Late Slipknot bassist Paul Gray plays a large role on the groups forthcoming new album “.5: The Gray Chapter“. Band guitarist Jim Root relayed one possibly otherworldly experience in the studio to Revolver as part of an upcoming cover story:

“It’s weird, man. I’m not a very spiritual person, and the whole religion thing, I’m kind of on the fence about a lot of that stuff. So when somebody loses someone who’s close to them and says that they’re still with them, I’ve always thought that was bullshit or whatever.



But I was out in the garage and working on an arrangement for a song that turned into either ‘The Devil In I’ or ‘Sarcastrophe.’ Normally when I write, I throw down the first thing I come up with, then I double it, then I throw a bass on it, and then I put the drums around it. But on this arrangement, I noticed that I wasn’t just throwing the riff down—I was trying different variations on it, trying different positions on the neck, and thinking about melodies while coming up with what the chord progression was going to be…



I suddenly realized, Fuck, man! That’s what Paul used to do! Paul was so meticulous. He would overthink everything, even if it was just how to get from one chord to the next chord. He would explore every possibility on the fretboard, especially if he was writing it on the guitar. And it made me go, He’s here, man—he’s helping me write this shit! And it blew my fucking mind. I had to put my guitar down, and I put my head in my hands. I was like, You fucker!”

Band frontman Corey Taylor also added of the effort:

“There’s a lot of pain on here, there’s a lot of honesty, there’s a lot of insight as far as what we’ve been through. There’s some anger, too. I mean, when you lose someone, there’s naturally part of you that gets really angry that you lost them. At the same time, you kind of have to concede that you have to be happy for the time you got with that person. A lot of stuff is pointed inwardly, as well, because naturally there’s a lot of survivor’s guilt going on, like, ‘What could I have done?’ That’s the burden of people left behind. You never get a good answer. All you can kind of do is make peace with it. And that’s what a lot of this album is about—making peace with the loss that we’ve suffered.”

“.5: The Gray Chapter” is due in stores October 21st on Roadrunner. Pre-Order the brand new album now from iTunes / Amazon.com