Interview with sPaG by David Lee Wilson

"The Maniacs of the Mid-West," "The Mighty Misshapen Masters of Nu-Metal" or simply, MUDVAYNE any way you approach it, this is as brilliant and as blistering as Metal gets. More a kin to TOOL than to KISS, with whom they are perpetually compared, the mad scientists that toil over this bubbling test tube of sound that is MUDVAYNE know that their time has finally arrived.
Parsing out the differences between conviction and confidence, nothing is ever left to chance with this group. A single listen to their major league debut, "L.D. 50," reveals innumerable layers of sound with textures both familiar and obscure intricately welded into shapes that could never have been imagined by an average group. MUDVAYNE may utilize standard Metal elements but few in the field are as sonically separable as MUDVAYNE. Strange time changes and a downright progressive attitude carry MUDVAYNE's Metal to where no band has or more likely could ever go. Check out "Nothing to Gein" for a prime sample of MUDVAYNE's warped genius.
Behind the drums and behind the scenes the creature that has come to be known as "sPaG" is really Matt McDonough. McDonough is friendly, brutally straightforward and one of the primary songwriters which makes him the prime interview subject in the MUDVAYNE camp. After a particularly blistering Ozz-Fest set sPaG and I sat at the back of the MUDVAYNE tour bus where he spoke to me of his own personal recipe for fusing the choicest of elements into the strongest Metal known to man.

You guys put on a pretty intense show especially considering this heat
It is not so much the heat as it is the humidity.
Has it been like this for you every day on this Ozz-Fest tour?
Actually, the East Coast wasn't too bad but the Mid-West has gotten pretty bad. At least on the East Coast you have a bit of breeze from the ocean.
You guys are all Mid-Westerners anyway so I would assume that you are used to the humidity then?
Used to it, yes but still hate it.(laughs) And we have been out of the area so much that we have kind of got used to being in a more temperate climate. It is really weird, we haven't seen a winter for a while now.
Though this record has been out for a while now it still feels, from outside of the band anyway, that this is just the beginning of things for the band. How does it feel for you?
Yeah, we toured for eight months before it was released and the cycle still feels like it is going on. It was important to sell records and stuff but for bands like us it is all about the live show anyway. We took time to build it up too, that was part of the record label's plan too, we waited like almost six months to release the first single and video after the album first came out. We wanted to take a different approach to marketing the band as opposed to a lot of newer bands that are coming out who will have a video out before the album is released. I don't think that approach would have worked for us anyway.
SLIPKNOT was an interesting story because they waited and toured for a very long time before the first record, I would imagine for the same reasons that you just mentioned and it worked for them in a big way.
Yeah and once again they are waiting for their album to come out.(laughs) Ours got pushed back months so, I guess that is just the way that it happens.
As a band are the four of you very intimately involved with the business aspect of MUDVAYNE or do you kind of let other people handle all that for you?
When you are involved in music on this level you can't keep tabs of everything and we have some really good people who work with us on that but on different levels we are all involved. Creatively, we have a lot of freedom with the label so it has been a real good experience. Both the business and the art of it has been pretty spread out and we have all been respectful with each other.
You are still happy with the way everything has run so far?
Yeah and I don't foresee having any problem with the label because we have a wonderful relationship built up with some of the people at the label and it is a mutual respect kind of thing, they respect what we do and we respect what they do.
It is obvious that MUDVAYNE has a genuine care for the pure art aspects of the music and its presentation so I wonder how you will handle it when Epic or whomever it would be comes to you and tries to alter your art to make it more saleable, or even what you did if that has already happened?
We have had situations in the past, you can't expect things to always be non-confrontational but the whole point behind our relationships with these people is mutual respect and communication. We have had problems since the very beginning, everyone does or I should say they would have been problems if they didn't get solved. There is always going to be a differing of opinions when you are talking about tens to hundreds of people who have some relationship to this band be it in merchandising, the recording, the videos and all of that stuff. You have got a lot of people who have different interpretations of what the band actually is so sometimes you actually do have to say, "No that isn't the way that we want to go" but it is the communication and the respect that keeps things going. I am sure that there are always going to be issues that come up but so far things have been really smooth.
Your spot as headliner of the second stage at Ozz-Fest seemed to me to be the only place on the entire bill that MUDVAYNE truly would have fit, you killed the audience, I certainly wouldn't have wanted to follow you.
(Laughing) I appreciate that.
I am serious, I rarely get to see things like that. The face of each kid that I looked at was smeared with either elation or exhaustion and as a group they didn't exactly run away to go and see PAPA ROACH on the main stage either. Are you feeling like you have hit a stride yet?
The main stage has been kind of weird because I think that a lot of the bands on the main stage would rather have been on the second stage. It is more of an intimate thing even though there are fifteen thousand people there. The energy is definitely there, that is for sure. The kids are not burned out yet but by the time that they get to the main stage it is like they have seen five bands and they are tired.
You are being modest but I'll take that. Having been to all of these Ozz-Fests I can attest that there were not a lot of kids coming early to see all the bands like they did this year.
I think that Ozz-Fest has the advantage of having the history that it has, I mean, it is like its own entity now, its own sub-culture almost. Kids know that in the past there have been lots of bands on the second stage that were not very well known and then broke big afterward. Kids realize there is a reason that these bands are on the second stage and maybe they haven't sold as many albums but maybe they will in the future. It is like Ozz-Fest is a validation, a credential.
The fact that you did the work that you spoke of earlier, building the fan base, probably didn't hurt either.
Yeah, that long past of building the base has made us very strong now which is cool. I think that if we had done a video early and not focused as much as we did on the touring we might have been perceived more superficially which would have been a major disadvantage in trying to get across what the band is really about.
MUDVAYNE is such a young band to the greater publics consciousness but already it has begun to evolve, the makeup, the presentation the depth in which your lyrics are examined, does that evolution help you stay enthused about doing the same material for so long?
Absolutely. I mean, every touring musician goes through periods of being burned out or whatever and everybody has to deal with it but I think that we have an added advantage over other bands in that there is always that sense of freshness and change. We can always think about focusing on the future so you always have that inspiration that comes from knowing you are not locked in if you don't want to be. Our shows are still really fresh for us and that is really nice.
When things do evolve is that something that comes from the mood of the four of you at a given time or is there more of a detailed thought process that is going on behind the scenes?
It is not really that simple to say really. We are very open to input from our crew or our label. People can make a suggestion that sparks an idea that makes us go, "Oh wow, that would be really cool." It is kind of like cultivating accidents really and just paying attention. You always have to be open and we always like to take the perspective that we are open to anything being able to come in instead of being really dictatorial about what we are doing creatively. If you put up those walls and shut yourself out you tend to chase your tail and nothing new ever comes in and you won't grow and won't change which is very antithetical to what the band is about.
Have you achieved the heights of happiness with what it is you do five years on with this band any more than when it first started, when you had that first spark that created the band?
(Takes a long drag on his cigarette and exhales slowly) Wow, that is complicated too. I mean, I am happy with the material and I am still happy with the album and you tend to look back and critic yourself and say, "Well, I have been playing this song for a year and a half and I know that I can play it better now so I could have recorded it better." But, you know, I think that most of the things that are discouraging come just from being on the road, being disconnected from any type of home life or stability. Those things can kind of wear you out and you can lose your focus and you can let those things influence what you are doing with your music and your art and that is not necessarily the same thing. If you kind of try and keep it in perspective, "Yeah I know being on a bus with ten to fifteen people can be hard to deal with" you will find ways to deal with it and focus on the things that are inspiring to you. I think that also helps keep the music fresh for us.
Are any of the band members married, have kids or loved ones that they have left behind for this?
Yeah, our guitarist is married and several of us have been in long term relationships or whatnot. We are all a little bit older so that changes things, I think. We are beyond the, "Hey lets go on tour and get girls and party all night thing. That sort of lifestyle will burn you up very, very quickly.
How has being gone impacted all of those relationships and then does that come back to have an affect on the music?
It is different for different people. Overall, I guess if I really thought about it, I am pleasantly surprised that there really hasn't been any sort of domestic things that have really stressed the band on tour. Everyone at home, family and such, have all been very supportive. We bring people out every once in a while. We pretty much keep a constant rotation of different girlfriends, even our crew members bring their girlfriends out or family members or whatever. We kind of keep a schedule like, "OK, so and so is coming out for this week" and on which is really nice for us because we are always seeing new and friendly faces.
You can still keep a piece of home while on the road then?
Exactly, instead of feeling like a Gypsy.
You have toured with so many different bands in the last year but have you really bonded with any one or two of them in particular to where you can say you have made genuine friends with them and not the "business related friends" kind of thing?
We did some touring with DISTURBED before the Ozz-Fest tour and we have been getting closer and closer to the guys in DISTURBED. It is a real fraternity kind of feel which is nice. Mikey, the drummer from DISTURBED, he and I party all the time now and on days off we call each other and go out and that is really nice. Chester from LINKIN PARK was on the bus last night and that was really cool especially given that they are way more successful than us because you never know quite what to expect, "Has it gone to their head now" but they are totally cool guys.
Were you much of a Sabbath fan before this tour?
Um, I mean, I would say that there are other classic Hard Rock/Metal bands that were more of an influence to me when I was younger but nobody my age could have grown up and not heard "Iron Man" or "Paranoid." I was more of an Ozzy fan than a SABBATH fan when I was younger.
He had already left the band by the time the two came to your consciousness then?
Exactly. I could easily become more interested in the early SABBATH recordings now after having toured with them and seen them play live.
There is a bit more of an intellectual side to MUDVAYNE than most of the bands on this tour, which is not meant as a put down to the other bands.
It is a fine line really because we never want to take ourselves too seriously but we do put a lot of work and a lot of energy into what we do so there is an aspect that we are very serious about. We want to clarify things for people and have people ask questions of us and get a message across other than just the music of this little world that we are creating so it is important for us not to be just a party band. Some of our favorite bands that we have toured with are party bands, HED PE, they are a party band and they are trying.
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