Slipknot released .5: The Gray Chapter in the United States on October 21, 2014. Their fifth studio album followed six years after All Hope Is Gone, with bassist Paul Gray’s death in 2010 and drummer Joey Jordison’s departure in 2013 separating the two records. Recording again meant working without two founding members while writing about a loss the surviving bandmates had struggled to discuss.
The return had a new visual identity, too. In September 2014, Slipknot unveiled their new masks in the video for “The Devil In I,” directed by percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan.
Guitarist Jim Root assumed much of the songwriting work. He and Corey Taylor had material demoed before the sessions, while other songs developed in the studio. Root and fellow guitarist Mick Thomson told MusicRadar that matching laptop recording setups allowed ideas to develop on tour, changing a process that had once depended on everyone working together in a basement.
New drummer Jay Weinberg entered that process almost immediately after his audition in December 2013. Before settling into the Los Angeles sessions, he visited Gray’s grave with Crahan in Des Moines. Weinberg told MusicRadar in 2016 that paying his respects mattered to him as he joined a band he had followed since childhood. At Sound Factory in Hollywood, the initial work centered on Weinberg, Root, Crahan and co-producer Greg Fidelman. For roughly two months, they spent 12 or 13 hours a day developing arrangements, often five or six days a week. Root already had much of the material written, but the group still had to decide how the riffs, drums and eventual vocals would fit together.
“Goodbye” opened a different conversation. Taylor had written it about the band gathering at his house on the day Gray died, when they were unable to find words for what had happened. In a 2015 interview with Blunt, he explained that touring afterward had kept them busy without necessarily helping them discuss their grief. Hearing the recorded song together in the control room changed that. They began talking about their anger, guilt and how much they missed Gray. “We started having the conversation that we couldn’t have that day,” Taylor said.
The finished recording preserved some of the song’s early work. Root told MusicRadar that he developed his guitar part in a hotel room using Pro Tools 11 and Guitar Rig 5. That demo performance survived because its character proved difficult to recreate. Taylor’s original demo bass line also remained. Thomson recalled that “Goodbye” had initially been considered as an opening passage for the album before it expanded into a full song.
Taylor approached grief from several directions across the record. Speaking with Full Metal Jackie for Loudwire in September 2014, he identified closing track “If Rain Is What You Want” as the most emotionally difficult song for him. It responded to expectations about what kind of album Slipknot should make after Gray’s death. Taylor wanted room for the conflicting feelings involved, including anger at someone they loved and guilt about whether they could have done more.
The new lineup, with Weinberg on drums and Alessandro Venturella on bass, reached the stage at Knotfest in San Bernardino that October. Slipknot headlined two nights, but recording the material had not made every song manageable in concert. Sam Coare’s contemporary Kerrang! report noted that “Goodbye” and “Skeptic” were absent from both planned setlists. Taylor explained that the memories attached to “Goodbye” were still overwhelming, while performing “Skeptic,” a song about Gray and his spirit, would require more time.
