SLIPKNOT Bassist: New Album Is 'Most Well-Rounded And Most Cohesive Record We've Done'

ARTISTdirect.com editor Rick Florino recently conducted an in-depth interview with SLIPKNOT bassist Paul Gray. An excerpt from the chat follows.

ARTISTdirect.com: "All Hope Is Gone" feels like a step up from "Vol. 3". It's simultaneously more heavy and brutal than your previous records, but it's still SLIPKNOT. Would you say that's the case?

Paul: It's definitely a sign of us maturing. We never let anyone guide us or tell us what to do, but, this time, we went right for what we were feeling. That's why we have songs like "Snuff" and "All Hope Is Gone" on the same album. It's still a SLIPKNOT record. Corey's [Taylor] vocals and melodies are incredible. He's got a great voice. We were like, "Why the fuck are we not utilizing it as much as we could be?" He can scream, and everybody can do that, but Corey can actually sing his ass off too. We felt like we needed to utilize this even more than we did in the past. With his vocals, Corey did what he felt and what he wanted to do. Everybody in this band has been playing forever. We know what we're doing. We threw caution to the wind, and we wrote this record for us. We recorded in Iowa, and we had no one bothering us while we were in the studio. We had none of the fucking L.A. people in our ear. The record label wasn't coming out there saying, "We need a single" or "We need a song that's like this." We didn't have any of that shit. We got to do our own thing. We were left alone, and the record came out great because of it. I think it's our best. It's definitely the most well-rounded and most cohesive record we've done.

ARTISTdirect.com: Everything sounds more intense. The music's gotten more intricate and technically advanced, but you're playing with just as much passion and anger as you were on the first record.

Paul: Definitely! In terms of technicality, we've been playing for a really long time. I've been playing bass for well over 20 years. It's the same with Jim [Root] and Mick [Thomson]. Joey [Jordison]'s been doing the same thing too, on drums. We definitely stepped it up technically. The record just came together naturally. It was such an easy step from "Vol. 3". It came from our hearts. We just let it go. A couple of those guitar riffs are from 1991. They stretch back to my old bands. It's funny how you can take a riff that old and play it now, and people will actually be into it now [laughs], as opposed to back then.

ARTISTdirect.com: With previous records, the songs have gestated with you and Joey writing and demoing together early on. Is that how this album started?

Paul: Yeah, it started that way. Jim and Corey [Taylor, vocals] were on the road doing STONE SOUR, but they were writing too. When we came back, Corey had a notebook the size of Homer's "The Odyssey" [Laughs]. It was just filled with ideas for lyrics. It was 1000 pages of words. He wrote his ass off! Jim had lots of guitar riffs. Joey and I had gotten together and started demoing stuff. Once the band fully came back, we used those demos as a place to start. Everyone had ideas, and they brought those ideas to the table. Nobody held anything back, and I think that's why the record came out so good.

ARTISTdirect.com: The first song, "Gematria", is quite a way to kick things off. Stretching around the seven-minute mark, it's almost like a journey in and of itself.

Paul: Oh yeah, it definitely is! The beginning of that song is what I was talking about. That riff was written in like 1990 [Laughs]. Everyone is always like, "Hey, we need a song to be this length." We didn't have anybody out there to tell us what they think we need to do. We were totally free of everything. Getting to go home every night and sleep in our own beds really had a positive affect on our attitudes too. That made it really easy to put out this record. We just jammed and got it done.

ARTISTdirect.com: While recording at home, you're also more in touch with Iowa's essence as it relates to the band.

Paul: Definitely, yes. We were on a farm about 40 miles outside of Des Moines. You feel Iowa when you're out there. You'd hear a cow in the middle of the night. At least for me, it was amazing. The previous albums were all done in L.A. I love L.A. I was born and raised in L.A. The whole industry's out there. Everyone has an opinion that they want heard. We didn't have to hear any of that shit, dude. If anyone wanted to hear the music, they'd have to drive 40 miles out to the middle of fucking nowhere and find a farm with no name to come and see what we were doing [Laughs]. We got to sit there and do what we wanted without anyone's input. Then the record label got to hear it. They weren't flying in every four weeks, checking on what we'd done. It was done, and they loved it. I love it too, and I think it's the best record that we've done by far.

Read the entire interview from ARTISTdirect.com.