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Guitar World
Guitar World
Entertainment
Nick Wells

“I wouldn’t be able to play the technical stuff while wearing the mask. I’ve almost passed out a few times”: Slipknot’s original bassist Paul Gray on holding the middle ground in metal’s most extreme band

Bassist Paul Gray of Slipknot, seen here performing in concert at the Freeman Coliseum March 1, 2009 in San Antonio, Texas.

Since thundering out of the lonely Iowa plains in the late '90s, the nine-piece masked metal symphony known as Slipknot have combined horror imagery, enraged vocals, intricate bass and guitar riffs, and punishing percussion, and turned it into a chart-topping success.

On the 2004 platinum album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), the fretwork of left-handed bassist Paul Gray on hits such as Duality and Vermillion created a mood of menace before building up to the inescapable fury of agonised choruses and wailing guitar breaks.

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