COREY TAYLOR: 'Without PAUL GRAY, There Would Have Been No SLIPKNOT'

SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor told Caller.com's "Weekly Chatter" that he is still struggling with the loss of the band's bassist, Paul Gray, and isn't guaranteeing anything about the group's future.

"There's a part of me that's ready [to carry on with the band] and there's a part of me that's not," Taylor said. "Honestly, I have a lot of trepidation about it. I don't know how to feel. I know a lot of the guys in the band are trying not to show that side, and I can't."

SLIPKNOT will make a number festival appearances this summer, including the U.K.'s Sonisphere, Belgium's Graspop Metal Meeting and Brazil's Rock In Rio. Joining the group on bass will be Donnie Steele, who was the original guitar player in SLIPKNOT and had actually reconnected with Paul in recent years.

Taylor admitted that he is still unsure going back out and performing live without Gray is the right thing to do.

"He's irreplaceable," Taylor said. "Without Paul Gray, there would have been no SLIPKNOT, and I mean that sincerely. So to me, it's strange for me to think about the future of SLIPKNOT without him.

"This tour coming up is definitely going to be like baby steps," he said. "So it's going to be a long time before I feel OK about it. I'm not saying that I'm not open to it. I'm just saying that I'm not there yet, and I don't know how long it's going to take me to get there. So we're just going to have to see what happens. Only time will tell."

Paul Gray was found dead in a hotel room in a Des Moines, Iowa suburb last May at the age of 38 from an overdose of morphine.