As the tour announcements and festival lineups continue to pour in, you may have noticed that none of them have involved Slipknot. While they enjoyed a massive headlining tour with Marilyn Manson last summer, it looks like they'll be staying home this year, but they've got a good reason as guitarist Mick Thomson has explained.

Speaking about the current status of Slipknot with BackstageAxxess (audio below), the axeman said, "We just finished… We spent a long time… well, a couple of years touring, but then there was a whole year before that of writing and recording and all that s--t." Looking forward, Thomson added, "So we have a little break right now. I think Corey's [Taylor] out doing his own stuff. Or if he isn't, he's about to be. So we're gonna work on writing some s--t and we'll be probably back out on the road after we do another record."

It's been three years since Slipknot released .5: The Gray Chapter, which was also the first album to feature drummer Jay Weinberg behind the kit in place of the ousted skinsman Joey Jordison as well as bassist Alessandro Venturella, who was tapped as Paul Gray's replacement.

Back in late November, percussionist Shawn 'Clown' Crahan had said that he and guitarist Jim Root would team up to start writing for the next Slipknot album, but it seemed to be casual as he explained, "We just want to write." No details have come forth as to exactly when the band anticipate their next record to be released.

So, be patient, Slipknot fans and in the meantime, there's always Stone Sour's new album, Hydrograd, to look forward to later this year with Taylor at the vocal helm.

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