Who anticipated Stone Sour releasing one of the decade’s best concept albums? For their massive leap in creativity, along with a brilliant storyline and multimedia approach, Loudwire has chosen Stone Sour’s House of Gold & Bones - Pt. 1 as the Rock Album of the Decade.

The entire double album was created during one of the most turbulent times of Stone Sour’s history. “The year leading up to us actually going in to record that record is very interesting,” guitarist Josh Rand explains. “We have Shawn Economaki no longer in the band, Roy [Mayorga] ends up having a stroke and we have to cancel the rest of the touring for Audio Secrecy, the feud between Corey [Taylor] and Joey Jordison regarding Slipknot at that time, it was the beginning of Jim [Root] really not wanting to be in Stone Sour.

“So when I think back at it and I look at anything that really happened within six months, it’s kind of crazy that we went in and made that record. There was a lot of turmoil internally and with each one of us going through our own thing personally.”

Stone Sour
Mary Ouellette, SheWillShootYou.com
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"It was the beginning of Jim really not wanting to be in Stone Sour.”

House of Gold & Bones turned out to be a swan song for Jim Root, who left the band in 2014. It was also a surprise project for the musicians, who originally planned to record a covers EP. Josh Rand was left with roughly two weeks to work on HoG&B - Pt. 1 and 2, but he was prepared to meet Taylor’s conceptual vision.

“I thought they were gearing up to do another Slipknot record, at that point,” Rand reveals. “I don’t know all the dynamics of what was going on 100 percent, because it’s not my business, but whatever was going on totally changed that from being a covers EP into being House of Gold & Bones in a two-week span.”

Roadrunner
Roadrunner
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“We wanted to play it in its entirety. It became too many moving parts.”

The album’s concept deals with a dark tale of the protagonist’s inner battles, attempting to find his place in the world. Corey Taylor referred to the story as “a morality play,” eventually turning the ideas into a graphic novel.

“Right out of the gate we had to cancel the opening tour ‘cause of Jim’s appendix rupturing over the summer. I didn’t want to go out on tour without him being a part of it, at that point. So the grand vision didn’t really happen and we didn’t get to push the record the way that we really wanted to,” Rand explains. “We built a little bit more into the live show, but not to the level that all of us really wanted to see.”

“Production is expensive,” he continues. “We wanted to play it in its entirety and basically do it as two separate sets with an intermission. It became too many moving parts. The reality is this; we’re not big enough to be able to afford the production we wanted to do.”

Evil Robb Photography
Evil Robb Photography
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Check out our full interview with Josh Rand in the video player above. To grab a copy of Stone Sour’s House of Gold & Bones, Pt. 1, click here. Stone Sour's new concert album, Hello, You Bastards: Live in Reno, is out now.

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