CHAD GREY Says Reuniting HELLYEAH Without VINNIE PAUL Would Still Feel “Weird”

Years after Hellyeah paid tribute to their late drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, frontman Chad Gray has opened up about why a full-fledged reunion still feels off-limits.

Just months before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down touring worldwide, Hellyeah wrapped up a run of U.S. shows honoring Vinnie Paul, the Pantera legend who died in June 2018 at age 54. His official cause of death was dilated cardiomyopathy (an enlarged heart) along with severe coronary artery disease.

Now, roughly six years since he last performed with the band, Gray tells Rock Feed that the idea of reviving Hellyeah — especially while Mudvayne is on hiatus — is far more emotionally complex than fans might realize.

“It’s, like, [people say], ‘Why don’t you just put Hellyeah back together since Mudvayne‘s taking the year off?'” Gray explained. “It’s, like, there’s a lot of pain, there’s a lot of heartache with that.”

For Gray, the distinction between honoring Vinnie Paul and moving forward without him is crucial. “Doing a ‘celebration of life’ tour to celebrate his life and what he meant to us, that’s one thing,” he continued. “But putting it back together without him, after a hiatus, it seems weird to me. It seems odd to me.”

While Gray stops short of calling the idea outright disrespectful, he admits it exists in a difficult emotional gray area. “I’m not necessarily gonna say it seems disrespectful, but it’s not not,” he said with a laugh. “It’s kind of somewhere in this vague [space] between respect and disrespect.”

Vinnie Paul recorded six albums with Hellyeah over the course of a decade, including Welcome Home, the band’s most recent release. Notably, Abbott had already completed his drum tracks for the album before his passing. The record arrived in September 2019, serving as both a final statement and a tribute.

For the subsequent touring cycle, Stone Sour drummer Roy Mayorga stepped in, officially joining Hellyeah in May 2019.