There's nothing wrong with the screaming style of singing, and I'll be the first to admit that it conveys an emotion. But I'm getting older, and I can't scream and shout about the same things anymore. The songs I'm writing with Stone Sour call for a lighter, different approach.
People can talk about punk all they want, but after new wave put that down, metal is the voice of the disenfranchised and that need to become unhinged. That's why it appeals to so many people when they are younger and carries over when those people, at 40, don't want to grow up.
I have very diverse tastes in music, and I don't, like, make distinctions between what I can't and can't listen to. In fact, I could never understand why anybody would do that in the first place. My attitude is, 'I can't make music if I don't like music.'
There's a certain darkness to Slipknot, but at the same time, there's a very strong dose of positivity. Stone Sour is the same way. There's a certain melancholy that comes with the slower stuff, but at the end of the day there's also that other side that is very positive. It's all how you deliver.
To be honest, and this comes out of left field, but I would love to do something with Jay-Z or Eminem. I have no limitations when it comes to the stuff I want to do musically. So to be able to do something like that I think would be really, really cool.
I don't feel guilty about the music I love. If you feel guilty about something you dig, then you should stop feeling guilty about it. One of my favorite albums to this day is the 10th anniversary ensemble cast of 'Les Miserables,' the ultimate cast recording, and it is still something I love listening to top to bottom.
Do what you do and mean it every second of the day. If you don't, you're living someone else's life.
When I'm working on a Slipknot song, it's like a switch flips in my head. I can go there easily - it doesn't take a lot of soul searching - and it's a dark, almost sinister place. Stone Sour is more the way I've always written. It's a different tone.
I'm the guy that gets up at three in the morning to jot down an entire sheet of lyrics for something that won't be recorded for six months. You have to get it down when you can, because thoughts are fluid.
I have that love for music, when you are finding either old gems that you never heard or newer stuff that perks your ear. It keeps you trying to look for new stuff to write about it. You don't spin your wheels. I take that same approach to music and books.
I'm a Gibson guy. I play anything from Hummingbirds to J200s.
My grandmother is a huge Hawkeyes fan, so I, by proxy, have to be one. I'm more of a professional sports fan, and I've never been a huge college fan, but because of my grandmother, I've gotten into a lot of really good Hawkeye games. So, because I'm a good grandson, I'm a Hawkeye fan.
I always tell the fans, 'Screw it! Like what you like. Listen to what you want.' Insisting that one type of music is better than the next is snobbery, and I have no time for that. Check out all the music that's out there. There's great stuff you're probably missing.
If you are too overwhelmed, then when you sit down and try to write something, it feels forced. There's nothing worse than forced music. I mean, this world has enough of that right now, where it's basically McDonald's making music. 'Everybody needs another hamburger and fries.' Here's a piece of crap that nobody's gonna care about it two years.
People such as Hunter S. Thompson and the Beats were a huge influence on me, not just in what they were saying, but how they said it.
The first year I was sober was probably the worst year of my life. My immune system was screwed. I completely isolated myself. I was weak all the time. I didn't know who I was.
The weird thing about metal fans is we're all so maladjusted in a lot of ways. We're individualistic and opinionated and severe in our personalities - sometimes we really turn each other off. A little bit of a metal fan goes a long way.
I've still got the same friends that I grew up with, I still go to the same places that I used to go to when I was younger, and it's just a very special place to me. I'm still very proud to call Iowa home.
I've seen everything from 'Wicked' to 'The Book Of Mormon,' and I don't make any bones of the fact that I love both. But 'Les Mis' is not only my favorite musical, but it's also my favorite story. I love the book, which I read as a kid, and I identified so much with Jean Valjean.
I feel like I've got a novel in me somewhere, but that's something... I was just talking to a buddy of mine about it, who's a writer as well, and he's nearly done with his first novel, and it's taken him 11, 12 years to do it. And I can totally understand; it's a long process.
