There is a solo on 'Spiders,' albeit a kind of a non-traditional solo, but that's what I love.
Finding the right amp can be a process, especially when you're young and just starting out. When I was a kid, I had to rely on whatever I got for Christmas. Then my mom got me a Peavey VTM 120. I used that for a few years.
It's easy to get a good amp that might not be the right amp for you. When you go to a music store, really turn the amps on and turn 'em up - hopefully they'll let you - and work through the sounds. This is an important decision, so take your time and be methodical.
I want to see the guitar in a non-linear sense that encompasses tones, arrangements, songwriting, audio production, and everything else - you have to do it all.
My approach in 1999 was basically to play what I had, that was all I could do. At the time I was broke. I think I only had one guitar, a flametop green Jackson and I had these DC-10 Mesa Boogie heads. I think I had a cheap Shure wireless.
Well, basically Corey and I were in Stone Sour before we joined Slipknot.
With all the different guys in the band and all the different ideas of what's what, it's hard to get everybody on the same page sometimes. We are a very tight brotherhood, but we never know what we're going to do.
I'll admit that I don't have a lot of discipline when it comes to practicing. I'm not the type of guy who sits at home with a metronome and runs through scales and stuff like that. But I do go through phases when I'll be more diligent, and I notice that warming up and working on some patterns will make my playing cleaner.
I wanna buy vinyl and I want to listen to records on it. I want to put on 'Dark Side of the Moon' in the dining room while I'm eating pasta or whatever. You know what I mean.
You know, 'Mad Max' and 'The Road Warrior' was part of my childhood, and that's why I'm so close to it. I remember seeing those movies at a drive-in theater with my parents when I was very young.
With 'Iowa,' if you ask me, we really passed up a lot of things that we could have done with the two auxiliary drummers. I mean they hardly touched their drums on that album.
For Slipknot, I'd say drumming is only 50 or 60 percent of the job. The rest of it is who you are and what your personality is.
There's a lot for us to achieve and a lot more music to explore. I'm not saying we want to start doing experimental prog or something, where it turns into elevator music after a few records, but I don't think we've even scratched the surface.
One of the downfalls of not being in Stone Sour was I sat at home for two and a half years, and I hadn't ever done that since we started touring in 1999. I was really nervous and freaked out.
I've started to look at guitar playing from more than just a standpoint of using certain modes and techniques.
I don't seek out knowledge when it comes to guitar playing; I like to let it happen naturally.
You could say, 'Oh, we're gonna write the heaviest album of all time' or 'We're gonna write an album that sounds like 'Iowa.'' Even if we set out to try to do so, it would never compare. We're not those people anymore, we're not that band anymore.
There are many different artforms that are just being lost because the whole digital revolution has homogenized everything, turned it all into Walmart.
I'm definitely a lot more reserved without the mask on. And with the mask on, all those inhibitions kinda go out the window. I can act like Keith Richards, I guess!
The culture of buying an album on CD or vinyl has gone out of the window. A lot of kids don't really understand that, they just hop onto Limewire, or find a BitTorrent, or even just go onto iTunes if they're going to pay for something. It's just right there, there's no searching about.
