Accident or not, the process has worked. The single "Do What You Do," from Mudvayne's latest album, "The New Game," is the group's fastest-rising single yet, according to its publicists. So why call it a "fortunate accident"?

"First off, we never orchestrated the way we started writing in the first place," McDonough said. "The way it works is a fortunate accident. We really don't know what we're doing. We just go into an improvisational situation where we just start creating and bouncing ideas off of each other and get the ball rolling."

McDonough spoke to LiveDaily about "The New Game," Mudvayne's first new collection in more than three years; its forthcoming follow-up album, due out in late 2009; and working with uber producer Dave Fortman.

LiveDaily: How's the tour going?

Matt McDonough: It's early to say, but so far so good. Ticket sales are exceeding our expectations. We're doing really well with our merch sales and the crowd seems to remember who we are, seeing as it's been awhile since we've toured, so I can't complain.

What was it like to work with Dave Fortman again?

In what context? The new record or "The New Game"? Those are two completely different situations. "The New Game" has been done for over a year and a half. We just finished another record this summer.

Did you work with him on the new record as well?

Actually, we worked with him in a different capacity. He executive-produced the record and we ended up producing the record by ourselves with our engineer from the past, Jeremy Parker. Dave was obviously involved and we did preproduction with him and an initial--just getting tones with him. We recorded the record by ourselves along with Jeremy. This is an unusual opportunity for us. It was great for Dave to do that assist-from-overhead kind of thing. But it allowed us an opportunity to stretch our wings and apply everything we've learned about making records the past decade. It was a great experience.

It must have been fun and so much more freeing to do the record on your own.

Yeah, the responsibility--and, for some of us, there were some of the worries about, "Can we do this by ourselves?" "What happens if things break down?" and what not. Personally, I was really excited about it. I've always taken an interest in production and always been the guy with the questions, asking "blah blah blah blah blah" or "How's that done?" It was fun to take on the responsibility.

When do you expect the new album to come out?

It's hard to say. The schedule's going to depend upon how well "The New Game" does. Tentatively, it would be nice to see the new record come out like, say, the end of next summer. I'd like to see it come out within a year of "The New Game."

What was the most important thing you think you learned from Dave Fortman?

Bedside manner. He's really great with working with people. Showing to be a figure of authority, but not being a bully at the same time. Also knowing how to relate to different people in different capacities and get the best out of them and inspire people to want to put their best into what they do.

"Do What You Do" is your fast-rising single so far. Why do you think that song really caught on?

I'm the wrong person to ask that. I don't know what makes people like songs. I really can't say what people are liking about that song now. We've never been writers or artists that I consider smart enough to be able to telepathically read into the listener's mind and write pop hits like Prince can do or George Michael or whoever, great artists, Michael Jackson or whatever. For us, we write and do the best to be honest to what a Mudvayne song is and please ourselves with the songs that we're writing. How that translates into something fans really like, I don't know. I can't answer that question.

Did you think it was going to be successful when you wrote it?

No, not necessarily. We knew that it had potential to be a radio single, but those things are easily definable: Is it under 3 minutes and 20 seconds? Does it have a well-structured verse-chorus-verse? Does it have a mid-tempo hooky chorus? Those things are definable and that leads you decide, "Well, yeah, that song should be a radio single as opposed to this 9-and-a-half-minute long song." Those things, you can put your finger on. But as far as being successful, I don't think there's any sure bets when it comes to music, when it comes to what's popular and what's going to be popular. Things change, and I don't think you can ever really say what that is.

Was it difficult to choose the name of the album for "The New Game"?

No, not really. It seemed pretty obvious. We had already written "A New Game," the song on the record. I basically threw out to the guys, "There's something really hooky about that title. We should just call the record 'The New Game'." Everyone was like, "Yeah. That's cool. Let's do it."

Do you think it's reflective of the music at all?

Well, I don't see how it can't be. I mean, how do you separate the music from the artist? How do you separate the place where you make the music from the music that you make? How do you separate the people who listen to the music from the music? Obviously, these things are intertwined.

What can people expect from your live show?

It's interesting now that we're [four] albums deep, we have a lot of songs to draw from now. One of the interesting things is--obviously we never planned it--but we have a lot of songs that have been on the radio. It was interesting to me to see the set list being put together. Half of [the songs on] it are radio hits. It feels like we're a pop band or something.