Did you know the semi-title track of HELLYEAH’s Unden!able (that’d be “Be Unden!able”) is somewhat of a reaction to Pantera and Mudvayne fans clamoring for reunions of those bands? Chad Gray, who logged 14 years in Mudvayne, says he wrote the song, titled the album, and came up with that weird exclamation point in the middle of it as a way of saying, “sorry, Pantera and Mudvayne fans, HELLYEAH is here to stay.” Speaking with Revolver, he said:
“As an artist—or whatever you do—you wanna be respected for your work. But even after all the records we’ve done, there’s still the stigma of Pantera and Mudvayne and everyone wanting the reunions and all this shit, so it was like, ‘Is what we’re doing not good enough?’ I think it was this unspoken headspace that we had going into this new record, and when I was writing the song ‘Be Unden!able,’ I came up with the line, ‘If you’re tired of being denied, be undeniable and dot your I’s on the bottom.’ And dotting your I’s on the bottom is an exclamation point. So I think the name ‘Unden!able‘ kind of validates what HELLYEAH does.”
He went on to say that it’s particularly obnoxious for Pantera fans to want the band to reunite:
Tragically, even if Vinnie [Paul, drummer] wanted to, Pantera can never do a reunion. You can’t do a reunion without a member of a band. I think that people forget the emotional aspect of this: Vinnie watched his brother get tragically murdered in front of him, and what’s on their mind? They wanna see a Pantera reunion. I’m not trying to call people out as assholes, but people are kind of assholes. They forget that he had to live this.”
And even though Mudvayne hinted at a reunion on their social media earlier this year, Gray says he had nothing to do with it, and says it shouldn’t have happened. And while he doesn’t say flat out no, he lets it be known that it’s not a priority of his.
“With Mudvayne, it is what it is. I’m tired of stringing people along. I still talk to the guys; we’re cool. But for many reasons, Mudvayne doesn’t exist anymore. Someone posted that “Mudvayne 201?” thing online [hinting at a possible Mudvayne reunion] and they shouldn’t have done that because it’s fucking with Mudvayne fans emotionally, which isn’t fair. I don’t want to wind people up, but who am I to say that can never happen again? But I’m certainly not gonna say that it can.”
So basically, know that You’re going to be dealing with HELLYEAH for a while. Look for them on tour in September and October, and check out their Phil Collins cover that features Dimebag Darrell below.
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