In a new conversation with Andertons Music Co, Jim Root revealed that Corey Taylor makes the decisions on Slipknot’s new songs.
The guitarist initially said his playing with Mick Thomson depends on the song and how it’s made, whether it’s his idea or a band effort. He added, “But if I’m at home, and the only reason I’m talking about this is because it’s what I’m most familiar with, I always write thinking about what not just Mick is gonna be doing, but what Clown or [percussionist Michael] Pfaff or any of the other guys are gonna be doing, and I always think about leaving space.”
Root continued, “The only question is, what’s Corey gonna do? So if I write a four- or five-minute-long arrangement and I’ve got it set up so there’s an intro and then there’s a verse line and then a pre-chorus and a chorus and then a middle eight section or a breakdown and then it all repeats or whatever, I might give it to him and he might wanna sing a chorus over what I thought was a verse or he might take this little pre-chorus section and want that to be the verse.”
“So I have to be real free with what I write so that I don’t get married to how it is in my head. That way, I’ll send it off to Corey first and see if it’s… And sometimes he’ll just write over what I give him and we won’t change anything. And other times it’s that evolution. And then, as far as guitar parts, like I’ll always do a left and right guitar track,” the rocker explained.
He went on to say, “And even in the studio, Mick and I will do hard left and right tracks. But there might be songs where, if it happens to be a song that I wrote at home, he might wanna be, like, ‘That rhythm’s really cool, but I have this idea and I’m gonna play this.'”
“And that’s great ’cause it adds a whole another new dimension to the song that I wouldn’t have thought of, which is great. When you become so attached to something and you’re so in your head with it, you can’t look at it objectively, but you give it to somebody like Mick and he hears it from a totally different standpoint and a different style of playing even, and he does something that wouldn’t even occur to me,” Root shared.
He concluded his words, saying, “And then all of a sudden that’s the thing that takes the song and lifts it to where it needs to be.”
