SLIPKNOT's ROOT: Working With DAVE FORTMAN 'Helped Me Appreciate RICK RUBIN As A Producer'

Christina Fuoco-Karasinski of LiveDaily.com recently conducted an interview with SLIPKNOT guitarist Jim Root. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow.

LiveDaily.com: You must be pretty pleased, as well, with how the single "Psychosocial" is doing.

Root: That's great, especially because, when we were working on the songs in preproduction, that song, to me, was one of the more linear tunes. After we started building the songs in the studio and layering parts to it, it came together really well. I'm excited that it's doing well. But, to me, it's like a straightforward, late '80s thrash song. When I first heard the demo of that song, it reminded me of a TESTAMENT tune. Just because it's got that boom-tat, boom-tat. You can picture the video, straight-up head banging. Or like MEGADETH off "So Far, So Good", which is cool. That's the kind of music I grew up on.

LiveDaily.com: Tell me about the album title, "All Hope is Gone".

Root: Well, you know, I'm not really involved. This will show you how quickly we were working. By the time the title of the album came together, it was already decided on. I think I found out, like, two days later. The song in itself is one of the songs we put together at the very end of the recording process. Corey's [Taylor, vocals] our lyricist and he's a great lyricist and a great vocalist and he's very metaphorical in his writing. So almost anybody can draw anything out of anything he's talking about. He could be talking about something that's so personal to him, but the way he puts it out there anybody could make it their own, turn it into something very personal to them. To me, "All Hope Is Gone" could have anything to do with the presidential race to the climate to the gas prices. It could be extremely political or personal. The way I look at it, I'm assuming he's coming from a mostly political standpoint. Of course, I haven't read all the lyrics to "All Hope Is Gone".

LiveDaily.com: What was it like to work with [producer] Dave Fortman. Was it better than your last experience with Rick Rubin?

Root: Um, no. Dave Fortman really helped me appreciate Rick Rubin as a producer. Sometimes, hindsight is 20/20. Sometimes it takes another situation to kind of make you look back at a different situation and really see how good you had it, you know? Rick Rubin was able to do things that Dave Fortman could never do. I'm not trying to take anything away from Dave Fortman as a producer. He's extremely talented. He wasn't able to get nine people together on the same page and, to me, that's the most important thing in making a SLIPKNOT record. I guess if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all.

Read the entire interview at LiveDaily.com.