Slipknot bassist Alessandro ‘V-Man’ Venturella offered a rare in-depth interview to Music Radar. Venturalla, affectionately known as V-Man, has been in the band for five years now, but only now is talking about how he joined the band.
V-Man was teching for Mastodon, when his friend, and Slipknot guitarist, Jim Root asked him if he knew any bassists. When V-Man found out why Root was asking, he raised his hand.
"Me and Jim became friends while I was teching. He was asking if I knew any bass players. When I found out what for, I put my hand up right away. He pointed out, 'But you don’t play bass?' and I said something to the effect that I could do whatever he needed from me. Then I just had to make sure it was true!"
"Everyone went to chat afterwards so I sat there playing piano, which I'd studied as a kid. They must have been wondering, 'Who the fuck is this guy?' Two weeks later I was hanging out with everyone and [founding percussionist] Clown said to me, 'Right! Are you going to do it?' I rang my mum straight away to tell her I wasn't coming home."
V-Man makes it clear he never tried to replace Paul, but rather play with his own style.
“My approach isn’t the same as Paul’s,” says Venturella. “I can’t be him and never will be, every player is ultimately born different. That said, if you listen to Paul’s note choices on Vermilion, he was all over the shop and it sounded great. I wanted to try things like that.”
“After listening to his stems, I honestly looked at bass in a different light and understood how to support everything as the backbone. Take the bass out of the mix and everything will fall flat on its arse — and equally, if you mix too bass-heavy, you’re not going to get your point across either. Lead guitarists, on the other hand, always need to cut through because that’s what the job entails. As the rhythm section, we’re there to hold the fort.”
V-Man is gearing up to join Slipknot on a huge UK/European tour in January. Get tickets here.
