“When you first pick up a Tele or a Jazzmaster, you’re not thinking about neoclassical scales or shredding. But the more you play them, it’s like, ‘Wow! They kinda rip!’” Jim Root on upsetting metalheads and Fender purists, and his amp modelin

He was the last man in. When guitarist Jim Root joined Slipknot in the first months of 1999, the band were in the final stages of recording the debut album that would define them as the dominant new force in metal.

Root’s arrival came so late in the day that he played on just one track, Purity. The rest of the Slipknot album had been recorded with guitarists Mick Thomson and Josh Brainard prior the latter’s departure from the band.

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Andrew Daly is an iced-coffee-addicted, oddball Telecaster-playing, alfredo pasta-loving journalist from Long Island, NY, who, in addition to being a contributing writer for Guitar World, scribes for Rock Candy, Bass Player, Total Guitar, and Classic Rock History. Andrew has interviewed favorites like Ace Frehley, Johnny Marr, Vito Bratta, Bruce Kulick, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Rich Robinson, and Paul Stanley, while his all-time favorite (rhythm player), Keith Richards, continues to elude him.