I grew up poor in crappy situations various crappy situations. What kept me sane was reading and music. I had so many different literary tastes growing up, be it fiction like Stephen King or Piers Anthony or non-fiction like reading Hunter S. Thompson essays or reading the Beats. I was a huge fan of the Beat movement.

You have to get to the next level, or you're gonna get stuck where you are for the rest of your life.

You cannot kill what you did NOT create

I have a really good idea for a novel and would like to just kind of try my hand at fiction. I'm starting to kind of get a really good body of work going from a literary standpoint. As long as the audience is there, man, I'll keep cranking them out.

Too many people chase dreams that they don't understand. Too many people try to go for things that they'd like to do, but they're not realistic enough to know they don't have the talent.

When I'm working on a Slipknot song, it's like a switch flips in my head. I can go there easily - it doesn't take a lot of soul searching - and it's a dark, almost sinister place. Stone Sour is more the way I've always written. It's a different tone.

You gotta remember: we're musicians we're just crazy people who can't get along sometimes. I've definitely come to the table with my knife in my pocket a couple of times; you know how it is. It's part of being human. Now add fame and money and all that rock and roll craziness to it - we're lucky we don't eat each other in this industry!