HELLYEAH frontman Chad Gray says that there is “talk” about the band possibly writing and recording new music.
HELLYEAH have been pretty much dormant since early 2020 when their U.S. tour was canceled in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shortly prior to the pandemic hitting, HELLYEAH had completed a couple of U.S. treks in honor of their late drummer, Vinnie Paul Abbott, who passed away in June 2018 at the age of 54 due to dilated cardiomyopathy and coronary artery disease.
The former PANTERA drummer recorded six albums with HELLYEAH, including their latest, “Welcome Home”, which was released after his death.
During a recent appearance on “Drinks With Johnny”, the Internet TV show hosted by AVENGED SEVENFOLD bassist Johnny Christ, Chad discussed the status of HELLYEAH.
“When we lost Vinnie, I was just thinking about, ‘We have to do the same thing that we did for Dime for Vinnie now,” he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET), making reference to late PANTERA guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott. “We have to keep going to keep carrying the flag for Vince.’ It’s been tough. And I’ve talked to Tom [Maxwell, HELLYEAH guitarist] a little bit, I’ve talked to members and shit like that, and we’ve talked about to keep writing some music. We don’t know what the touring plans would be ever — maybe ever again — but we could still release music. And there’s actually — I think there are, like, two or three songs that Vinnie actually tracked drums to that we didn’t end up [finishing] for whatever reason. So there is a potential for us to write maybe a couple of more songs with Vinnie’s drums added on.”
STONE SOUR drummer Roy Mayorga filled in as Vinnie Paul’s replacement for the touring cycle for “Welcome Home”.
“HELLYEAH was obviously an emotional situation, although I don’t think we could have gotten a better drummer to fill in than Roy Mayorga,” Chad continued. “He’s fucking phenomenal and he’s just such a genuinely kind and sweet person. And anybody who knew Vinnie, he was very warm, very giving, very loving, very just fucking cool and fun. And that was what Roy was. So Roy, for us, was a round peg, round hole. But it was still emotional… But you feel like you’ve gotta embrace your brothers and continue on for yourselves and for your fans. That’s what I felt like we had to do, because Vinnie was so much of a supporter or music — all levels of music.”
Gray stated that he thinks about Vinnie Paul every day. “I think about him and Dime,” he said. “And it’s kind of what sucked about just everything being pulled back with HELLYEAH. And that’s kind of where the MUDVAYNE [reunion] came from too — we just kind of felt like everybody was emotionally exhausted from going out and trying to carry the flag for Vin and doing the ‘Celebration Of Life’ tours. We did two legs of that. But it was highly fucking emotional, man.”
Mayorga’s addition to HELLYEAH was made official in May 2019.