Mudvayne

It was a bittersweet spring for Mudvayne. On the one hand, thanks to their blistering single “Happy?” the group’s new album, Lost and Found, debuted at number two on the Billboard Top 200, edging out 50 Cent and being surpassed only by the unquestionably sane Mariah Carey. On the other hand, their proximity to a tragedy involving the death of tour mate and American Head Charge guitarist Bryan Ottoson due to a prescription drug overdose dulled what would normally be a celebratory mood. Mudvayne frontman Chad Gray and drummer Matt McDonough recently waxed philosophical on the tragedy, their group’s success and the conceptual framework from which Mudvayne operates.



What was it like to hit number two on the charts?

Chad Gray: It was like a fist went into the air for metal. 50 Cent learned who the fuck Mudvayne was that day. No disrespect to him. I love his shit and I’ve got to throw it up for anyone who’s been shot six or nine times or however many it was, but even if it was just for a week, it was a nice week.



Do you remember where you were and what you were doing when you got the call?

Matt McDonough: I want to be delicate about this. I found out about [hitting number two] five minutes before I found out about the tragedy that American Head Charge had on our tour.

CG: Yeah, that was a fucking tragedy. Seeing the pain that those guys were going through was really tough for me, but you learn lessons from shit like this. It sucks to say, but if nothing else it’s a wake-up call to every member of that band, to every member of my band and to every person who’s ever been drinking, having a good time and been offered a Xanax.



What would you attribute the success of Lost and Found to?

CG: Not caring about being successful. I think that if you go over a waterfall and you try to fight against it, you’re never going to come up, but if you just let yourself go and follow the natural course it takes, sooner rather than later, you’ll surface to air. But you have to surrender yourself to that motion and allow something else to take hold that you can’t control. I can’t control success. I can’t control what hundreds of thousands of people think, but I’m happy with the level of success that I have, and I think that has opened the doors for continued success.



If there is one, what would you say is the biggest misconception about Mudvayne?



MM: I think that art is, in a certain sense, defined by misconception. Once you’ve created something and you’ve put it out there for an audience, you almost hope that it is misconceived in the sense that you hope that people build a personal relationship to it and make it their own.



That’s an interesting response to that question.

MM: To literally answer the question, I think that people have weird perceptions that we’re a bunch of mathematicians or physicists who sit around with calculators, abaci and reams of paper and that our songs are these delicately conceived mathematical formulas and nothing could really be farther from the truth. The initial impetus for how we create is a very intuitive and reactionary process.



You guys don’t exactly make elevator music. Who the hell thinks you sit around all day with calculators?

MM: I guess it all started with that whole math metal thing. That started off as kind of a joke. I think Chad said something like, “Yeah, it’s math metal; bring your abacus.” People are so in need of definitions that it’s hard to accept that sometimes things just don’t make sense. Being the anomaly that we are, people needed to put us in some sort of box and say, “Okay, they’re the guys who wear makeup and play math metal,” but I really think that limits what we are and tightens the scope way too much.



Speaking of makeup and misconceptions, care to clear up any about the lack of makeup in the current imagery surrounding the new album?

MM: [The lack of makeup] is absolutely coincidental. There’s no literal correlation you can draw between wearing makeup on stage and what the new record is about, although I would tell anyone who thinks that we’ve quit wearing makeup that they’re going to be sadly disappointed. I could walk on stage tomorrow wearing a wig and a Tin Man suit [laughs]. Seriously.



What is next for Mudvayne?



CG: My main goal for this band in the next couple of years is to have a world wide presence. It’s important to me to go overseas and to be fair to the rest of the world when it comes to Mudvayne. It would be like me being the inventor of toilet paper, standing in the United States going, “Fuck everybody over there. Use leaves. We’re going to use toilet paper.” You might as well take it over there too and share it if people want it; if they want to wipe their ass with Mudvayne too, okay.

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