SLIPKNOT Ponders Bass Question For 2011 Dates

With SLIPKNOT gigs announced for the late spring/early summer, the question remains who will play bass guitar in place of the late Paul Gray who died last year. "It's one of the things that we're talking about right now," SLIPKNOT singer Corey Taylor told the Artisan News Service (see video below). "Whatever we do will make sense at the end of the day. He'll never be replaced, and it'll never be anything that will be OK, basically, but when the time comes, we'll figure it out."

If the band sticks to the plan revealed to The Pulse Of Radio by drummer Joey Jordison, SLIPKNOT will use a touring bassist for live work but will remain an eight-piece onstage. "We're not gonna have anyone on stage right now," Jordison said. "The bass player, he'll be behind me, you know, when I'm playing to lock in with me, but there's no one right now to go onstage. There's no replacement for Paul right now."

Paul's widow, Brenna Gray, has spoken out publicly on her husband's death in the latest issue of Revolver magazine. Brenna told the magazine that she wants people to remember her husband, who died from an overdose of morphine and other prescription drugs, as "more than just a drug addict." Brenna explained, "I don't want people to judge him for the mistake he made. He wasn't just a drug addict; that was a little part of his life that he just couldn't overcome. He was a great guy, a great musician, a great husband, a great friend, a great brother and a great son. I want people to know that."

Brenna was six months pregnant with the couple's daughter when Paul Gray was found in a hotel room outside Des Moines, Iowa last May, dead at the age of 38. The baby, named October Dedrick Gray, was born in August.

Brenna added that she wants to use her husband's demise to save the lives of others, saying, "I've been working with the MusiCares organization. If I can get my story out there, as hard as it is to tell — if one person can save their own life through my husband losing his — that's what matters."

Gray's death may have possibly influenced one of his bandmates to clean up his own act. Taylor, who has struggled to stay sober over the years, told Kerrang! magazine that his New Year's resolution for 2011 was to lay off the sauce once and for all. He said, "I've quit in the past, but this year it's more for me than it was the first time. There's a permanence to this one. I asked myself, 'What am I holding on to? Am I drinking just because I can, or because it's a celebration, or is it because I'm scared to death of my own mortality?' I couldn't come up with a good answer for any of those questions, so I decided to call it a day. Having done that, it's better for my marriage, it's better for my health, it's better for being on the road."