Slipknot has been teasing some massive news to be released any day now, and could it be the possibility of new music. I want to make clear that I have no insider information on this, but two pieces of evidence lead to question if the band is working in the studio as you read this.
The following is pure conjecture, but there are two pieces of evidence that lead me to this conclusion.
#1 Is VMann in America?
Bassist Alessandro Venturella lives in London, but a few days ago, he posted a photo of his bass guitar rack, and the geo tag of the rack was "America."
Pros: This could mean that VMann is in America working on new material with Slipknot.
Cons: VMann himself is not in this actual photo, and it could just be his rack, which is in America. BUT, then he also posted this photo.
Pros: It sure looks like he took two basses out of his rack to begin playing, and the flooring leads one to believe this is more likely a studio than a simple "rehearsal space."
Cons: There is no geo-tag on this photo, and it could ultimately just be a jam room.
#2 Guitarist Jim Root is testing out amps
The Slipknot guitarist posted photos of himself in the studio, with similar flooring to the VMann posts and the post involves Reinhold, a rep from Bogner Amps bringing over some amp heads for Root to try.
Pros: When does one typically test out amp heads? During album recording! Root even alludes to this much in the caption writing that Reinhold is "total legend that years ago brought me an amp that has made it onto every record I’ve worked on since Vol 3." The hint being this dude brings him amps that Root uses to work on albums.
Cons: It could just be that Root is testing amps.
Surely, these two things on their own wouldn't mean much, but together, they start to paint a picture that Slipknot might be at work on something.
Just last month, Corey Taylor told to KLOS' Matt Pinfield, Taylor said “I can’t say too much about it, and I can tell you that currently, we’ve compiled a lot of material, me and Clown have talked about something really, really cool if we could pull it off.
“There’s a chance that it could be conceptual if we can really do it right. The music is brilliant, it expands on what we did with ‘We Are Not Your Kind’ and kind of blossoms from there.
“But the great thing is – it’s got not only that, but it’s got everything that you would want from a Slipknot project – there’s the heavy stuff, there’s the dark stuff, there’s the melodic stuff, there’s the weird stuff.
“We have so many different flavors that we can play with that now, at this point, it’s just us mixing and matching and seeing what excites us.
“So that’s all I can say for right now but I can tell you that it’s really, really good. We’re entering a realm that we’ve never been and that to us is exciting.
“Especially after all of these years, we pride ourselves on always being able to try and top ourselves, and if we can pull this off, this may be the ultimate top ourselves.”
In an October 2020 interview with Good Company, Taylor teased the band was considering putting out a new album in 2021, which would be their final for Roadrunner Records.
"The plan right now with Slipknot is to try and a) finish up the touring next year, and b) we're thinking about kind of putting another album out maybe next year," he said. "But I don't know. I don't know what the plan is yet. I just know that we all kind of feel like there's unfinished business and we wanna finish that out before we do anything. But I know that we were talking about doing it, 'cause we only have one album left on our contract [with our record label]."
One month later, Clown dropped some hints in an interview saying "Right now is kind of an interesting time," Clown said. "We're taking this time to write some new music. So for the last week, we've been just having a good time, eating a lot of food and writing God music. So we're having a good time."
The Slipknot founder continued "Since everybody's taken a lot of time off, we thought we'd utilize it by getting together and do what we probably do best, which is write music."
"So it's been good, because there's no pressure. It's not like we have to. We're doing it 'cause we want to. And it's just been a blessing, because boredom can set in. And I know all of us in the world are going crazy, so we're really lucky to be able to be together and do what we love most."
What do you think? Does the evidence add up?
[Thanks for the tip, Mike D (no, not that one)]