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METAL EDGE: I just recently discovered that you come up with a lot of the music for Slipknot on guitar, as well as being the main drummer. Have you been doing that for a long time? Joey Jordison: I've played guitar longer than I've been playing drums. I started playing guitar when I was five years old, and started fucking around with drums when I was seven, in a school band. But with guitar, I really had to study it, and drums just kind of "flew" out of me. I never had to learn how to play drums. Later, when I was in an early band of mine playing guitar, the drummer just wasn't able to keep up at all and really lagging the band behind, and I got really frustrated and said, "Fuck it, I'll do it." Then I got more into it, and started admiring people like Dave Lombardo and Keith Moon ME: Regarding Iowa, is this album "Slipknot goes death metal"? JJ: No, we're not "going" that, we've always been that. The thing is, I don't want to limit ourselves to that specific genre because we're all into various different types of musicv. In order for us to get the music out that we want, or the music that we want to create, we want to bring something new and not rehash shit. That's why we have nine guys in the band, because that's what it took to get us the sound that we wanted and the sound that we were craving, and that sound is not death metal or black metal. But we're lumped in with a bunch of bands right now because of our success that we really don't feel like we have anything in common with musically. This album is about making an about-face from all the other bands, to fucking get away from that whole genre of music. This is more of a "revenge" album to the nay-sayers that saying that we're pure metal or whatever. It wasn't done as a concious effort, it's just what flew out. ME: Are you and Daron [Malakian, from System of a Down] still going to work on a side-project together? JJ: Yeah, but we got too busy, the fame started taking everything over, so we never had time to really get together. Literally, right when we got off our last tour, right after the last day I was writing shit for the next record. We didn't take any days off. That's how much we care about this band. Now that we're going on tour together, maybe we'll be able to collaborate on some music. ME: Will the melodic sense of a song like "Wait & Bleed" disappear from future Slipknot albums? JJ: No, no...We're not that stupid! Corey has a very, very unique and special voice. I love his singing voice probably more that he does! There's not really anything like a "Wait & Bleed," which has that reoccurring, catchy corus, on this album. Maybe one or two that have that same vibe. But the melodies that he did for this record, such as for the song "My Plague," are probably the most insane melodies he's ever done. We're shooting a video for the song "Left Behind," and that also has the same type of thing. I guess that those songs are comparable to "Wait & Bleed." |