Peter Hodgson of IHeartGuitarBlog.com interviewed STONE SOUR/SLIPKNOT’s guitarist Jim Root. Check out some excerpts.

August 31st, 2010 | Author: Peter Hodgson

Jim Root is one of the most versatile guitarists in rock. He gets to explore the darkest corners of metal – thrash, death, grind – in Slipknot, and he stretches out even further in Stone Sour. The band was formed in 1992 by future Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor – Root joined in 1995 – and after a four-year hiatus it was reactivated in 2002, quickly establishing huge critical and fan acclaim. The new Stone Sour album, Audio Secrecy, was produced by Nick Raskulinecz [Alice In Chains’ Black Gives Way To Blue, Deftones’ Diamond Eyes, Rush’s Snakes & Arrows], and is released by Roadrunner in September (September 3 in Australia and Germany, September 6 in the UK, and September 9 in the US).

I understand you and Josh Rand recorded most of your guitar parts at the same time?

Yeah, about 90% of the songs were recorded at the same time. We record what we call ‘stripes,’ which is basically the entire band with the exception of [drummer] Roy Mayorga, playing to a click track. Then Roy can play along to these tracks and play around them. He kind of pushes and pulls around the click track a little bit anyways. We wanted a polished but still live-feeling record. When me and Josh started tracking live next to each other it was cool because we would kind of lock in with each other a little bit tighter rather than me going first and then him trying to lock in with the way I play or vice versa. You can hear everything that’s going on, I play a little bit more like him, he plays a little bit more like me, and it’s all very organic.

I’ve noticed in the last couple of years, a lot of the bands I’ve interviewed have gone back to more traditional ways of doing things – making an actual recording rather than a production.

And that’s the thing that freaked me out a little bit when we were working with [producer] Dave Fortman. I saw him and his engineer cutting and pasting stuff and I just about fucking freaked out! ‘What are you doing!?! No, we’re not doing that!’ I’m a guitar player. That means I play guitar, you know what I mean? You’re not going to get one good round take of a measure then stretch it out over eight bars, you know what I mean? That’s not how we’re doing this.

Nick Raskulinecz has produced a great albums for Alice In Chains and Deftones lately, and he did Stone Sour’s last album, Come What(ever) May. What’s he like to work with?

Nick, he’s cool, man. I’ve worked with a few different producers and Nick’s like a combination of a few different guys. He’s not like ‘my way or the highway.’ He’s very hands on. He’s very involved with everything from the beginning until the end. Sometimes he can be a little disorganised, but it’s rock and roll, you know what I mean, we’re not punching a clock. We just figure out what we’re gonna do that day. He’s a little bit like Ross [Robinson] in the fact that he gets you pumped up and he gets you excited about what you’re doing, and he’s a little bit like [Rick] Rubin in that he’s a little bit precise and if shit isn’t sounding good we’ll go back and do it and do it until it does. And he’s really involved with pre-production too, which is a cool thing, especially for us because we don’t have a whole lot of time for that type of stuff. Corey and I are juggling Slipknot and Stone Sour so it’s basically right off the road and into the studio.

So your approach to guitar in Stone Sour – obviously you have a lot of room to throw in different styles and things.

I kinda get to do a lot of everything in both bands. I don’t really go into a record with a certain goal, like I’m going to do this, or I’m going to play this certain way. I just live in the moment as it comes, and it’s a lot more natural and organic. If there’s a tune we’re working on that someone else has written, I like to approach that song – like, I’ll learn that song in preproduction, obviously – but when it comes to laying different guitar tracks and coming up with different melody lines and stuff, I like to hit that on the spur of the moment, because usually what happens is, nine out of ten times, the first thing you come up with right off the top of your head ends up being the best thing. And then you’re chasing that the rest of the time. You can always take that first thing, as long as it’s been captured on the computer – I was going to say tape but you don’t use that any more! As long as it’s captured and it’s there, even if there’s a clam or a bad not you can be like, ‘That’s the vibe of what it is,’ and you can build on it from there. To me that’s where the most natural and hookiest stuff comes from.

FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW PLEASE CLICK HERE.