Mudvayne’s Chad Gray Thinks New Music Sounds the Same
In a decidedly “OK, Gen X” move, Mudvayne frontman Chad Gray has made the statement that there’s no originality in newer heavy music.
In a new interview with The Underground Australia, Gray said he was not impressed with the recent rash of nu metal-inspired bands that have been cropping up.
“Dude, maybe I shouldn’t say this, but I don’t give a fuck. Because I’m me, and I’ve got stuff to say, and I’m gonna say it. Music now to me, God bless them, new bands, but they sound the same. All new music reminds me of the same fucking thing. There’s nothing separating it, one band from another. It’s, like, one band kinda does something, a hundred bands follow that band, then another band does something, then a hundred bands follow that band and sound just like that fucking band.
“I was on Ozzfest 2001. So you had Slipknot Papa Roach, Disturbed, Mudvayne, Drowning Pool … Every fucking band, every band I just named, none of them sound the same. None of them. And I think that’s why it was such a special time in music, because everybody was bringing what they were bringing to the table. You had System of a Down and shit-tons of bands, man. And all very original and all doing their own thing. We were part of that. We were more progressive than a lot of our counterparts from that era. So we were doing our own thing. Just a lot of really good fucking music and a lot of people really digging into what they were. Nobody was fucking following somebody else. We just didn’t see a lot of that. A couple bands here and there, maybe, you know what I mean? But for the most part, bands were doing their own thing and really pushing the boundaries, really challenging the listener. And that’s what music’s all about, right? It’s individuality.”
Bold words, but for someone who claims they are influencing the entirety of a genre, Mudvayne have been pretty silent lately, aside from a few reunion shows. The band have been inactive with zero new output since 2009.
And as far as this apparently lack of originality goes, that’s kind of hard to defend too. I mean, there’s plenty of artists out there doing some amazing and original things, so to say there’s nothing original these days only shows maybe he’s not paying attention.
In an interview last August, Gray told The Oakland Press that the band had a couple new songs written.
“I’ve written each one of them probably three different times, ’cause it’s like nothing’s good enough. We’re gonna keep pushing. We’re all getting along really good. We’re all talking. Hopefully we all want the same thing from our music, so we’ll see. It’s definitely the thing that makes the most sense to do now.”
Let’s hope it is good, because after these statements, the scrutiny is definitely going to be on.
