Last month, Slipknot's Jim Root revealed that he has issues with the way new album The End, So Far turned out, suggesting the band could have "put out a better product" if given more time. Now, the guitarist has admitted that he was unable to contribute too heavily to the writing process for the new record due to suffering from stress and depression issues - and has admitted he was unsure about how the new material initially turned out.
"I was majorly involved in the writing from Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses. And then I got in a bit deeper on All Hope Is Gone," he explains in a recent interview with Guitar World. "I wrote most of .5 The Gray Chapter and We Are Not Your Kind. But then the pandemic happened and nobody could be together. I was home alone and I got stressed out and depressed. So my contribution was minimal for this."
Root notes that, fortunately, other members of the band were able to step in and get more involved with the songwriting process for The End, So Far.
"It’s a good thing we had Alex [Venturella, bassist] stepping forward and picking up some of the slack along with Clown, who’s becoming a lot more involved in song arranging.”
On how he felt about Venturella's contributions to the album, Root adds:
“When I first heard a lot of the arrangements, I thought, 'Oh fuck, this doesn’t sound like Slipknot to me. We’ve got a lot of work to do.' I was kind of freaked out. What I heard was the symptom of having somebody that isn’t in our age group and wasn’t influenced by the same music."
“Alex was a Slipknot fan so he sounds like somebody that was influenced by Slipknot trying to write for Slipknot. But he had some good ideas, so we Frankensteined a couple of different parts between me, Alex and Clown, and things started to take shape. It was a huge group effort, but I was grateful Alex wrote the stuff he did because it taught me – not just about songwriting and arranging – but also about humanity, humility, ego and friendship."
The End, So Far landed last month to rave reviews from critics, though it seemingly divided fans due to its fiercely experimental nature. Corey Taylor had some rather, erm, choice words for the cynics.
The End, So Far is out now via Roadrunner.
