Slipknot’s Jim Root Confirms He Played Bass for Part of ‘.5: The Gray Chapter’

The beauty of the studio is you don't always have to have your band roster completely filled, especially if you have some multi-talented musicians in your group. And as many are well aware, Slipknot was in a period of transition before settling on their current lineup. As such, guitarist Jim Root was one of the band members who got to pull some double duty on '.5: The Gray Chapter.'

Root confirms to Music Radar that he did appear as bassist on several songs for the band's latest disc. "I played bass on six, maybe seven tracks," says Root. "I can't even remember which. I'd have to sit down with the guy who played bass on the other tracks to find out. Some of the lines were taken from the demo versions I recorded in my garage, because they were moody and had a unique vibe that was too hard to recreate. 'Goodbye' uses the full bass line that Corey [Taylor] recorded for his demo."

Root helped fill the spot left by the death of Slipknot's longtime bassist, Paul Gray, and he admits that he was hesitant about taking on the task. "I was prepared to do it if it had to be done," says Root. "But I didn't want to do it. Both the band members and, according to management, our fans, wanted to see somebody in there."

He goes on to add, "No one will ever replace Paul, and Paul will always be a part of what we're doing. But for me, if we're going to have a guy onstage -- which I'm not sure if we will yet, but most likely we will -- then it should be all or nothing. There was a speck of me that out of respect for Paul didn't want somebody new to play everything. But at the same time, if we're moving on this way, why hold on to things? I also didn't want to play bass because of the workload. I was already writing most of the songs, so that's a lot of playing, arranging and layering just for guitar."

It has been pretty much determined that Alessandro 'V-Man' Venturella is the band's new bassist, despite the band never officially revealing his identity. Slipknot are spending part of 2015 playing dates in Australia and Europe. See their tour itinerary here.

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