SLIPKNOT Bassist Found Dead

According to the Des Moines Register, Urbandale, Iowa police are investigating the death of SLIPKNOT's bass guitarist at a local hotel.

Paul Dedrick Gray, 38, of Johnston was found dead at approximately 10:50 a.m. today by an employee at TownePlace Suites (pictured below),8800 Northpark Drive, police said.

There was no evidence of foul play, police said.

According to KCCI.com, the Polk County Medical Examiner's Office is assisting in the death investigation and will perform an autopsy on Tuesday. Toxicology testing will be completed to determine if there were any contributing factors in the death of Gray, police said.

Witnesses reported that items from the hotel room were carried out of the hotel around 2 p.m.

Gray was born in Los Angeles, California, and later moved to Des Moines.

Wikipedia shows that Gray has been married for two years to GodsGirls' Brenna Paul and has a tattoo of her name on his knuckles.

In a December 2009 posting on his MySpace page, Gray revealed that his wife was pregnant with the couple's first child. "I am the happiest man on the face of the earth — literally!" he wrote. He added, "This has been the best Christmas I have ever had!"

In April 2010 it was announced that Paul Gray had joined HAIL!, the supergroup featuring mainstays Tim "Ripper" Owens (BEYOND FEAR, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, ex-JUDAS PRIEST, ICED EARTH),David Ellefson (MEGADETH) and Andreas Kisser (SEPULTURA). He was supposed to replace the group's original member, David Ellefson, who was unable to take part in HAIL!'s upcoming touring activities due to his renewed collaboration with MEGADETH. At the time, Paul Gray stated about his involvement with HAIL!: "This is going to be amazing! After I heard the news about David reuniting with MEGADETH I touched base with Andreas and everything fell into place pretty immediately. I was excited about what they were doing and their whole attitude is just cool, old school camaraderie and fun and I wanted to share that with them. Fortunately, I had this window of time available as SLIPKNOT are on break so the timing worked perfectly. These guys have been through it all and they represent true metal brotherhood. I like that and I'm glad to now be a part of it. I can't wait, I wish we'd leave tomorrow. These shows are going to kick ass!"

Back in 2003, authorities agreed to drop drug possession charges against Paul Gray in exchange for Gray's acknowledgement that he was on drugs when he was involved in a minor traffic accident (Story#1, Story#2) in the summer of 2003 in Des Moines.

Des Moines police arrested Gray on June 1, 2003 after his car collided with a car at Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway and Carpenter Avenue.

A police report at the time said Gray "had impaired balance, slurred and dull speech, and extremely sleepy and dull behavior."

In the November 2008 issue of Revolver magazine, Gray spoke openly about his struggle with drug addiction and how it affected SLIPKNOT during the songwriting and recording process for both 2001's "Iowa" and 2004's "Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses".

"I was pissed at Corey [Taylor, SLIPKNOT vocalist] and Jim [Root, SLIPKNOT guitarist] for doing [their side project] STONE SOUR," he said. "I thought, 'Fuck, we should be working on SLIPKNOT.' But we really needed that time apart. During the downtime I played with UNIDA and jammed with friends, but mostly I did a lot of drinking and some drugs — some heavy, heavy drugs… lots of heroin. I was shooting speedballs every day. And then pills. I was on everything, man. In the beginning I kind of had my shit under control, but after a while, no. I became an addict."

He added, "I wrote a bunch of stuff [for 'Vol. 3'] — like I do every record — but I would spend half the time in the bathroom [shooting up]. I'd be trying to play, and I'd fall out of my chair a couple times and fall asleep in the middle of tracking a song. There was a lot of depression going on. I wasn't mad at anybody, but everyone else was and I felt, 'Oh, fuck, my family is falling apart.' This has been the best thing that ever happened to me. And once you get to a certain point with drugs it's fuckin' so hard going through withdrawal. It's not that you don't want to quit. You just can't. Halfway through the record, the band had an intervention on me and I ended up going to rehab."

He continued, "Going through rehab in L.A. kept me good for a little while, but then we got back out on the road and I just knew too many people and I started using a lot again on and off. I had some near-death experiences — nothing I'm gonna go into any detail about — but I definitely pushed it to the very end and I'm still here. I have friends, though, who pushed it just the same way, and they are dead. Finally, I got left in rehab at the end of the arena tour with SHADOWS FALL and LAMB OF GOD and I missed the last six shows. Then, afterwards… Well, idle hands do the devil's work. I met my wife and she stayed with me and helped me, but then I'd full on run with it. Finally she said, 'I can't sit around and watch you kill yourself.' I was living in L.A. at the time, which wasn't helping because it was so easy [to get drugs]. So, I moved back to Iowa with her and went to my doctor and got straightened out. And it's been a good couple years now that I've been clean."

Photo below courtesy of KCCI.com

Photo below courtesy of KCCI.com

Photo below courtesy of KCCI.com