MUDVAYNE — one of the most creative and distinctive bands in the aggressive music world — has announced that it is reuniting after a 12-year hiatus, and will be performing at all four Danny Wimmer Presents U.S. festivals in 2021: Inkcarceration Music & Tattoo Festival (a headlining performance) in Ohio, Louder Than Life in Kentucky, Aftershock in California and Welcome To Rockville in Florida. These dates mark the band's first shows since 2009 and their only dates this year.
MUDVAYNE formed in 1996 and has sold over six million records worldwide, earning gold certification for three albums ("L.D. 50", "The End Of All Things To Come", "Lost And Found"). The band is known for its sonic experimentation, innovative album art, face and body paint, masks and uniforms. MUDVAYNE is Chad Gray (vocals), Greg Tribbett (guitar, backing vocals), Matthew McDonough (drums, synthesizer) and Ryan Martinie (bass).
Danny Wimmer, founder of Danny Wimmer Presents recalls: "In our fan surveys, MUDVAYNE has consistently been one of the most requested bands — even though they weren't an active band! We've been working for years to make this happen, so when I got the call that they'd finally take a meeting, [DWP executive VP and talent buyer] Gary Spivack and I jumped at the chance to fly to Vegas. We sat down for dinner with MUDVAYNE, their lawyer Eric German, manager Diony Sepulveda and agent Ryan Harlacher — the band hadn't even been in the same room together for 10 years — and pleaded our case for why the time was right for this to happen. We were hoping to announce this in 2020, we're fortunate enough to be able to do it in 2021, and DWP is super pumped to have MUDVAYNE exclusively at all four of our festivals this year."
The full list of MUDVAYNE performances at 2021 DWP festivals is as follows. Specific show dates and performance times will be announced later.
* Inkcarceration Music & Tattoo Festival, which takes place September 10-12 at Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio. Early-bird passes are on sale now. Full lineup announcement coming Tuesday, April 20 at noon ET.
* Louder Than Life, which takes place September 23-26, 2021 at Highland Festival Grounds at KY Expo Center in Louisville, Kentucky. Early-bird passes are on sale now.
* Aftershock — revealed as the "mystery reunion band," performing on Saturday, October 8 at Discovery Park in Sacramento, California. Weekend passes are sold out, but a very limited number of single-day passes are still available.
* Welcome To Rockville, which takes place November 11-14 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. Early bird passes are on sale now.
It's been more than a decade since MUDVAYNE released its self-titled fifth album and little had been heard about the group during that time.
Gray has spent the past 15 years fronting HELLYEAH, which released its sixth studio album, "Welcome Home", in September 2019 via Eleven Seven Music. The disc marked the group's final effort with drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, who passed away nearly three years ago.
In 2018, Tribbett said that fans who are calling for a MUDVAYNE reunion "just need a little more patience." He explained: "We're all flattered that everybody still wants MUDVAYNE to tour and do a new record and come out and do all that stuff. The thing is is that everybody is in three different bands and kind of doing their own projects, and there's no time for that right now."
Tribbett's most focus was AUDIOTOPSY, which released its second full-length album, "The Real Now", in November 2018 via Megaforce Records. He is joined in that band by MUDVAYNE drummer Matt McDonough, SKRAPE vocalist Billy Keeton and bassist Perry Stern.
MUDVAYNE did not tour behind its fifth album, which was barely promoted and sold weakly upon release.
Gray previously expressed skepticism about the possibility of a MUDVAYNE reunion, noting in a 2015 interview that "the only way I personally would want to do MUDVAYNE is if everybody licked their wounds and got over it."
Tribbett was also part of HELLYEAH with Gray but was fired from that band in 2013.
Asked in Revolver magazine if Greg's exit from HELLYEAH hit him especially hard, seeing as the two of them started off playing together in MUDVAYNE, Chad said: "Yeah, man. He has always been my right-hand man. He's been the back I look at when I'm writing songs and the sounding board for my ideas. When everything went sideways, it was like losing a great friend. I was filled with fear and I had mixed emotions. At first, I was, like, 'Goddamn, I don't know if I'm ever gonna be able to do this without him.'"
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