In a new interview with DJ Chewie of WSOU, SLIPKNOT drummer Jay Weinberg was asked if the band has used the downtime during the coronavirus pandemic to work on material for the follow-up to last year’s “We Are Not Your Kind” album. He responded (hear audio below): “The short answer is that, yeah, I can’t talk about it. But it’s been said before, and I have no problem reiterating it, is that we’re all creative people, and when you have creative people like SLIPKNOT has, downtime is not a thought; it doesn’t exist. So when we need time to recharge, we recharge. And there’s a saying in SLIPKNOT that ‘off is off.’ So we kind of respect that — when off is off, off is off, and that means I’m not gonna answer your phone calls, I’m not gonna answer your text messages. Off is off. But there comes a certain point where that creative beast, I think, within all of us, it wakes up after a certain point. I’m, like, ‘Okay, I’ve been off tour a certain amount of time. I’m really feeling the itch to get creative.’ And we all have that instinct. So it’s been noted. Things have occurred. But nothing that I’ll divulge other than I think we’re all very excited to have time to focus on our creativity. So we’ll see what comes of it. But I think we’re all really excited with taking advantage of what we can our downtime year.”
Weinberg‘s comments come less than two weeks after SLIPKNOT singer Corey Taylor told “Good Company” the band is “thinking about putting another album out maybe next year. But I don’t know. I don’t know what the plan is yet. But I know that we were talking about doing it, ’cause we only have one album left on our contract [with our record label].”
In October, SLIPKNOT percussionist M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan confirmed that the band has been using some of the downtime during the coronavirus crisis to work on new material.
“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,” Crahan explained during a bottle-signing session for SLIPKNOT‘s No. 9 Iowa Whiskey. “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.”
Asked if he thinks the coronavirus crisis will influence the lyrical themes covered on the next SLIPKNOT album, Crahan said: “We don’t usually speak for Corey, or whatever, but I can imagine that anything that affects him and affects us and affects you will be included. To the extent, I don’t know how blatant it will be, I don’t know, but we are all living this, and everybody’s involved. I wouldn’t really know what what road [Corey] is gonna be going down or information that he wants to spread. I’m not sure. We’re not quite there yet.”
“We Are Not Your Kind” came out in August 2019. The disc sold 118,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first week of release to land at position No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. Furthermore, the album made an impact worldwide with No. 1 debuts in the United Kingdom, Mexico, Australia, Canada, Japan, Ireland, Belgium, Portugal and Finland, as well as Top 5 debuts in Germany, France, Norway, Italy, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and New Zealand.
“We Are Not Your Kind”‘s sales in the U.S. were boosted by a concert ticket/album sale redemption offer with SLIPKNOT‘s summer 2019 tour.
Earlier this year, Crahan said that a set of 11 previously unreleased songs recorded by four members of SLIPKNOT during the sessions for its 2008 LP “All Hope Is Gone” will arrive at some point during the “We Are Not Your Kind” touring cycle.
Crahan revealed the existence of the music in 2018, saying that he, Taylor, guitarist Jim Root and DJ Sid Wilson wrote and laid down the more psychedelic-flavored tunes at a separate studio during an impasse in the recording of “All Hope Is Gone”.
