Jim Root discusses plans for a raw, old-school Slipknot sound for the upcoming music

When Slipknot finally begins working on their eventual eighth studio album, guitarist Jim Root hopes to relive some of the early fire that catapulted the masked Iowan band to superstardom. Root, who previously discussed his lack of inspiration for new music late last year, seems to have changed his mind after making an appearance on the “Turning Wrenches Podcast” recently. He now has six arrangement ideas to his credit. According to a comment from the aforementioned podcast, Root has been working on something.

I’ve got like six finished arrangements that so far nobody else has heard yet. They’re about ready to go to Clown and Corey and then filter out into the rest of the band. I would really like to release something before we start working on a record. Because I think we need to be able to take our time to write and do pre-production and that’s gonna take awhile, so I would like to get something out sooner to kinda satisfy… I don’t know if it would show a direction or not, it depends on what arrangement it is. But of these six I have now, I’m willing to throw those out to the rest of the guys and see if any of them grab their attention. We could very easily — after we get back from Europe — get out to Clown‘s studio and then start working on one, and put one out. I would like to do 1, 2 maybe even 3 [singles] in the meantime. As long as that affords me the time to keep writing and still have 25 separate from those 3 that we could work on before. You always want to have way more material than what you’re gonna need, because you might be working on something that you think is absolutely amazing, but then once you actually start recording it, it kinda loses the vibe. And then there’s always that one weird song that you don’t think is great, and then all of a sudden that turns into the song that’s like, ‘Woah, where did this come from? This thing’s a banger.’ “Devil In I” is one of those songs. I wrote that song and I thought it was really repetitive and I hated it and it was just gonna become like a filler idea. And then all of a sudden that’s one that we always throw in live sets, and the record label wanted to make it a single, and I’m just like, ‘Really? It’s almost like the same two riffs over again.’ It literally, as long as it took me to play that song, is as long as it took me to write the arrangement for it, so… things surprise you. So it would be cool to sort of throw something out there as sort of a single or an EP.

Fans may be a little disappointed by this news because the band teased the new song “Long May You Die” just over a year ago, giving the impression that it was in the works. He also listed his expectations for the day Slipknot really begin writing their next album.

I want to make a raw album that kind of like, you know, I don’t ever want to repeat myself, we don’t as a band ever want to repeat ourselves… But I would like to revisit the raw energy of how those first two records were recorded and even into the ‘Volume 3‘ record… There’s just something really stripped down and punk rock about it and I think we’ve been missing that on our past few records and I think it’s time to get back to that in some ways.

While Slipknot in the late 1990s and early 2000s was a whole different beast, the raw aesthetic featured on their first forays into the mainstream, 1999’s self-titled and 2001’s “Iowa,” owes a lot to producer Ross Robinson’s unusually aggressive production technique. Though there have been unfounded reports that the band intends to rejoin with Robinson throughout the years, the two appear to be friends, having spent time together last fall. Root was also questioned if there are any plans to republish the band’s self-titled 1999 album to commemorate its 25th anniversary. He stated that he has heard of certain remasters being completed for a forthcoming anniversary release. However, he is unsure when fans may expect it.

I don’t have any news as to when it’s happening, but it is happening.