Mudvayne

Band Name: Mudvayne

Based: Illinois, USA

Formed in Peoria, Illinois in 1996 by lead singer Chad Gray, guitarist Greg Tribbett and drummer Matthew McDonough and bassist Shawn Barclay, they released a seven track EP, "Kill, I Ougtta" in 1997, which was instrumental in them getting signed to Epic Records, with whom they released 5 albums with.

Mudvayne in the L.D.50 era

It was around the time they signed with Epic, that the band had decided to experiment with face paint.

Greg would say to Guitar World:

We had been talking for a while about wanting to be more than just four guys going onstage in blue jeans and t-shirts and playing our songs. We wanted to bring a level of theatricality to our performance. So that's when we started experimenting with the makeup".

On their debut album, the band would show their now famous face paint and release arguably most popular track, "Dig".

They would also rename themselves: Kud (Chad), sPaG (Matt), Gurrg (Greg) and Ryknow (Ryan).

In 2002. on their second album, "The End Of All Things To Come" they returned with an alien inspired look,  as shown in their video for the first single of the album, Not Falling.

The band would once again rename themselves: Chüd (Chad), Spüg (Matt), Güüg (Greg) and Rü-D (Ryan).

It was during the cycle of their second album that the started to feel hampered down by the use of make up and masks, and they started to phase it out. By the time they released their second and final single from the album, they had totally abandoned it. A lot of the reason is because they were getting compared to Slipknot and the band felt the image was getting in the way of the music.

Mudvayne wouldn't use the make up for their next three albums, although they would sometimes use variants of it on stage.

That all changed when, after a lengthy hiatus, they returned to the stage, all wearing make up, prosthetics and more!

Authors Note:

Mudvayne is one of my favourite bands, their debut sounds as fresh as it did when it came out.