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Interview
by SashaS
18-7-2003
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| Corey Taylor of StoneSour and Slipknot |
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Point of no return
StoneSour and assorted Slipknot themes
For a period of inactivity Slipknot suddenly commanded the news inches: an early demo, ‘Snap’, is to be part of the ‘Freddie Vs. Jason’ soundtrack; Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan has announced his new trio, To My Surprise, is to release an album on 06 October, a pop-rocky songs that recall The Beatles and The Kinks (in places); he also said that Slipknot may never release another album; finally, the band’s song was named in a multiple stabbing case in California.
Murderdolls and StoneSour were riffing in the country and we caught up with Jim Root, guitarist beside Corey Taylor in both outfits, to discuss the above, as well as to find out about StoneSour equilibrium, new maturity and progression well beyond… the realms of the self-titled debut album. We idly speculate that it might be a good idea to issue a low-budget live disc.
“Funny you should say that,” Root sounds as he looks – big, “but we were talking about it just the other day because we are more of a live band than a studio band and I don’t think we’ve captured our sound on record. We’ve been listening to our board-tapes and they sound way better than the actual album. There is way more energy, bigger sound, fuller and I’d like to put this album out live and there is a little talk of us trying to do that. With a digi-pack and I think it would make a very fine double.”
“There would be no new songs because we are not playing any live… Lately we’ve written about four or five songs to bring the total to about 13 new songs for our next record. We may even do an EP in meantime, it all depends…”
Shadows alive!
Any future plans of the nine people who are Slipknot hinge on what happens when they reconvene for the next album, if there is going to be one; ‘Clown’ Crahan said, “There’s a hope that there will be another Slipknot album, but there’s a chance there won’t.”
“It all depends with what happens with Slipknot,” Root confirms the state of play, “how long we spend in a studio, how long we tour… Shawn’s album is not due out until October and Slipknot is due to go into a studio at the beginning of August. But, yeah, there is a possibility that Slipknot may not record again; we have songs written and are ready to go and record but it just depends how everybody feels when we are ready to go into a studio and if everybody is healthy and everybody’s state of mind is right, then we’ll make a record…I can’t predict the future…”
“We’ll try making an album but whether it’ll happen, that I don’t know.”
Destiny is a strange lady; in meantime, there is ‘Snap’ on the soundtrack to ‘Freddie Vs. Jason’, an unreleased song?
“Yeah, it is very old, it is even before the time I joined,” Root states coolly. “I think it was recorded in 1995 or ’96… I heard about the song being in the film but I don’t usually get asked about such things. That’s why I don’t like being in Slipknot! Ha, ha… I’m only being honest here!”
“Slipknot is, and I’m not speaking for anybody else but myself,” Root formulates a theory for us, “an attitude, an opinion, an expression and not so much a band. That’s how I honesty feel about Slipknot; it is something for people to enjoy while it is here because it will not be here for that much longer. It is like Kiss, or any of these other really theatrical bands (Styx? The Tubes?), it is good entertainment but how valid it is, I don’t know.”
Murder ballads
Two young Americans accused of killing their 22-year-old friend claim they psyched themselves up to commit the murder by listening to nu-metal icons Slipknot. Jason Lamar Harris (20) and Amber Rose Riley (16) of San Bernardino, California are charged with stabbing Terry Ray Taylor more than 20 times and slitting his throat. Harris and Riley were denied bail and are due to attend a pre-trial hearing on 18 July. Due to the severity of the crime, 16-year-old Riley will be tried as an adult.
Two police detectives testified in county Superior Court that when Harris and Riley described the details of the murder, they claimed to have listened to Slipknot before and after the killing.
Speaking to police, the pair quoted lyrics to Slipknot track ‘Disasterpiece’ (from ‘Iowa’, 2001), including the lines: “I wanna slit your throat and f**k the wound/I wanna push my face in and feel the swoon”.
Can music really be responsible for such acts?
“I honestly don’t think so, man, you can’t blame music for… You know, when I was teenager I used to listen to Slayer, Black Sabbath, Venom, Exodus, the evilest, darkest metal that was out when I was 13, 14 years old. In a million years I’ve never ever considered to killing anybody or myself. I think it is something else, these people have already had issues and are only looking for an excuse.”
“What I think happens is that people with certain issues are drawn to music that is already heavier. That’s why you always have Ozzy Osbourne incidences, Judas Priest incidences, the Marilyn Manson incidences…”
At least Slipknot are in a good, notorious, company?
“Yeah, ha, ha... I don’t think that films, music or whatever can be blamed for that stuff and I think these people are responsible for their own actions. They are looking for scapegoats, for somebody and something else to blame it on while they need to look at the real problem, which is the people themselves, or in what situation these people were brought up, or the environment they live in… I don’t think it’s got anything to do with music. No artists should ever be blamed for alleged influence of their art form.”
SashaS
18-7-2003
‘Freddy vs. Jason’ soundtrack album is released 11 August 2003 on Roadrunner
StoneSour album ‘StoneSour’, Murderdolls’ CD ‘Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls’ and Slipknot’s disc ‘Iowa’ are all available now on Roadrunner
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