SLIPKNOT Bassist On Possibility Of Focusing On Releasing Singles Instead Of Albums: 'It's Not A Set-In-Stone Thing'

At last month's Hellfest in Clisson, France, SLIPKNOT bassist Alessandro "VMan" Venturella addressed SLIPKNOT percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan's recent comment that the band might focus on releasing singles instead of singles in the future. Venturella said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It's not a set-in-stone thing. I think it's more like now that we're not with a record label, we can now do whatever we want and we're not held by certain aspects.

"We're in a world now where to try and get everyone all together to do a full record and the logistics to get nine guys in a place somewhere like Los Angeles or something like that, to record a record, it's a big undertaking, and especially in today's climate and how everything is, whereas if we take our time and we do things that we want, we can put out a single and we can do this here, and I think that's what he was kind of getting at," VMan explained.

"Albums are still a thing, and we still wanna do albums," the bassist clarified. "But I think it was more, like, 'Hey, times are changing. We can go, 'Hey, here, guys, here's a new single.' You can have a single. And we're not, four years later, here comes an album. We can be a bit more free to do what we want."

SLIPKNOT's latest album, "The End, So Far", was released last September via Roadrunner Records. The follow-up to 2019's "We Are Not Your Kind", it was the band's final record with Roadrunner after first signing with the rock and metal label in 1998.

Last summer, SLIPKNOT singer Corey Taylor told NME that the band's relationship with Roadrunner deteriorated over the years due to changes at the record company.

"It's such a different label than it was when we first signed with it," he said. "Once you're in the hands of people who don't care, it's just a fucking business. And that's what happened."

"The End, So Far" entered the Billboard 2000 chart at position No. 2. The LP shifted a total of 59,000 equivalent album units in its first week of release, 50,500 of which were traditional album sales.

Prior to "The End, So Far"'s arrival, SLIPKNOT had a three-album streak of No. 1 debuts with 2008's "All Hope Is Gone", 2014's ".5: The Gray Chapter" and the aforementioned "We Are Not Your Kind".

Venturella began working with SLIPKNOT during the recording of ".5: The Gray Chapter" album, contributing bass tracks along with guitarists Jim Root and Mick Thomson and former touring bassist Donnie Steele. He made his live debut with the band in 2014 at the first annual Knotfest.

In 2019, Alessandro told Bass Guitar Magazine that he landed in SLIPKNOT after getting a phone call from Root while working with MASTODON as guitarist Brent Hinds's tech.

According to Venturella, his role early on in SLIPKNOT was to "fill a great man's shoes and do him justice," referring to original bassist Paul Gray, who passed away in 2010.

Gray passed away from an accidental overdose of drugs.