This past summer, while discussing Slipknot members' various injuries and subsequent surgeries, guitarist Jim Root theorized about his preferred method of ending the Midwest-reared metal group. At some future point, he foresaw, "We'll just vanish and never come back."

But although that would leave fans forever "wondering if Slipknot is even still a thing," the musician admitted, it would still be his favored mode of exit. "One day we will just be gone," Root continued. "That's how I'd like it. No final tour, no announcement, no big drama."

That's the way the guitarist put it to Metal Hammer in the magazine's summer 2019 issue, the full interview now finally making its way online. It's the same interview that had singer Corey Taylor saying Slipknot could carry on without him should he ever be unable to continue.

"I mean, it's crossed my mind as the years have gone on," Taylor explained. "It's gotten harder to do this. You think about when the end is. No one thought we'd be doing it 20 years later. If I just couldn't do it anymore, I'd just stop, but that doesn't mean that the band would stop."

At the time, Taylor had just undergone knee surgery. In 2016, Root went under the knife for spinal surgery. Yet they've all grown as both bandmates and individuals, and they aren't keen to copy themselves artistically.

"Us doing our own thing, 'don't ever judge me,' is kind of our motto," Root added. "It's something that our older fans seem to forget and our newer fans might not even know about. They need to understand that their band can't keep doing the same thing, that they have to move on. I know a lot of people want the Iowa album again, but we're not those people and we're not that band anymore. If we were to copy that it would be so contrived; people would see through it, and it would be shit."

With all that talk about the end, however, other Slipknot members may not share the same ideas. For his part, fellow guitarist Mick Thomson — who also experienced spinal surgery a few years ago — is just fine continuing the band indefinitely. No matter the pain endured.

"I don't think about the end, because that, to me, insinuates that we have a finite amount of time that we can do this," Thomson chimed in. "As long as I can play I'll be getting wheeled onstage and playing shows. I look at Metallica and Iron Maiden and they're still doing it. Why shouldn't we?"

Last week, Slipknot released a music video for "Nero Forte," a track from the group's latest effort We Are Not Your Kind. The band will tour EuropeJapan and beyond next year. Get Slipknot concert tickets here.

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