I've started to look at guitar playing from more than just a standpoint of using certain modes and techniques.

I wanna buy vinyl and I want to listen to records on it. I want to put on 'Dark Side of the Moon' in the dining room while I'm eating pasta or whatever. You know what I mean.

We're a unique band, so why have a generic producer lumping you in a box with other bands that sound the same?

Everything happens for a reason.

We're just kind of dark as humans, generally.

Iowa,' for me, I hated doing that album - it wasn't a good experience for me.

The masks, for us, are more of a way to present ourselves live, you know?

Sometimes, hindsight is 20/20. Sometimes it takes another situation to kind of make you look back at a different situation and really see how good you had it, you know?

Every time we go into the studio and use a different engineer or producer I try to look, listen and learn their approach. That has helped with the gear I look for to use live and in the studio.

My approach in 1999 was basically to play what I had, that was all I could do. At the time I was broke. I think I only had one guitar, a flametop green Jackson and I had these DC-10 Mesa Boogie heads. I think I had a cheap Shure wireless.

Well that's probably what'll end up happening: a load of really good musicians who can't afford to be in bands, who have to have day jobs, you know what I mean? And then that's when you start losing a lot of the live touring bands.

With all the different guys in the band and all the different ideas of what's what, it's hard to get everybody on the same page sometimes. We are a very tight brotherhood, but we never know what we're going to do.

I love Stone Sour. I love the music that we created. and it was a fun ride. But if I'm going to sacrifice all of my free time and my life for something, it has to be something that I a thousand-percent believe in, and something where I have a thousand-percent communication with everyone involved. And that something is Slipknot.

I can never look at anything I do subjectively - whether it's a Stone Sour record or a Slipknot record, I can never really have my own opinion of it, 'cos in my opinion it's all crap.

I've seen the Tortilla Guy hashtag when I'm going through my Instagram and all of that and I think it's pretty funny. It's weird because I've met this guy before, I know who he is, but he's really kind of elusive, even around our camp. I've had some people tell me, 'Don't tell us who he is. We're having fun trying to figure it out!'

I'll admit that I don't have a lot of discipline when it comes to practicing. I'm not the type of guy who sits at home with a metronome and runs through scales and stuff like that. But I do go through phases when I'll be more diligent, and I notice that warming up and working on some patterns will make my playing cleaner.

You spend 20 years doing something and when you're not doing it, it's hard to figure out what it is you're made of. Am I the guitarist in Slipknot and that is it, or do I have more dimensions than that?

You know, 'Mad Max' and 'The Road Warrior' was part of my childhood, and that's why I'm so close to it. I remember seeing those movies at a drive-in theater with my parents when I was very young.

I love 'Mad Max' and 'The Road Warrior,' in particular - those movies are very close to my soul, you know what I mean?!

We considered all sorts of names - everything from Tarantula Bomb to Superego to Section 8. Some of them were already taken, and some of them were kind of campy sounding. So we just decided to stick with Stone Sour. After all, what's in a name?

Well, basically Corey and I were in Stone Sour before we joined Slipknot.

Don't get me wrong - I'm still way into the metal, but I've been listening to different things like Radiohead, Portishead, Bjork, and Queens of the Stone Age.

You could say, 'Oh, we're gonna write the heaviest album of all time' or 'We're gonna write an album that sounds like 'Iowa.'' Even if we set out to try to do so, it would never compare. We're not those people anymore, we're not that band anymore.

I think that the only goals that we try to set for ourselves is to evolve musically.

I'd rather be creative and be artistic and be able to play intricate music that moves and really takes you on a journey.

Music is like wine, it ages beautifully - and if you spend enough time you can just sit there and listen to it entirely differently.

I'm just kind of more, like, I'm gonna take every day as it comes and that's gonna be good enough for me.

My first real real guitar I had was a Charvel, model 1 and that was when I was 15, I think, I got that.

I have a hard time with any sort of criticism; not because I have some huge ego or anything like that.

I feel weird talking about it, because how can I, as the guitar player of Slipknot, sit here and say, 'Oh, I have trouble.' You know what I mean?

I'm constantly writing, maybe a little more than other guys in the band. I find it a very therapeutic thing to do on the road, where you're estranged from your hobbies.

I don't like to try to put, like, 'Let's do this type of record,' 'cause it never turns out that way anyways.

There's always something to rage about, right?

There is a solo on 'Spiders,' albeit a kind of a non-traditional solo, but that's what I love.

You can't evaluate your situation when you're in a band, not really.

I can't be on tour constantly if I really want to be creative.

I like to improvise so much live because I get bored playing the same thing over again. It's like the kid at school that already knows all the answers so doodles all over the paper. I do that a lot live.

I don't seek out knowledge when it comes to guitar playing; I like to let it happen naturally.

Every experience you have in life can be applied to different things.

As you're touring there are so many layers to a live show, it has always been important for me to have a guitar that I can use live and in the studio.

I don't like to really dive too deep into politics.

The future of Slipknot is always in doubt. I always prepare for each album as if it's gonna be the last.

A&E eggnog, there's nothing like it anywhere on Earth. It's the best liquid ever made.

We do things the way we do them and we do them unashamedly. It's our art. If you don't like it, that's fine. You don't have to.

In my opinion, I would still like to go into a studio - because I love the environment of being in a studio - and record a great album beginning to end, but then maybe not release it as an album. Maybe put singles out there, put songs out there - either give some away or release some the traditional way.

The thing that scares me about the way the music industry has changed so much is that I'm afraid that the record, the album, will disappear, and it'll go back to the way it was in the '50s where everything is single-based.

I use Pro Tools version 9 LE at home and I take that on the road with me.

For one reason or another, a lot of guys wind up with a guitar that isn't really right for them.

I'm my own worst critic.