SLIPKNOT's JIM ROOT Defends Lack Of Guitar Solos On 'We Are Not Your Kind' Album

SLIPKNOT's Jim Root has responded to fan criticism about the apparent lack of guitar solos on the band's new album, "We Are Not Your Kind".

"I see a lot of comments like, 'Where are the guitar solos on this record?'" Jim said in an interview with "The Art And Span Show". "Well, obviously, Mick [Thomson, guitar] and I are very into guitar; we love playing guitar, love doing solos over every song, but that didn't occur to me. I was more concerned about the arrangements and making a good song top to bottom.

"There is a solo on 'Spiders', albeit a kind of a non-traditional solo, but that's what I love. The point I'm trying to make is I get to think outside of the box and approach guitar playing in a way that I would never approach it with a song like 'Spiders', because Clown [SLIPKNOT percussionist] wrote that song and it didn't come from my mind, so it's hard for me to process it."

Root expanded on the solo in "Spiders" during a wide-ranging interview with Guitar World ahead of the album's release.

"It's like some weird, mid-'80s Bowie thing, and I got to do a cool Adrian Belew kind of outside-the-box guitar solo on it. I love doing stuff like that, that we haven’t done before."

"We Are Not Your Kind" sold 118,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first week of release to land at position No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. Of that sum, 102,000 were in album sales.

"We Are Not Your Kind"'s sales were boosted by a concert ticket/album sale redemption offer with SLIPKNOT's tour, which kicked off late last month.

"We Are Not Your Kind" was once again recorded at a Los Angeles studio with producer Greg Fidelman, who engineered and mixed "Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)" and helmed 2014's ".5: The Gray Chapter".