Metal Anarchy

During a recent interview with Toilet Ov Hell, Mudvayne frontman Chad Gray was asked about the possibility of a new album. According to him, the band may continue to focus on singles rather than recording a full-length record.

Gray said the following:

“I don’t know. I like doing it like this.

It’s so fucking funny. I’ll tell you a funny story. So years ago, in fucking MUDVAYNE fashion, it was probably after [2002’s] ‘The End of All Things [To Come]’, maybe around the ‘Lost And Found’ [2005] era or whatever, I just had this fucking idea [of] going to the guys and be, like, ‘You know what would be really fucking cool?’ I’m, like, ‘Each album is this body of work. You have the beginning and you have the end. How fucking cool would it be, and how us would it be if we created a never-ending record, if we just created this thing that we just started with and we just started releasing songs, we just started putting out songs?’ I was, like, ‘We could create the narrative. It would never have to stop. And we could control where it goes.’ So there is no beginning and end. It’s just this thing that takes off and just fucking meanders here and goes there and dah dah dah, and raises, and lowers, just creating this energy, and we can control it — we can control the narrative. Everyone was, like, ‘That’s a fucking really cool idea.’ I was just, ‘I think it would be so fucking cool.’ And those ideas came from 45s, those ideas came from cassingles. I don’t know if you remember cassingles, but bands would do that… That’s how fucking people did it back in the day. And I’m just thinking, like, why don’t we just fucking lose this whole full-length concept of starting it with one song and ending it somewhere and this is the body of work and this is the concept of the whole album? ‘Cause we were always conceptually based or whatever in themes and threads of themes through our albums. I’m just, like, it’d be just so fucking cool.

I remember at the time, a good friend of mine was the product manager at Sony for us at Epic, and I pitched the idea to him and he’s, like, ‘Wow.’ He’s, like, ‘That’s an interesting take.’ And I was, like, ‘Well, it’s not like it hasn’t been done before. It’s how it used to be done.’ This is how you used to do it. You didn’t use to have full-lengths; you had 45s. You had two fucking songs, and they’re just fucking dropping them — bam, bam, bam, like maybe a few in a year. Its own individual thing. He was, like, ‘That’s a cool fucking concept.’ I was, like, ‘Yeah. fucking how cool would that be to write this never-ending record that we can control, da da da da. And we release a song every couple months.’ So, he turned around and he pitched it to them. And Sony was, like, ‘Oh, no, we can never do that. We never do that, ’cause we need the first-week numbers from the album.’ And what that means is the label’s looking at you, going, ‘You know what?! We laid out two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for you to record this fucking album. And we’ve got another hundred thousand dollars in promotional flats and blah, blah, blah. And we’ve got another fifty thousand dollars in working the song at radio. So we need that money back, we need those first-week numbers.’ I was just, like, ‘How fucking shortsighted.’ And what they wanted was to release the album and get every fucking dollar they laid out back in one week. ‘Cause they could do that… But it’s just like that kind of shortsightedness. They never got it. So we ended up getting off Epic and we went to another label, more of an independent… And that same product manager that I had moved over to that label. So now he’s my project manager there. He’s there and I’m, like, ‘Man, do you remember the fucking idea?’ He’s, like, ‘Yeah, man.’ He’s, like, ‘I thought it was fucking great.’ I’m, like, ‘Dude, it’s fucking crazy. It’s not like it hasn’t been done before, blah, blah, blah.’ We get a meeting with the president, and we sit down and fucking pitch it to him, just pitch this idea. [He said], ‘Oh, no. We can never do that. I need the first-week numbers.’ Okay. It’s typical fucking bullshit, big-record-label bullshit. And then two or three years later we’re playing a show in New York, and this president from the label comes with his little right-hand guy. And I hated him, and I hated his right-hand guy… And we’re sitting there, we’re all sitting in the room, sitting on the couch or whatever, and he’s in there. He just starts talking. He’s a big idea guy, and he’s talking, and he’s, like, ‘Yeah. I’ve got this idea about us releasing a song every month or two, and just keep creating,’ blah blah blah. ‘We just go and do these sessions.’ ‘Cause that was my pitch too, when I told him about it. I was, like, ‘We’d do a writing session.’ We’d maybe get two songs, three songs, whatever — go into the studio for, like, four days and just go crazy until you’re fucking brain dead. And then you walk out. And you come out with one [song], you come out with four, whatever. And he said, ‘We’d just do these sessions, so it’s not all the studio costs,’ and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was just fucking sitting there, looking at him, listening to him babble. And I looked at him. I was, like, ‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’ And he fucking looked at me. His eyes got all big. And his right-hand guy’s looking like he’s gotta clean up a spill or something. Like, ‘What do I do?’ He’s, like, ‘What?’ And I’m, like. ‘We had this exact same fucking conversation three years ago. You don’t remember that? When I was giving you this exact same fucking pitch three years ago, in your office, and you said you couldn’t do it ’cause of first-week numbers. He’s, like, ‘Oh, maybe I do remember that conversation.’ I’m, like, ‘Yeah, it sounds like you do. Because you’re fucking telling it to me back right now.’ It was just that kind of shit.”

So, back to your question, like, is there a full-length on the way? It’s just, like, I like doing it this way. I’ve kind of always wanted to do it this way. Get together, get in a room, do a session, at least write it. Fucking book some time, get in the studio, record it and fucking put it out. Fuck it. You know what I mean? And you do that 10 times, you got a full-length, but you don’t ever have to put it on a full-length, so you don’t have a beginning and an end. I’m getting my way finally. I can write the never-ending album.”

[via Blabbermouth]