Corey Taylor Talks Stone Sour’s Split with Jim Root + Tense Slipknot Recording Sessions

Back in May, Jim Root and Stone Sour announced they had parted ways in a less than amicable way. Root wrote that it was not his decision and that he was “not happy about it.” The band released a statement confirming they had “indeed parted ways.” Adding, “We were trying to wait until the completion of the new Slipknot album. We feel its best for both bands and hope that is reflected in the days to come.”

Meanwhile Root and Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor had to quickly move past the awkward situation to work together on the new Slipknot album. Corey Taylor recently opened up in an interview in Revolver magazine about the tense sessions saying, “It was difficult, at first. It put a strain between he and I for a little bit. It was one of those things where the timing just sucked. But at the same time, we knew that, on both sides, we’ve gotta do what we’ve gotta do.”

Taylor added, “At the same time, we had this amazing project that we were working on [with Slipknot], so we were able to kind of channel that and put it into what we were making, which I think in a lot of ways helped the overall aggression and emotion really get there."

Taylor also believes that the stress of the split between Stone Sour and Root really fueled Slipknot, “The riffs on this album really dig and really bite, and I think a lot of that [situation] fueled Jim’s writing.” The singer said while the circumstances were tense, it was no here near as rigid as the ‘All Hope is Gone’ sessions. “I can say this with absolute honesty. I had so much more fun making this album than I did making 'All Hope Is Gone.' It was just easier.” He added, “This one felt much more like a concerted effort. I think we all realized how important it was. We knew that we wanted to make something special.”

There has been a lot of change over the past few years in the Slipknot camp following the death of Paul Gray and parting ways with Joey Jordison, which upped the ante for the highly anticipated new album. “We knew that we had huge shoes to fill. We all realized that we’d taken a lot of s--- for granted; and when you realize that, you start to look at people differently, you start to treat people differently.” Taylor concluded, “We were able to come together as a band and as a team again, and really do something cool—not just for ourselves, but for our fans.”

You can read the entire Revolver interview here, and get Jim Root's take on his split with Stone Sour here.

Slipknot will release ‘.5: The Gray Chapter’ on Oct. 21. The album is available for pre-order at Amazon and iTunes. The band will perform at Knotfest in San Bernardino, Calif. on Oct. 25 and 26. Check out all their tour dates here.