It’s good to see the band is keeping it in the family with their choice for bassist replacement on this summer’s tour. It looks like they are taking original member Donnie Steele as their touring bassist. Read more about it below from Pulse Of Radio.
Slipknot has announced that Donnie Steele will play bass on the band’s upcoming summer shows, filling in for late bassist Paul Gray. Steele was actually the original guitarist in the earliest incarnation of the band and had reconnected with Gray in recent years. A statement issued by the band said,
Donnie was in the band at the very beginning, and rather than get an outsider, we thought it would be a fitting tribute to Paul to play with someone from within the family. Donnie was great friends with Paul and we can’t think of a better way to celebrate his memory than with someone who was there with us at the very beginning. The eight of us are looking forward to being onstage again and honoring Paul’s legacy with our families in Europe and Brazil this summer.”
* Paul Gray was found dead in a hotel room in a Des Moines, Iowa suburb last May at the age of 38 from an overdose of morphine.
* Slipknot will make a number of festival appearances this summer, including the U.K.’s Sonisphere, Belgium’s Graspop Metal Meeting and Brazil’s Rock In Rio. No U.S. dates have been booked yet.
* Although the band’s future has been called into question, Slipknot percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan told us he’s confident that the band will continue:
“You know, we’re all gonna deal with this differently, and everyone should be allowed to deal with it the way they want to. So we’re gonna give ourselves some time. But what I can tell you is that Slipknot isn’t going anywhere because it can’t. There’s no way that it can. It’s bigger than all of us. I, you know, will do everything in my power to convince whoever I have to convince to know that Paul Gray would have wanted it to be this way.”
* Slipknot singer Corey Taylor has been ambivalent about Slipknot’s future in recent interviews, indicating that he did not feel sure whether he would want to record another album without Gray.
* Drummer Joey Jordison, meanwhile, has said that early work and songwriting has already commenced for Slipknot’s first disc since 2008′s All Hope Is Gone.
* Taylor and guitarist Jim Root’s other band, Stone Sour, will kick off the Avalanche Tour on March 24th in Chicago, along with Theory Of A Deadman, Skillet and Halestorm.
Hybrid Mode
