HELLYEAH

Hellyeah came together as an alternative metal supergroup pulling players from Mudvayne, Nothingface, and the Pantera/Damageplan circle. Mudvayne frontman Chad Gray and Nothingface bassist Tom Maxwell launched the project amid the 2001 Tattoo the Earth package tour. Former Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul completed the roster, entering his first group since the murder of his brother and ex-Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell, with whom he had formed Damageplan after Pantera dissolved. Stepping slightly outside the members’ earlier styles, the band leaned into vintage good-time thrash and power metal that evoked their younger days while adding a trace of Southern defiance. Paul died in 2018, yet his drum tracks still appeared on the 2019 album Welcome Home.

The group officially formed in Dallas, Texas, in 2006 around Mudvayne’s Chad Gray on vocals and Greg Tribbett on guitar, Nothingface’s Tom Maxwell on guitar, bassist Jerry Montano who had also worked with Danzig, and drummer Vinnie Paul. Their self-titled debut arrived in April 2007 on Epic Records. Montano exited shortly after, making way for Damageplan bassist Bob Zilla. With the new bassist aboard, the band turned to fresh material and delivered the 2010 follow-up Stampede. Issued in 2012 on Eleven Seven Music, Band of Brothers gained traction through the singles “War in Me” and the driving title track. Blood for Blood appeared in 2014 and coincided with the departures of Tribbett and Zilla, the latter replaced by Bloodsimple bassist Kyle Sanders. The fifth studio album, the dark and ferocious Unden!able, surfaced in 2016 and featured a fiery cover of Phil Collins’ “I Don’t Care Anymore” that incorporated guitar parts from late Pantera shredder Dimebag Darrell; it reached number 25 on the Billboard 200. Paul died at age 54 in Las Vegas in June 2018 while the band recorded there. Welcome Home, released in September 2019, became the final album to include his drumming, after which Stone Sour’s Roy Mayorga joined as touring replacement.