Hurt People Hurt People is the first taste of new Mudvayne material since 2009's self-titled album
Resurrected nu metallers Mudvayne have released their first single in 16 years. Titled Hurt People Hurt People, it is their first release since signing to Alchemy Records in May and the first taste of new music since the band reformed in 2021.
In 2023, frontman Chad Grey had confirmed the band were working on new material. "We've started putting some new stuff together a little bit," he told Heavy Mag.
"People that have heard [some of the early demo] stuff are really excited about it. Only the people that are closest to us have heard anything, and, like I said, it's really rough; it's demos. But you can tell it's special. And I think that we have to make sure it's Mudvayne. We have to make sure that it's what we want. So we'll just have to see. We were working on it, working on it, working on it a little bit here and there."
When the band announced their signing to Alchemy in May, the band's Instragram account posted Mudvayne were "coming thru [sic] the fucking table soon".
With the release of the new song, Chad Smith has spoken a little about what it means. "Hurt People Hurt People has probably been around since the beginning of man," he says in a statement. "Certainly longer than the phrase ever existed."
"I think I wrote this song as a reminder to myself to break the cycle," he continues. "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."
The band are set to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their debut album L.D. 50 with a US tour that kicks off in Dubuque, Iowa on September 11 and runs until October 26 when the tour will wrap-up in Uncasville, Connecticut. Support comes from Static-X and Vended.
Since their reformation in 2021, Mudvayne have played a number of tours and festival appearances in the US, and toured Australia in 2024, though haven't played in Europe or the UK since 2005.
The band have not yet commented on a possible release window for their upcoming sixth album, nor confirmed if Hurt People Hurt People will feature or has been released as a stand-alone track.