I'm a very lucky guy. I get to write music that I love, and lo and behold, people seem to really like it. I know how fortunate I am.

Slipknot is the darkness; Stone Sour is the light. Slipknot is chaos; Stone Sour is structure.

Everyone knows Spiderman is my favorite superhero of all time. My favorite supervillain? George W. Bush.

Just because you did not understand us, it did not mean we were wrong.

I mean come on. Do you know how easy it is to be famous these days? Do you have any idea? The web has made it plausible to have your very own platform to stand and spew nonsense from on an hourly basis. There's an old saying: when everyone is special, no one will be. These days, everybody thinks they're special, so no one really does anything to be special anymore.

So many people in the world would rather stay in a situation that's painful but familiar because they're comfortable with it. Not a lot of people have the strength or heart to realize when something's not good for them and to turn around and be alone.

I moved to Des Moines when I was 15. I asked my mother to give up costody and sign parental rights over to my grandmother, who I lived with while I went to school. I was clean and finally starting to figure myself out. I can only say that now without laughing. I was still very out of my own place, and I didn't even know what that place was. All I knew was that I could write music, that I had no idea what that could mean and that I was still surrounded by people I couldn't relate to. I hadn't found my tribe yet.