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...

You gotta remember: we’re musicians… we’re just crazy people who can’t get along sometimes. I’ve definitely come to the table with my knife in my pocket a couple of times; you know how it is....

My biggest influences were 1980s punk and metal. Metallica were my biggest influence because they were good at everything – riffs, energy – but with such an ear for melody, it was hard not to...

Everyone one-on-one will be completely honest about the music that they listen to. But then you get into a group situation, and then it’s the cool/uncool debate. I have really done my very best to...

I don’t mean to be overly sensitive or anything like that, but you just have to take a minute in every day, and just reflect on where you are, and just realise what you’ve got,...

The first year I was sober was probably the worst year of my life. My immune system was screwed. I completely isolated myself. I was weak all the time. I didn’t know who I was.

The people I respect the least are the ones that take themselves way too seriously.

I’ve seen everything from ‘Wicked’ to ‘The Book Of Mormon,’ and I don’t make any bones of the fact that I love both. But ‘Les Mis’ is not only my favorite musical, but it’s also...

Do what you do and mean it every second of the day. If you don’t, you’re living someone else’s life.

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.

I have a really good idea for a novel and would like to just kind of try my hand at fiction. I’m starting to kind of get a really good body of work going from...

Nobody can dare me to do anything that I don’t come up with on my own.

To me, it makes more sense to write different songs and to play different kinds of music and to find your own voice. But no matter what, get out and play for people. Get out...

I write almost all my songs on an acoustic guitar, even if they turn into rock songs, hard rock songs, metal songs, heavy metal songs, really heavy songs… I love writing on an acoustic because...

‘The Blair Witch Project’ is great for motion sickness. The first time you see it, it is extremely creepy. The first time I saw it, I saw it on a bootleg tape on a tour...

There’s nothing wrong with the screaming style of singing, and I’ll be the first to admit that it conveys an emotion. But I’m getting older, and I can’t scream and shout about the same things...

I am the kind of guy who has never taken myself too seriously. I mean, I am very serious about what I do; I’m very serious about the creative process and everything, but at the...

I have very diverse tastes in music, and I don’t, like, make distinctions between what I can’t and can’t listen to. In fact, I could never understand why anybody would do that in the first...

There’s a certain darkness to Slipknot, but at the same time, there’s a very strong dose of positivity. Stone Sour is the same way. There’s a certain melancholy that comes with the slower stuff, but...

With ‘Seven Deadly Sins,’ there was a lot of personal stuff in there that I didn’t even realize I’d been carrying around for awhile. And a lot of guilt involved, a lot of emotion, a...

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.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a joke – the fact that Madonna is in before Rush and Kiss. Those two bands have influenced so many groups and people other than in metal.

I don’t feel guilty about the music I love. If you feel guilty about something you dig, then you should stop feeling guilty about it. One of my favorite albums to this day is the...

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...

I’ve had to really teach myself that when you’re not feeling it, you shouldn’t write anything down because you’re going to end up coming back and re-writing it later. Whereas, if you write when you’re...

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...