Guitarist Jim Root has played a pretty major role in Slipknot's music over the years, but found himself on the sidelines during the writing of The End, So Far. In an interview with Guitar World, Root credits bassist Alessandro Venturella and percussionist M. Shawn Crahan for picking up his slack during the album's writing sessions. Root then opened up about his severe depression during the pandemic, saying the idea of writing music or playing a guitar was just too depressing.
"No, guitars were depressing me. Everything was depressing me. It's weird how the wires in your brain will cross up and whereas previously the guitar was an outlet for me to escape stuff, this time when I looked at it, it just reminded me of all the things that I wasn't able to do because of Covid. So, this positive force in my life turned into this negative thing, which would've been absolutely fucking horrifying if I hadn't been able to pull myself out of it.
"Now I pick up a guitar and I'm like, 'What would I do without this?' But back then, I was so far from that place. I was losing any sense of positivity. I had zero purpose at all. And I thought, 'What difference does it make if I'm here or if I'm not here? What good is my existence? I've pretty much accomplished everything in life that I've set out to accomplish. How do I set new goals and why should I bother?' That's what was going through my head and it was scary."
Root later added that he tried to write new music throughout the pandemic, but just couldn't make himself do it. Of course we're glad Root seems to be doing better these days (he later discusses attending therapy which helped), but still – this had to have been scary.
"I tried to do some stuff. If I had felt a little more confident and positive, I would've said, 'Oh, this is great. I've got all this downtime to sit and write and be creative.' I normally write in my house, but I had a bad leak and there was water damage so I had to try to find someplace different to set up my computer and write.
"It just didn't feel right and gave me anxiety to try to work that way, which made me give up trying. I wasn't in my comfort zone even being by myself. I was trapped in my head and I overthought everything.
"I was thinking about a bad relationship I was dealing with and trying to figure out the problem. 'Am I the problem? Do I need to try harder?' I was questioning everything and coming up with no answers and getting more depressed. I got to the point where I was really struggling to even want to see the next day."
The End, So Far came out on September 30 and debuted at No. 2 the Billboard 200.
