In a new chat with The Captain of Andertons Music, Jim Root shared whether he thinks Slipknot is a pop band.
“It’s really important not to put limits on what you can do creatively,” the guitarist said of the band’s creative process. “Like being genrefied, I guess — for lack of a better term. A lot of purists and pure metal heads don’t like that idea.”
He continued, “And a lot of people will say we’re not a metal band, and I wouldn’t disagree with them. I mean, when you listen to some of the Norwegian death metal, or some of the early stuff, late ’80s, early ’90s stuff, we’re definitely not that heavy, or whatever.”
Root also said the definition of heavy can vary and mentioned that calling Slipknot a ‘pop’ band wouldn’t be too far off either, explaining, “I did a podcast a while back over here, and the guy was like, ‘Well, you’re kind of really a pop band, aren’t you?'”
“And I couldn’t disagree with that either. Because, for me, pop and classic rock and some of the simple arrangements are the ones that have the most impact and mean more, and also let the vocals do what they need to do,” the musician added.
In a previous interview with Aggressive Tendencies, Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor also discussed the band’s genre. He stated, “I think we’re just kind of our own genre, to be honest. I mean, there’s all these different genres, and then there’s Slipknot, because when you hear us, you immediately know it’s us.”
“As far as labeling Slipknot a ‘nu metal’ thing, I think that really kind of came down to A) the timing, when we came out; and B) the fact that we were still using a lot of hip-hop elements and whatnot. But I think, honestly, we were more of a precursor to what they called the New Wave Of American Heavy Metal. I thought we were kind of filling in that gap,” the vocalist further noted.
Slipknot is scheduled to perform at Knotfest Australia on February 28. The band will have three more gigs in Australia.
