Read Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal Online
Authors: Jon Wiederhorn
BRENT HINDS:
While I was out, I had all these dreams. I was asleep for three days. I went a lot of places. It’s really hard to explain because of how vivid it is and all the stuff was—just complete sensory overload. I was there physically, but mentally I was not there at all. I was out in the universe. I’d be in Thailand or Bali or Hawaii or all these paradise-type places and everything was really mellow and I was happy. When I woke up three days after I was sucker punched I looked at everybody in my family and projectile vomited water, blood, and alcohol on everyone. It looked like sangria going everywhere. The fucker who sucker punched me had rings on his finger. He broke my nose so bad I had to wait eight months until the vertigo stopped and I could go back into the hospital under anesthesia and have them rebreak my nose again so I could breathe. It was really crazy how it made me want to play guitar more. I was just really grateful to have a second lease on life. I was like, okay, I’m just gonna play. I’m not gonna change my ways, but I am gonna play more and maybe that will change my ways more.
TROY SANDERS:
Thankfully, Brent was able to overcome his injuries after eight months of truly being in a haze. Thankfully, he was able to pick up a guitar and become as creative or more creative than he ever has been in his life. Physically and emotionally, we were more united as a team and as friends, more so than ever. That’s probably why [2009’s
Crack the Skye
] was the most cohesive piece of art we’ve ever crafted together.
From the beginning, Slipknot’s chosen path was infused with darkness. They thrived on hate and relished the acclaim it brought (from their largely disenfranchised fans). Aside from Corey Taylor’s suicide attempt, no one in the band had a public near-death experience. There were broken bones, assorted burns and cuts, and thousands of bruises, but nothing life-threatening. Then, on May 24, 2010, bassist and songwriter Paul Gray died in a hotel in Urbandale, Iowa. An autopsy revealed he had overdosed on a combination of morphine and a stronger but shorter-lasting narcotic called fentanyl. While Gray had a history of heroin use, he had reportedly cleaned up after meeting his girlfriend, Brenna, who was pregnant at the time of his death.
PAUL GRAY:
For
Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses
, I wrote a bunch of stuff—like I do every record—but I would spend half the time in the bathroom [doing drugs]. And I’d be trying to play and I’d fall out of my chair a couple times and fall asleep in the middle of tracking a fucking song. It was pretty bad. I was getting depressed that the band might break up. I was like, “What would I do?” This has been the best thing that ever happened to me. So I’ve never wanted to leave this. Maybe that was partly the reason for the drug use. I’d hear someone say, “Fuck it, I’m quitting. I’m out.” That would fucking freak me out. I’d be like, “What the fuck? What are we gonna do now?” And I’d just dig myself in deeper holes. All that had to stop. But once you get to a certain point, it’s fuckin’ so hard going through withdrawal. It’s so bad. It’s not that you don’t want to quit. You just can’t. Going through rehab kept me good for a little while and then we got back out on the road and I just knew too many people and I started using a lot again. I would clean up and then I’d do shit again. I had some near-death experiences and a few stints of rehab here and there. I got left in rehab at the end of the arena tour with Shadows Fall and Lamb of God. It was the same place Lindsay Lohan went. I missed the last six shows of the tour. That’s when I really started going, “Fuck, I need to figure my shit out.” When we got done with the whole
Subliminal
tour, well, idle hands do the devil’s work. I met my wife and she stayed with me and helped me. But then I’d full-on run with it again. Finally she said, “I can’t sit around and watch you kill yourself.” So we moved back to Iowa and I went to my doctor and got straightened out. I have friends, though, who pushed it just the same way, and they
are
dead.
JIM ROOT:
I had just driven home from the studio in Nashville to my place in Florida when I got a call from our manager. At the same time, Clown called me. That’s how I found out Paul was dead. We were done with Stone Sour’s 2010 album
Audio Secrecy
and I got the call the next morning. I was home for less than twenty-four hours before I was on a plane to go to Iowa to say goodbye. Then less than a week after that we were on a plane to Europe to start a European tour. I didn’t even have a chance to sit down and really think about it. We had even talked about getting together to start writing some shit for the next Slipknot record. When Stone Sour was on a festival with Metallica, James Hetfield was really helpful. He came out of nowhere when we were in Greece and sat down and talked to me for about an hour about what happened to Paul. He said, “If you need an ear, if you need somebody to talk to, you know where I am.” They went through the same thing with [late bassist] Cliff [Burton], so James
knows
. He said in some ways they really didn’t deal with it. He wanted to make sure we didn’t make some of the same mistakes they made throughout their grieving process.
COREY TAYLOR:
James did the same thing with me. For him to reach out was really, really cool. That was absolutely reassuring. He and Lars were both very cool about it. But honestly, it was still uncomfortable to talk about, even two years after it happened. It’s one of those things I wear close to my chest and still try to process.
ANDY COLSEFNI:
[Paul] was staying at that hotel for a couple of weeks and he was going there to meet up with Donnie [Steele] to write music for a new Body Pit CD they were planning after Slipknot’s next tour. Paul must have had this room reserved to try to keep all that [drug] crap away from his wife.
JIM ROOT:
What do we do now? Some people say it will never be the same. Now that I’ve had a little time to think about it [I wonder], do we kill an entire band, an entire culture, over something that took Paul? Paul just wanted to jam. That’s all he ever wanted. He was
that
dude. He was a talented motherfucker and he would think we were a bunch of fucking idiots if we didn’t keep jamming.
In 2011, Slipknot did a short European tour, headlining the Sonisphere Festival, among other European festivals. Taylor called the gigs a “celebration” and tribute to Gray. Original Slipknot guitarist and Body Pit bandmate Donnie Steele filled in for Gray on the tour, though he was hidden from the audience’s view. In 2012, Slipknot headlined the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival with Slayer.
COREY TAYLOR:
After we were able to grieve for a while we decided that we were going to keep going. And by the time we agreed to headline the 2012 Mayhem festival, we knew we were going to do another record. I’ve already got some ideas and Joey sent me some stuff he’s been writing. But it’s gonna be a couple years before we’ll be able to get together and do it. It’s nothing any of us want to rush into.
DES MOINES REGISTER
(September 6, 2012): Des Moines physician Daniel Baldi was charged with eight counts of involuntary manslaughter for allegedly prescribing large amounts of narcotic painkillers to patients who later died of overdoses. One of the eight patients was identified in court papers as Paul Gray.
SLIPKNOT STATEMENT (September 6, 2012):
As the loss of our brother Paul Gray is still very fresh for us in the Slipknot family, this new development has us all in a state of anger and sadness. The fact that this person took advantage of our brother’s illness while he was in a position to help others has outraged everyone in our family. We can only hope that justice will be served so this can NEVER happen to anyone else ever again.
T
he development of metal is like the evolution of a virus. Microscopic organisms replicate inside living cells, and to ensure their survival, they adapt and mutate over generations. Not that headbangers are afflicted with a debilitating disease. On the contrary, the relationship between metal fans and the “metal virus” is symbiotic, and once infected, the host becomes empowered and, for a while at least, thrives on the chaos, aggression, and sense of individuality and community that metal provides. Various metal bands understand the contagious quality of the music they create: Anthrax named its second album
Spreading the Diseas
e in 1985; Carcass called its 1989 record
Symphonies of Sickness
. Then there was Disturbed’s career-skyrocketing single “Down with the Sickness” in 1999.
The base musical and cultural elements motivating the current crop of young metalheads is different than those that inspired fans of Blue Cheer and Alice Cooper in the sixties, but the core compounds are the same. Those who harbor the metal virus know that the music they love is rooted in intensity, nonconformity, and escapism, regardless of the era in which it spawned. And, unbeknownst to its adversaries, who seem to view metal fans as a single mass of knuckle-dragging troglodytes, metal affects men and women of all races, creeds, and social classes. There are metalheads with academic degrees who seek solace in the stress relief and mathematical intricacies of the genre, and middle-class adults who still cling to the music’s volume and power, either because it keeps them feeling young or because they still revel in the bursts of energy it provides. There are soldiers who rely on metal’s aggression and muscle to give them strength in life-threatening situations and help them survive post-traumatic stress disorder. Then there are those the metal virus feeds upon most ravenously—the young.
Metal speaks to young people like nothing else can, and it convinces them that, with their favorite bands and albums as an anchor, they can survive pain, depression, and almost any type of adversity and then revel in their rebellion, partying and tearing shit up simply because they can. It doesn’t have to be a life-or-death thing. They might just be regular suburban teens disenfranchised in a society of conformists, jocks, and cheerleaders. Regardless, for each subtype infected or enlightened by metal, it’s the music no one else understands or appreciates, filled with “heroes” the mainstream regards as degenerates or morons because they can’t relate to the thunderous release the music provides. To those untouched by the metal virus, the music is “just a bunch of noise,” it “all sounds the same,” “has no musical value,” or “sends out negative messages that warp minds and promote violence.”
What the ignorant consistently fail to realize is that the more they dismiss the music, the more passionate metal’s followers become about the force that gets them through the day. Like a virus, metal has grown so rapidly and gone through so many permutations that all metalheads don’t even fit under the same umbrella. You won’t find many Deicide fans listening to Mötley Crüe, while Tool followers aren’t lining up to catch Napalm Death at their local dive.
But that’s just fine; infection is strengthened by adversity, and the necessary cross-pollination of metal’s subgenres over the years has kept the music vital, even as record labels and other corporate entities struggled to contain, stamp, and commodify it. Metal is an infectious disease; a beast to be respected, not caged. In a way, it’s like the Terminator. “It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop—ever.”
Throughout the past four decades, fans of other styles of music have repeatedly declared that metal is dead. It was supposed to be supplanted by punk in the seventies, by New Wave in the eighties, and by grunge in the nineties. Yet even during eras when it was least popular, the music continued to evolve and gain power in the underground. Then when the masses were angry enough at the state of the world—and disgruntled by the lack of passion and substance in popular music—metal rose from the dirt to inspire once again.
Of course, predicting when that will happen is like guessing when massive earthquakes will obliterate major cities. It’s hardly a perfect science. But until then, the current crop of metal will continue to affect and infect. Survivors from past eras will keep kneeling at their respective altars of noise, while new generations of sonic terrorists—be they metalcore, deathcore, avant-black metal, or a subgenre as yet undiscovered—will keep forming and mutating to make their mark and struggle for survival. As long as there is anger, disenfranchisement, corruption, abuse, and angst, the heavy metal microbe will continue to multiply and seek new, willing hosts.
—JON WIEDERHORN
“It stimulates, regenerates / It’s therapeutic healing. / It lifts our feet up off the ground /and blasts us through the ceiling. . . . Heavy Metal / What do you want? / Heavy Metal.”
“H
EAVY
M
ETAL
,”
R
AM
I
T
D
OWN
—J
UDAS
P
RIEST
H
aving experienced and performed through four-plus decades of the music we now know as heavy metal, there are several things I can say with confidence. Metal was not born; it evolved from other existing sounds, ideas, and technologies. It can therefore never die. Over the years, its popularity has risen and fallen, but metal always bounces back, usually better than before. And those who choose to write and play it always find ways to deconstruct or modify it for a new audience. Whether it’s New Wave of British Heavy Metal, thrash, death metal, black metal, nu metal, or metalcore, discovering a new subgenre of metal music is like finding the key to an exotic kingdom. Open the door and excitement, empowerment, and enjoyment wait on the other side. Why does metal have the ability to touch its audience so profoundly? Because metal gives people an identity and a cause, a motivation to come together—especially in a live arena—and be united with other people who share the love for metal’s power.