kers are just buying memberships and they’re just walking in going, ‘Hey, I’m ready to be successful. Yeah, I’ve got all my f**king s**t over here on tape. I’m gonna get on stage, but I’m not gonna perform it for you. I’m gonna play it, though. We’re gonna hit ‘play’, we’re gonna hit ‘play’ on the machine and it’s gonna play it. We’re gonna dance around and I’m gonna kind of sing to it, but I’m gonna be singing to a backing track of my own f**king vocal.'”
“Dude, it’s crazy the amount of people that do that s**t now,” Chad added. “And people just let it go. Apparently it’s acceptable now. Like, motherf**ker, people. Goddamn. You’ve gotta hold people accountable. You’re just telling me I can just walk in and f**king hit ‘play’? You’re not making me wanna work very f**king hard, and if you don’t want me to work hard, that’s exactly what you’re gonna get — some s**t that sounds like they didn’t work hard to make it. Just like some f**king vanilla bulls**t, man. It’s crazy to me. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just old and angry and pissed off.”
