With the ongoing quarantine canceling all shows for the foreseeable future, bands are starting to find other ways to be creative, liking writing new music. Metallica has hinted they may hunker down and now another big force in metal has revealed they are starting to write new music – Slipknot.
Guitarist Jim Root told Loudwire recently that the band has begun discussing new music. He's also revealed that he's using the downtime to work on a new solo album of his own.
“Now that we have this bananas insane pandemic thing going on I’ve been trying to force myself to write. I’ve had a lot of people ask me about doing a solo project. I think now I have a little bit of extra time to dedicate to that, so I’ve been writing some stuff that maybe wouldn’t slide in with the Slipknot world. But like I said I’ve got kind of a bit of a writer’s block thing going on right now. I would like to [start a solo project] just because I need to stay busy. You know, I didn’t start a family, I never got married, I didn’t do any of that stuff. I know Corey wants to do a solo project that’s outside of Stone Sour; he’s mentioned that.
“Unless I’m writing for Slipknot I wouldn’t know what to do with my time. There’s a lot of different philosophies and ideas and things we’re throwing around with Slipknot for another record, things like that. It’s easy for me to write Slipknot arrangements and ideas. They come kinda naturally to me just because I spent so much time with Paul. As much as I’ve written on the last two records I don’t have to think about that too much.
“For a solo project, I’m gonna overthink that until I’m insane and it may never ever come out. What direction do I go? Do I even think about a direction? Do I just let it naturally come out? Do I use things that I’ve written intended for Slipknot that maybe Slipknot didn’t gravitate towards? Or maybe Slipknot was just like ‘That’s not really very Slipknot,’ not that there’s any rules on what is or is not Slipknot. A good song’s a good song whether it’s for this or that or the other thing. Like Don Henley said for that Eagles thing, he stepped back and took a drink of his beer and introspectively said ‘shit don’t flow.’ So if I make some shit that doesn’t flow maybe that’ll be my side project.
“Obviously, Slipknot is my priority and it’s what I’m always gonna have as a priority and that’s gonna be the main thing that I always focus on as long as I can or as long that we’re viable or as long as we want to continue to do that. What I do as a solo project, what direction do I take, I want to get all that out. With all the arrangements I’ve written for the last couple of Slipknot records, I don’t know that I need another outlet, but I’m going to try. Set a goal, maybe see if I can achieve it. We’ve got time on our hands now.”
I'm curious what Root's solo album would be like. Dude is huge into bands like Pink Floyd and Radiohead, so I can see a more spacey rock album coming out of his brain.
Also, how angry will new Slipknot sound once it's already released?
Here's the interview with Root:
