Hear Hellyeah Cover Phil Collins With Lost Dimebag Darrell Guitar Performance
Heavy metal supergroup Hellyeah had finished recording the basic tracks for fifth album Unden!able when they started throwing around ideas for a cover song to add to the mix. Guitarist Christian Brady suggested the 1982 Phil Collins song “I Don’t Care Anymore,” and drummer Vinnie Paul burst out laughing — not because he thought it was a bad idea, but because he and his late brother Dimebag Darrell, both of legendary metal band Pantera, recorded the track around 10 years ago with their follow-up band Damageplan. The version went unused.
Hellyeah started piecing together a new version of the Collins single. They attempted to unearth Dimebag’s guitar parts from the incompatible, circa-2004 computer program that housed them, which involved a three-week odyssey. Eventually, Vinnie Paul could once again be heard playing alongside the legendary guitarist.
“When Kevin [Churko, producer] got the tracks isolated, he synched them up, and when we listened them it totally gave me goosebumps,” Paul says. “We’ve always felt like he’s been a part of this band since day one. We felt like his energy and his spirit was always with us. And for people to be able to hear him again in 2016 puts a big smile on my face.”
“It was like Dime was in an iso-booth tracking in the next room while I was singing my parts,” says vocalist Chad Gray. “Tracking that song was one of the most magical moments I’ve felt in my entire career. … After we recorded the first four vocal lines, Kevin called me on the intercom and said, ‘I’m just gonna tell you right now. You’re gonna be singing this song for the rest of your life. It’s going to be amazing.”
Hellyeah may broaden their commercial appeal with “I Don’t Care Anymore,” but that wasn’t what the band was going for when they sat down to write Unden!able. Having initially been perceived by many as a party band thanks to songs like “Alcohaulin’ Ass” and “Drink Drank Drunk,” Hellyeah strove to reinvent themselves as a darker, grittier property on 2014’s Blood for Blood. The corrosive riffs, battering beats and howling vocals of Unden!able expands on that blackened vibe, with a few new musical liberties. “Grave” features orchestral passages and “Love Falls” is a mid-paced, melodic hard rocker that sounds like a nihilistic Night Ranger.
A week into a tour to support Unden!able, Gray and Paul discuss how Hellyeah overcame their pigeonhole, the singer’s newly sober lifestyle and why the drummer is finally returning to the city where Dimebag was killed.
Why call the new album Unden!able?
Vinnie Paul: We felt like after four records, people built quite a few walls around Hellyeah. There have been forces against us that we’ve really had to fight through to continue to do what we do and keep believing in what we do. And we felt like the only way to keep from being denied is to be undeniable. So we focused on that idea when we started making the record.
What forces were against you?
Paul: For a long time people were not willing to accept the fact that I’m not in Pantera anymore and Chad’s not in Mudvayne anymore. So when we played something and it sounded too much like Pantera, Mudvayne, we’d stop and go, “Nope, we can’t use that.” But now, we’re embracing our past and saying, “Who cares if that sounds a little like our other bands? That’s our sound. That’s what we created.”