Slipknot guitarist Jim Root has revealed the difficulties behind making the band’s new album The End, So Far – and admitted he wished the band had spent more time working on it.
In a new interview with Music Radar, Root says the band weren’t fully prepared when they began recording the follow up to 2019’s We Are Not Your Kind with producer Joe Barresi.
“I feel that we weren’t prepared for Joe Barresi, and I feel like we were not able to use [him] to his fullest extent,” says the guitarist. “We did not do pre-production. We essentially built this record in the studio, and a lot of that was due to Covid, and us being separated, and the circumstances led us to do the record the way it was done.
“With my mindset being the way it was, I didn’t have a ton of creative input. I felt kinda rushed trying to come up with ideas for this or that arrangement. We weren’t rehearsed as a band. We did not come in knowing the songs top to bottom, and that affected the record. That put us behind schedule. It had us, not really arguing and fighting with each other, but trying to figure it out, like, ‘What is the best way to approach this knowing that we are doing what we are doing?’
“You can make a plan, and you can plan as much as you want, but the big clock above your head and the budget from the label, and all this stuff, the studio we were at and the scheduling of that, there are so many factors that were against us making this record that I am surprised we were able to finish it."
Root added that he was frustrated with the delay between recording the album and releasing it.
“It’s like, well, if it has taken this long to get it out then we could have taken our fucking time with pre-production, and, in my mind, put out a better product. And that’s not to say that we’re disappointed with what we are putting out; it’s where we are at. It’s what we were able to do, given the circumstances, and the things that we had to work with.
The guitarist also said that percussionist Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan shared his frustration at having to “abandon” the record.
“I feel like, more than anything with this record, we had to abandon it and move on from it. And Clown was like, ‘It’s not a record! It’s not a Slipknot record! We are still touring on We Are Not Your Kind, on that tour, and by the way here are some songs...’ Well, you can say that, but we are putting a fucking record out and to the fans this is a fucking Slipknot record. No matter what you say, that’s what it is.”
In the same interview, Root also bemoans what he sees as modern rock ’n’ roll’s apparent lack of anti-establishment credentials, appearing to take a shot at Rage Against The Machine in particular.
“I thought rock ’n’ roll, and punk and metal, and all that stuff was meant to be anti-establishment and against the man, and now it seems more and more like, ‘Obey!’ and do as you’re told sorta shit, and that seems backwards to me.”
He continues: “We haven’t really checked in with one another to see how we’re doing, how we’re feeling about the state of the world and all that, but when I hear a band that’s saying ‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me’ telling me to do what the government tells me to do, that seems backwards to me.”
The End, So Far is released on September 30. Slipknot are on the cover of the latest issue of Metal Hammer. Order your copy here and have it delivered straight to your door.
