Mudvayne are an American heavy metal band based out of Peoria, Illinois. Formed in 1996, the band’s initial lineup was Shawn Barclay on bass, Chad Gray on vocals, Matthew McDonough on drums, and Greg Tribbett on guitar. The band released a demo EP, Kill, I Oughtta, in 1997 and is the only release with Shawn on bass as he would later leave during the EP’s recording and was replaced with Ryan Martinie.

The band later signed with Epic Records and released 5 albums with the label: L.D. 50 (2000), The End of All Things to Come (2002), Lost and Found (2005), The New Game (2008), and Mudvayne (2009).

L.D. 50 reached #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart and #85 on the Billboard 200 with one of the band’s singles, “Dig,” reaching #33 on the Mainstream Rock Charts on April 28, 2001. The band’s later albums wouldn’t gain as much traction with only the band’s first 3 albums receiving Gold certifications.

In 2014, the band officially announced a hiatus with Chad and Greg working on metal supergroup Hellyeah, which they formed in 2006 with Tom Maxwell and Vinnie Paul. Ryan would work with American jazz rock band Soften the Glare and Matthew would work with Audiotopsy. On April 19th, 2021, the band announced they were reuniting and planned to do their first tour since 2009 in fall 2021.

The band is best known for their face-painted alter egos (Greg as Gurrg, Chad as Kud, Ryan as Ryknow, and Matthew as sPAG), which the band would remove in the early-2000’s in order to not be compared to nu-metal band Slipknot.