HELLYEAH and MUDVAYNE frontman Chad Gray will release a solo single, “Always On My Mind”, on Friday, March 12. A teaser for the official music video for the song is available below.
Last December, Gray said during a Headbangers Con live virtual panel that HELLYEAH was “in a holding pattern right now [due to the coronavirus pandemic]. I don’t have any new music,” he admitted. “I’ve been telling Tom [Maxwell, HELLYEAH guitarist] to get me some riffs so I can write, because right now is a great time to fucking write. So we’ll just have to see, man. Obviously, we need to get together and write some music. But, yeah, I mean, hopefully. It’s all fucked up right now, nobody knows what’s going on with anything.”
In September, Maxwell told the “The Ex-Man” podcast that he wasn’t sure there would be a follow-up album to HELLYEAH‘s latest effort, “Welcome Home”, which was completed after the passing of drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott.
“Welcome Home” was released in September 2019 via Eleven Seven Music. The disc marked HELLYEAH‘s final effort with Abbott (formerly of PANTERA), who passed away nearly three years ago.
STONE SOUR drummer Roy Mayorga stepped in as Vinnie Paul‘s replacement for the touring activity in support of “Welcome Home”.
Mayorga‘s addition to HELLYEAH was made official in May 2019. At the time, the band said Roy was the perfect guy to take Vinnie Paul‘s place. “These men had so much love and mutual respect for each other, this makes our transition so much easier,” HELLYEAH said in a statement.
Like the previous two records, 2016’s “Unden!able” and 2014’s “Blood For Blood”, “Welcome Home” was recorded at The Hideout Recording Studio in Las Vegas, Nevada with producer Kevin Churko.
Vinnie Paul died in June 2018 at the age of 54 in his sleep at his home in Las Vegas. The official cause of death was dilated cardiomyopathy, an enlarged heart, as well as severe coronary artery disease.
