By Aaron Small

Blood For Blood, the newly released fourth album from Hellyeah marks a rebirth for the band. Most notably, a lineup shuffle has occurred with bassist Bobzilla and guitarist Greg Tribbett departing the group. “After we finished the Gigantour (in August 2013), we really felt like we gained some momentum and gained back a lot of the heavy fans that thought we had strayed too far with the southern rock and country sounding stuff we did,” says drummer Vinnie Paul. “That was our goal with Band Of Brothers (released in 2012), to get back to our metal roots and bring that back around. We wanted to get right into the studio and start working on the next record. Once we got in, it became really, really clear to the three of us – me, Tom (Maxwell – guitarist), and Chad (Gray – vocalist), that Greg and Bob really didn’t have the focus we had. Both of them were going through a lot of personal issues at the time and it was becoming very distracting to the band, so we decided we had to part ways with them. So the record was written and recorded by Tom, myself, and Chad.”

(photo by Aaron Small)

“We didn’t even worry about putting a live band together until we finished the record,” continues Vinnie. “Once we started talking about it, we didn’t want to do an audition thing trying to find the next Billy Sheehan or Eddie Van Halen. We wanted guys who could be friends; you could be the greatest player in the world but if you’re hard to get along with… Kyle (Sanders, bassist) was the first guy who came to mind. He’s toured with us many times with his bands Bloodsimple and Monstro. We called him up and before we could even say, do you want to do it? He said, ‘I’m the guy! I want to be part of it!’ He was that gung-ho about it, he was really excited. Then a friend of mine from Las Vegas, who’s played with Franky Perez and Camp Freddy, he’s an amazing guitar player, his name is Christian Brady. He came to mind and we started talking, so that’s how we completed the live lineup. We rehearsed for about a week and a half before we left to go on tour and man, the band’s never sounded better. It’s really nice to have five guys that are on the same page, wanting to go out and kill it every night.”

In the promo pictures, Hellyeah is depicted as a four-piece band; Christian is missing from the shots. “We joke around and say the only Christian in Hellyeah is Christian Brady, but we just call him Brady. He’s working on becoming a full member. We wanted to bring him out on the road, make sure he could hang with us. He’s never done the touring thing before so we wanted to make sure he was cut out for the road. So far, he’s beyond any of our expectations.”

Canadian born, Las Vegas based producer Kevin Churko (Ozzy Osbourne, Five Finger Death Punch) not only sat behind the board on Blood For Blood, he also played bass on the album. “It was really fun working with him,” recalls Vinnie. In fact, this is the first time Hellyeah has worked with an outside producer, yet the actual experience didn’t differ from Vinnie’s expectations prior to entering Hideout Recording Studio in Sin City. “Not for me man. I produced all our stuff, so I know the drill, how it works. The other guys do too, but the most important thing for me is that I had already developed a relationship with Kevin ‘cause he has a place out in Vegas, I have a place out in Vegas. We started running into each other at shows and stuff. He’s a huge Pantera fan, and I’m a big fan of all of his work that he’s ever done."

"When we started writing the new material, we really thought we should bring in another producer and see what he can get out of us; just try something different. A bunch of different names came up, but Kevin is amazing! He worked with Mutt Lange (AC/DC, Def Leppard), his track record is unbelievable. His house and studio is two miles from my house in Vegas. We all stayed at my house, Chad even jogged up to the studio a couple times. The biggest thing for Tom and Chad was to learn to trust Kevin. When you’re working with a producer, you’re naked. It’s just you and him – and if you fuck up, he knows every time you fuck up. You’ve got to be able to get that confidence where it’s okay to trust him and let him do everything. Once that happened, and it happened really fast, everything just flowed. Kevin’s such a great dude to work with. He doesn’t have any assistant engineers, there’s nobody in the studio but us and him; he does everything. And he’s a workaholic. He’ll get up at nine in the morning, go down there and work for six hours before we even show up, just doing stuff. He’s really great.”

For the most part, the party vibe present on previous Hellyeah albums has all but disappeared on Blood For Blood. One of the lines from the title track reads, “Democracy is hypocrisy, dictatorship is what we need, because really what’s the fucking difference?” That’s a pretty bold statement; and a radical lyrical departure for Hellyeah. “Right, with the first couple records (2007’s Hellyeah and 2010’s Stampede) they were very experimental. We really wanted to step outside the boundaries of the things we had done in our previous bands. With the last record we got back more into what people expected, and this record is even more focused, even more metal. We just didn’t feel like the party thing is where it was coming from. More, back to the straight fucking metal, balls out. That’s where Chad came from lyrically, and where we came from with the music.”

When record stores were still in existence, the artwork adorning Blood For Blood most likely would have received a few objections. “There’s still going to be some objection,” reveals Vinnie. “Our label (Eleven Seven) has put a black shrink wrap on it so they can’t complain about it. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the way certain things have to go with WalMart and Target – whoever still carries CDs. But it’s pretty eye-catching and I think it demonstrates what we are; we’re in the underdog role.”

Best Buy is offering an exclusive version of Blood For Blood that comes with an Affliction Hellyeah t-shirt, unavailable anywhere else. “I’ve been dealing with Affliction for a long, long time on a personal level. It’s a special thing, a limited edition for the die-hard fans. With Stampede we had the skull, on the last record we also had a limited edition t-shirt. It’s cool.” Is there a Japanese bonus track? “Yeah, it’s a great song. We just didn’t feel like it really fit the record. Chad was calling it something else for a while, but it’s titled ‘Feast Or Famine’. It’s a killer song; it just had a different feel than the rest of the record so we left it off.”

Hellyeah filmed a video for “Sangre Por Sangre (Blood For Blood)”, which has currently amassed over 200,000 views on YouTube. Although the fans certainly appreciate videos, Vinnie admits to having “never enjoyed making them. It’s a whole lot of hurry up and wait; they want you to be there at eight o’clock in the morning – why? I can show up at one or two in the afternoon and you’ll just be getting ready to go. When we went to shoot this video, the funniest thing happened. We actually showed up about an hour later than they wanted us. I got there, walked in the building, and I was looking for the bathroom. This guy comes up to me, grabs me, and says, ‘Are you Vinnie Paul?’ Yeah. ‘Well let me take you to makeup right now.’ I went, hold on dude! How about I go in there and take a shit, eat breakfast, and then we’ll think about that. You’re not going to need me for two and half hours - they hadn’t even set up the fucking lighting. It just freaked him out, it blew his mind! He’s used to LA people, ‘Oh yes put me in makeup, make me look good.’ Fucking hilarious.”

Vinnie is drumming like a monster on “Say When”. “That’s something I came up with. When you’re sitting around playing drums, there’s only so many you can hit. Just like the guitar, there’s only so many notes on it. When you come across those special things that are hard to find… like ‘Primal Concrete Sledge’ and ‘Becoming’ with Pantera. I laid it down as a demo with just the drums. Then I brought Tom in and hummed him the idea I was thinking. I think it’s the most challenging and exciting drum track I’ve done since Far Beyond Driven (in 1994); I’m really excited about it. It’s going to wear me out every night, I’ll tell you that.”

Conversely, “Hush” is a deeper, moody track. Not all that heavy musically, but lyrically it carries a lot of weight as Chad really gets personal singing: ‘Hell’s where I was born, hell’s where I was raised. Whipped so bad I pissed myself, still wear the beatings from that belt.’ “Yeah, he’s touched on it before with ‘Better Man’ off of Stampede. It’s something that probably haunts him quite a bit. He had a really tough time growing up when he was a kid. He knows there’s a lot of other kids out there who have been through that, and it’s kind of his way of connecting with them and letting them know that there’s other people who have been through it.”

The last track on the album, “Black December”, has a double meaning to it. “Chad was down to the last song. At that point, singers have every word down on paper five times, every melody – he was just pulling his hair out. It was actually in December when he was tracking that song, I had just started dating this girl and her girlfriend got killed in a car wreck a couple days beforehand. It seems like so much bad shit happens in December. My brother (Dimebag Darrell) was taken out December 8th, John Lennon on December 8th, Pearl Harbor happened December 7th. A lot of people think of December, Christmas and New Year’s as happy, happy, happy. But a lot of people really have a hard time at that time of year. It’s dark, it’s cold, there’s a lot of things that – some people can’t provide Christmas for their families. That’s kind of the angle Chad came at it from.” There’s a line in “Black December” that can be considered a casual saying, but takes on a whole other meaning in this context: ‘If I had a Dime for every tear I cried.’ “Yeah, total reference to Dime. He’s done that for me in several songs, including ‘Thank You’ on the first record. It’s very special. I love it when my brother is still getting the notoriety; his legendary status just grows all the time. It’s really important to keep that going.”