I think people are tired of fake music, man. And there’s a lot of it. Technology has reached the point where any boob can walk into a studio and with a little AutoTuning you can...

I’m a Gibson guy. I play anything from Hummingbirds to J200s.

Slipknot is the darkness; Stone Sour is the light. Slipknot is chaos; Stone Sour is structure.

When I write a book… it’s the same essential approach to music as with books. It has to be something I want to hear or read. Hopefully the audience comes along, since that’s the only...

I have ideas every day, and if I’m not carrying a pad of paper, I’m typing it into the notes thing on my iPhone, and it’s just ridiculous – idle hands are the devil’s plaything,...

As iconic a band as Metallica has become, I think sometimes we forget just how raw they were in the beginning of their career, and to a 15-year-old kid like me, it was just shattering....

I grew up poor in crappy situations… various crappy situations. What kept me sane was reading and music. I had so many different literary tastes growing up, be it fiction like Stephen King or Piers...

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.

The future is meant for those who are willing to let go of the worst parts of the past. When you cannot take two steps without turning around to inspect your footsteps, you are getting...

I’ve always gravitated towards those ultimate lines in songs, the line you grab on to. That line in ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ ‘Here we are now/Entertain us’ – the irony, the antagonism; that’s always stuck...

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...

So many people in the world would rather stay in a situation that’s painful but familiar because they’re comfortable with it. Not a lot of people have the strength or heart to realize when something’s...

I do definitely believe that there is life away from this planet. I mean, we’ve kind of established that with the fact that we found bacteria on meteorites, and we’ve kind of used that to...

I have that love for music, when you are finding either old gems that you never heard or newer stuff that perks your ear. It keeps you trying to look for new stuff to write...

I feel like I’ve got a novel in me somewhere, but that’s something… I was just talking to a buddy of mine about it, who’s a writer as well, and he’s nearly done with his...

Music is not a fucking soda. It is not a fucking insurance rate. It is not a fucking T-shirt. It is the only real religion that is worth devoting your soul to. It is the...

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.’

I’m not gonna do the same, tired, standard ‘I was born in a log cabin…’ kind of book. There’s so much more I want to do.

Some of the smartest people I know are metal fans.

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.

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...

Playing live is a lost art, and you don’t see a lot of bands that go out and play the way the older bands do. It’s a celebration, and a lot of people treat it...

Live your life, no matter what that life is.

I always tell the fans, ‘Screw it! Like what you like. Listen to what you want.’ Insisting that one type of music is better than the next is snobbery, and I have no time for...

I will always make music with Stone Sour. Stone Sour will always be here.

I got into Dio when I was still quite young. I remember seeing the video for ‘Rainbow In The Dark’ on MTV. That was my first taste of Dio. It wasn’t until years later that...

I was a Marvel kid, and I would have to say that Spiderman is my all-time favorite character. As I got older, my tastes developed a little bit more, and I would follow certain writers;...

The weird thing about metal fans is we’re all so maladjusted in a lot of ways. We’re individualistic and opinionated and severe in our personalities – sometimes we really turn each other off. A little...

There’s such a huge difference between a great arrangement of riffs and a song. Sometimes the two can be the same. But the difference is a song doesn’t necessarily need a riff, whereas a riff...

There is going to come a time when we have to accept who we are without the assistance of religion. That will be the dawn of true faith. We leave the big decisions to invisible...

The biggest difference between me and other artists out there is that they’ll put anything out to sell a record or sell a ticket.

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.

Mistakes you can learn from; sins stay with you forever.

I’m kind of lucky in the fact that I can take something that’s in my head and write it down, or I can listen to a piece of music that somebody else has written and...

I didn’t have the worst childhood, but I didn’t have the best, and when you grow up like that, you have certain limitations invariably stuck inside you. Slipknot was a way to work it out.

To be honest, and this comes out of left field, but I would love to do something with Jay-Z or Eminem. I have no limitations when it comes to the stuff I want to do...

The mind is left bereft when it is nothing more than a tool of regurgitation.

You don’t break ground by doing the same thing over and over and over. That’s like standing in place. You have to risk to gain it all.

A song is only as strong as its foundation, and when it comes so naturally in any setting, those are the songs that will hopefully outlive you, maybe even outlive the next generation of You.

If you are too overwhelmed, then when you sit down and try to write something, it feels forced. There’s nothing worse than forced music. I mean, this world has enough of that right now, where...

My grandmother is a huge Hawkeyes fan, so I, by proxy, have to be one. I’m more of a professional sports fan, and I’ve never been a huge college fan, but because of my grandmother,...

Too many people chase dreams that they don’t understand. Too many people try to go for things that they’d like to do, but they’re not realistic enough to know they don’t have the talent.

I have several books I can read over and over. With fiction, it’s ‘The Stand’ by Stephen King, which is my favorite all time. I read that at least once a year, the version which...

Things can get tough out there. I am in no way saying life is easy and we should breeze through it like a fart through silk filter; we are going to take our lumps and...

I’m such a horror geek, comic geek and action figure geek. I’m inspired by so much – from Hunter S. Thompson and Quentin Tarantino to ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Halloween’. Just show me something that...

I’m the guy that gets up at three in the morning to jot down an entire sheet of lyrics for something that won’t be recorded for six months. You have to get it down when...

Everyone knows Spiderman is my favorite superhero of all time. My favorite supervillain? George W. Bush.

People can talk about punk all they want, but after new wave put that down, metal is the voice of the disenfranchised and that need to become unhinged. That’s why it appeals to so many...

If you want to be taken seriously, always check your fly.

I’ve never tried to be anything but me. Even with Slipknot, where it can almost feel like a roll sometimes, it’s still a part of who I am. It’s a very strong and passionate part...