Song Exploder - Slipknot - Unsainted

Episode Date: October 30, 2019

Slipknot is a Grammy-winning metal band from Des Moines, Iowa, who first formed in 1995. They’ve sold over 30 million records. In this episode, guitarist Jim Root breaks down how Slipknot made the song, “Unsainted,” from their 2019 album We Are Not Your Kind. songexploder.net/slipknot

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they remain. My name is Tau Wynn. This episode contains explicit language. Slipknot is a Grammy-winning metal band from Des Moines, Iowa, who first formed in 1995. They've sold over 30 million records. In this episode, guitarist Jim Root breaks down how Slipknot made the song unsainted from their 2019 album, We Are Not Your Kind. My name is James Rup, and I play guitar in a band called SlipDot. This song is an amalgamation of some stuff that I had written at home, some riffs,

and then some jams that I do with our drummer, you know, ideas that we'd come up with while we were touring. That melody line is what birthed that tune. I always have melodies rolling through my head, and I don't always, I don't really know where they come from. In order to kind of reel it all in, I would go out to Los Angeles and work, with our producer, Greg Fiddleman, who's very influential in helping me sort all the things in my brain out and make sense of them. Sometimes I end up forgetting them, but, you know,

this is the benefit of having a Greg Fiddlement in time to work in a studio, because you can just sit there and you can get all these melody lines out, and eventually they evolve into a song like Uncainted. I've purposely made it a point not to become a schooled guitar player because I feel like I would become too logical with it and think, well, I can't do that because that's an augmented this or that's a fifth of that and that doesn't fit with the scale or whatever. You know, I feel like it needs to be more organic. Essentially, a song will tell you

where it wants to go and what it needs. You may have to, you know, give it a little push or help it here and there. But this one, all the riffs that came in separately all fit together so well. You can kind of get the gist of what something's going to be like. when Jay actually starts putting real drums to it, that sort of starts to bring everything to life.

We have Jay Weinberg on drums. We would just do like jam sessions where Jay and I would just, he'd just play a beat and I'd just riff over the top of it. Or I'd come up with a riff and he would just do a bunch of different beats underneath the back of it. He was able to really, you know, explore the room

and just try a little bit of everything, whether it's four on the floor beats or blast beats or Tom Beats, or Tom beats. But then when it came time to track, that's when we really honed in on what the parts should be. That's clown playing the keg.

Sean Cran, he is the percussionist and mastermind behind our artwork and the vision of Slipknot, essentially. And he knows different places to hit kegs to get different notes out of something that is a container for beer. You know, that's an important part

of what Slipknot is, the percussion, and depending on how he plays the keg, it can either give it kind of an industrial vibe, or it can give it a really ambient sort of dark, moody vibe. It definitely adds a layer to our band that not a lot of bands have. One of the things I've tried to achieve as a songwriter, not just a guitar player, is to be able to write songs that have different elements, but to have them flow seamlessly. For the middle breakdown, we do a thing where we do a thing where we do a thing where everything drops out, it's one guitar doing like a full step bend down. And then the other guitar comes in with a minor third harmony above it.

And then I come in with a melody halfway through. Let's harmonize the harmony. And then it goes from this drony minor third harmony to like a major upbeat blast beat. I just think that's so cool. Just the way that sounds together where you'll have something switch gears on. 180 degrees and all of a sudden it's like you're listening to a different song and To have that turn into a really nice smooth transition That's kind of difficult to do you know what I mean and I think that's one of the things that I've gotten closer to

Achieving in this song and on this record There's the section of the songwriting where you get to do what we call like the icing you know the frosting on the cake or whatever and that's where you're just trying to find you know cool sounds Just layering and just trying to make it more exciting There was a lot of synth modules in Studio 5. There were so many toys we got to play with. You would have thought we were recording like Dark Side of the Moon or something because there was all these just crazy electronics. That's an example of the stuff Craig and Sid do. Craig is our sampler and he's got a computer with all kinds of samples and he's got a keyboard that he triggers samples with and

Sid is our DJ. We always say there's a core of the band, you know, and that's, you know, guitars, bass, drums, whatever, vocals. But I don't think there is, I think the core of the band is all of us in the band, because it's all those things together combined that make it what it is, and it wouldn't be what it is without any of that stuff. So, in my mind, at least it wouldn't make sense without it. It's not about any one guy in the band. It's about us as a whole.

Once an arrangement feels like a song, and we feel like it's exciting without vocals, that's when we'll turn it over to Corey. If it sounds great already without any vocals and you're able to like kind of bob your head or rock in your chair while you're listening to it, then by the time Corey gets a hold of it, he should be able to turn it into a monster. I feel like we're very lucky to have a guy like Corey because he's such a diverse vocalist. A dude can be so melodic, he can be so heavy. You know, I'm a pretty harsh critic of what it is we do and I have a hard time looking at what we do objectively sometimes. so attached to it, but that's the one time where I can kind of sit back and go, oh, wow.

I'm just with a rough bitch. I'm not fulfilling with an inch to scratch. Denial is the duck as when you live in a hole. Why did that the hell me? The intro of the song went through so many different phases, and we spent so much time arranging and rearranging and layering. You know, when we were touring on the last album cycle, Sean was always saying, I want to do a choir.

I want to get, like, Pink Floyd the Wall, like a children's choir, you know. I have this thing in my head that I'm hearing, and I want to try to get this on the next record. And the melody at the beginning of this tune was something that drew Sean to that. And he's like that melody line. It's just begging for that to be where we seat a choir. It didn't end up being a children's choir,

like what clown had envisioned in his head. But when I heard the final product, I kind of sat back and was like, wow. I think a lot of people, just by nature, lean towards what they perceived to be the dark side of things. You know, if you're going through a really bad breakup, what do you do? You listen to depressing music, which is ironic because you think you'd want to listen to something to pull you out of that depression, but as humans, we tend to lean towards the darker. But if you really dissect Corey's lyrics, I think you can find a lot more hope and perseverance

than there is darkness. I was more than you thought I... This is about overcoming. It's about you may have taken something away from me and you may have tried to rip me down or tear me to shreds, but that's more of a reflection on who you are rather than who I am and I'll end up being stronger because of it.

Everybody has something in their life, this like anger, this like, I'm pushing middle age, but I still have this sort of teenage angst that I don't think will ever probably go away. And that's how I relate to it. it's like there's always something man there's always something in life it's never going to get easier and it's songs like this and lyrics like these that just kind of make you don't feel so isolated and alone it's like okay i'm not the only one somebody else has to deal with this crap too

and now here's unsainted by slipnot in its entirety at songxploader dot net slash slipnot for more information about the band and you'll also find a link to buy or stream this song song song Exploder is made by executive producer Rishi Kesh Hereway, producer Christian Koontz and me, with production assistance from Olivia Wood and illustrations by Carlos Lerma. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated collective of independent, creative podcasts. You can learn about all of our shows at radiotopia.fm. You can also follow Song Exploder on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at Song Exploder, and you can find me at Tao Get Stay Down.

I'm Tao Wynne. Thanks for listening.