PressSlipknot Returns With Mindblowingly Massive Peavey PowerPeavey Two years apart seems to have only fanned the flames of Slipknot. With its trademarked tribal-like beats, churning guitars and guttural, grinding bass intact, Iowa's most famous export has returned with a new slab of aural punishment, the Rick Rubin-produced Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses. Slipknot betrays its bucolic breeding grounds once again on this new disc, proving that the time away hasn't softened the band's collective anger or penchant for penning pulverizing, relentless post-thrash riffs. After completing its self-described crowning achievement, Slipknot set out to reacquaint itself with the maggots—that's the not-so-affectionate name they gave their intensely loyal fan base—on the spring 2004 Jägermeister Music Tour, which wraps two weeks before the new album is even released. The Jäger Tour is the band's first major road trip since early 2002—that's because after two Platinum albums, including a #3 Billboard chart debut for Iowa, and more than one lap around the world, Slipknot needed a break. Who could blame them? As the chaotic Iowa jaunt wrapped, the nine masked men of Slipknot shuffled in wholly separate directions. When side projects sprang up like wildfire in the Slipknot camp during 2002 and 2003, maggots around the world were squirming with speculation that their boys in Slipknot would never get back down to business. Behind the scenes, though, Slipknot was already regrouping, and the band moved into Rubin's palatial (and purportedly haunted) L.A. home to record The Subliminal Verses, its fourth record, due May 25 via Roadrunner. Bassist Paul Gray played his newly acquired Peavey rig throughout the sessions, pushing his sound with Peavey GPS® 2600 power amps, Pro 810™ bass enclosures and the new Pro 1600™ bass amp head (that's 1600 massive Watts of power, folks). You can catch Paul with his Peavey rig on Ozzfest all summer, and on Slipknot's brutal new album.
Peavey: How long have you been playing bass and what were your most formative influences along the way? Paul: I started playing bass in 1990, but I started playing guitar in like '85 or '86. I switched to bass when I moved to Iowa because I basically didn't have any friends and I was in this music store checking out guitars and heard this guy talking about needing a bass player. He mentioned some bands they cover, and it was like Slayer and stuff like that, and I knew all those songs on guitar so I'm like, "I guess I can play them on bass," so I told them I played bass—I'd never played bass in my life! So I switched to bass, and that was it. From then on, I've been a bass player. I fell in love with bass because it's different. I had played guitar for so long, but bass was a whole different thing. My influences back then were anyone who was a bass player because I didn't know anything about actual bass playing. It was just watching anybody play and any little technique I could rip off of anybody. Did you find yourself sticking to root notes based on what the guitar was playing, or did you play scales? You know, yeah, it took me a long time, quite a few years, to think of playing bass as a bass instead of as a guitar, just copying guitar lines. That's what I did forever. I would play whatever the guitar line was playing; if that guitar had a little run, I did a little run (laughs). It took me a while to separate the two. During the Slipknot break, did you go back to the guitar or concentrate on bass? Oh yeah, I've always still played guitar. I write a lot of the music in Slipknot, so I'll write guitar riffs and show them to the guys. It's funny, 'cause I'll write a whole guitar part or song, and then I'll have to go back and write a bass part, so it's twice the work sometimes! Once Slipknot reconvened in L.A., who long did it take to coalesce? It was actually really quick. We needed that time off. We'd been a band since '95, and we'd been together every day for years and years, way before we were signed. When you're with each other every day, you're going to end up fighting and getting sick of each other, just like any family would. Taking that break was really good. We had a lot of weird business stuff going on and a lot of just … poison in the band, so when we got out to L.A., we cut out all that stuff: all the bad business and everything, and we found out that a lot of the stuff we were angry about had to do with outside influences. Once we got rid of that outside influence, we talked for about an hour and a half, two hours, and got everything out and that was it. We were back to getting it on. It took a couple of hours and we were ready to go. Did it take some jamming on old 'knot songs to get the mojo flowing? Yeah. Before we went out to L.A., we practiced at my house—that's where we rehearse—for a few weeks. Once we got out to L.A., we already had some songs written and we started writing (more). Did everyone write separately while the band was on hiatus? Everybody wrote parts here and there, so when we got together everybody had ideas. Joey (Jordison, drummer) and I got together for a while, too, during the break and put together some basic ideas. Like shells of songs, guitar riffs. Then everybody puts their own thing on it and the whole thing changes a lot. But yeah, once we got (out there) we started working as a band, writing together, and it really was cool. That's where we got the bulk of the material. Was that process any different from the first two records? You know, it wasn't really different. Once we got rid of all the bad stuff that was surrounding us, it felt really good. Everybody was really excited and pumped to be doing it. All kinds of ideas were flowing and we were really open-minded on this one. On the first album, we had those songs for a while and knew exactly what we were going to do, and on the second record, everybody thought we were gonna go, "Oh, we should write some commercial songs," but we wrote a completely opposite, scrappy album. This time, we didn't really know. We had no preconceived notions, and it left it wide open. So any idea, no matter what it was, we would (try it). If it sucked we cut it out, but most of it turned out pretty cool. That's why we have more different stuff on this album. It's a more eclectic album. Sonically, where do you fit into Slipknot? Do you play the "anchor" role because there are so many players in the band? Yeah, it's not really a flashy thing. I try to be more in the pocket with the drums. With nine people in the band, it's really easy to step on everybody, so my parts are more of a solid thing. I do have little flashy parts here and there, but it's more of a solid, rhythmic thing. We have three drummers, so it's easy to go all over the place and compromise other parts. What tunings do you use to get such a heavy thump? It's basically a dropped C# tuning. For basses, I have a couple of five-strings, but I do like four-strings. Does playing bass in Slipknot require more focus on tonal versatility or tons of power? Well, I definitely need the power to be heard over nine people (laughs). I definitely need something that will cut through, but no so much that it's overbearing. I guess I'm torn right in the middle. How did those reasons factor into choosing Peavey amps? I was happy (with my previous rig), but not totally happy with it. I never got exactly what I wanted with it. Some days, depending on where we were at, it would sound great and some days it wouldn't. I loved (the Peavey gear). I fell in love with it. It's weird because I hadn't completely gone with any particular amp yet, but I tried out a lot of different amps and I kept A/B'ing them with the Peavey stuff, and the Peavey stuff had everything I was looking for. It had huge low end, but it had kick-ass mids and it was really tight and punchy, and the highs didn't break up unless I wanted them to. It really was super tight. It also sounded really good with everybody in the band playing. It really fit into the mix of the whole band. Why did you choose the Jägermeister Music Tour and Ozzfest—two very high profile tours—to kick off the return of Slipknot? The Jäger Tour was perfect for us, because we were done with the album and it was a perfect time to get rolling, playing in somewhat smaller venues than we did on our last tour so we could reconnect with our fans. The whole Iowa tour was arenas and festivals, and it was big. We wanted to do these 2-, 3-, 4,000-seaters and get rolling again, and the bands we had with us were great: Fear Factory, Chimaira. After this we do Metallica for six weeks in Europe and then we come back to do Ozzfest. We've done Ozzfest twice, and it's always a great time. This time we're playing the second stage again, and we chose to do that because it's general admission. Every venue except for five is seated and the majority of our fans (like to hang out) in the grass. Even though a lot of them would be in the seats, too, we still like that whole general admission vibe. That's why we wanted to do the second stage. |