Mudvayne returns with first new song in 16 years

The band drops “Hurt People Hurt People”

2000s hard rock provocateurs Mudvayne have just dropped their first new single in 16 years with “Hurt People Hurt People” via Alchemy Recordings.

“Hurt People Hurt People’ has probably been around since the beginning of man,” says frontman Chad Gray. “Certainly longer than the phrase ever existed. The endless cycle of projecting our pain onto others. I think I wrote this song as a reminder to myself to break the cycle. We create our own suffering, our own hurt. It’s time for us to create self-love and let go of the pain. It was never ours to begin with.”

Mudvayne is looking towards their future as they also celebrate their impactful past. The song arrives on the eve of the band’s L.D. 50 25th Anniversary headline tour, which kicks off on September 11th and runs through October 26th. L.D. 50 was the band’s debut studio album, arriving in August 2000 via Epic Records, and established the band as a new yet major player in the hard rock scene. It eventually went on to achieve a gold certification.

The tour will feature support from Static-X, while Vended will open.

Just before the turn of the century, Mudvayne rose from the twisted heart of the country and redefined what heavy music could sound like, look like, and feel like. Hailing from Peoria, IL, the gold-certified Grammy Award-nominated quartet psychotically pushed metal to its breaking point at both ends, stretching their enigmatic sound from moments of mind-bending musicality to bloodletting melody. They carved out a catalog without comparison, highlighted by a triptych of gold-selling classics, including L.D. 50, The End of All Things To Come, and Lost and Found, which bowed at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 upon its release in 2005.

Beyond contributing music to franchises such as Saw, the band earned a place in the zeitgeist, achieving cultural recognition with an infamous MTV VMA moment (accepting a trophy with bullet-holes in their foreheads) and overtaking social media with their seminal breakout “Dig.” It would be hard to imagine the advent of “djent” or nu-metal’s resurgence without them.

Following a decade-plus hiatus, the group mounted a powerful comeback in 2021, headlining major rock festivals, playing packed arenas and amphitheaters with the likes of Rob Zombie and Megadeth, and transfixing another generation of fans. Mudvayne takes a much-deserved victory lap with the L.D. 50 25th Anniversary Tour, but they also leap forward with the release of their first new music since 2009. They’re back with the brutal and bulletproof anthem “Hurt People Hurt People,” paving the way for their Alchemy Recordings/BMG debut.

Buddy Iahn
Buddy Iahn