I love the fact that people can relate to what I’m saying, even if it’s not for the same subject I was writing about. That is the power of real music and real expression.
Do you serve a purpose, or purposely serve?
I still have night terrors about things happening to my son. The worst things cross your mind when you care so much. I keep them at bay as best I can, and it’s a struggle for me not to just do everything for him.
You cannot kill what you did NOT create.
When I was a kid, I had THE biggest crush on Helen Reddy. I mean like for REAL crush – like ‘spend some time in the bathroom thinking about her’ crush. I blme Pete’s Dragon. There she was – flushed, singing, clas in a tight wet plaid shirt. Judas Priest she was fabulous.
The way I make music is just a reflection of how I think music should be made. Where you sit in a studio, and you make music, and you use technology to your advantage, not to hide all the blaring mistakes.
Nobody can dare me to do anything that I don’t come up with on my own.
I still harbor lingering doubts about most people. I guess I always will.
If you want to be taken seriously, always check your fly.
As a writer, as a lyricist, you’re just trying to make sure that you’re not repeating yourself. And that’s a danger for a lot of people. So for me, I just try to keep taking corners and trying to find new paths.
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.
As much as I love Slipknot, I don’t want that to carry over into what I do for Stone Sour. I want both bands to stand on their own.
You can’t see California without Marlon Brando’s eyes.
But I always kind of knew in the back of my head that I could come back and do Stone Sour.
There’s times when I’m cleaning the kitchen, and while I’m doing that, I’m singing and air guitaring with a broom to ‘You Should Be Dancing.’
If you feel like talking, you talk, if you don’t, you don’t.
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.
I’m a very lucky guy. I get to write music that I love, and lo and behold, people seem to really like it. I know how fortunate I am.
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.
The fact that the public are mesmerised by Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and all these miserable people makes me laugh because those celebrities are more miserable than the people reading about them for escapism.