Slipknot’s Jim Root: I’ve been dreaming about Paul Gray a lot recently

Paul Gray and Jim Root onstage with Slipknot in 2009
Paul Gray and Jim Root onstage with Slipknot in 2009 (Image credit: Gary Miller/FilmMagic - Getty)

Slipknot (opens in new tab)’s Jim Root says he’s been dreaming about the band’s late bassist Paul Gray a lot recently.

The guitarist was speaking with Vice’s I-D (opens in new tab) when he was asked if he remembers his dreams.

Root replies: “I’m sort of going through… not a bad break-up, but I’m in a toxic relationship that I’m exiting. I’m kind of ghosting someone right now. It’s just very unhealthy. 

“I don’t wish anything bad or malicious on this person, I just want them to get better and be happy with themselves. So I’ve been having a lot of bizarre dreams about deceased people lately. 

“Paul has been showing up in my dreams a lot.”

When asked if dealing with that has been hard for him, Root says: “It’s a little bit weird. Maybe I haven’t fully grieved Paul being gone, maybe I shoved that somewhere deep down inside. But in the dream, he had come back to life. 

“He had passed on but he was alive and with his wife, his widow, and they were in this blue sports car. He was typical old Paul, but he was a reanimation of himself, like a zombie.

“So it stirs up a bunch of weird emotions and I’m thinking that maybe it ties into the situation I’m in now. Because I know there’s a person inside there, but I think they have some narcissistic, possibly sociopathic tendencies. 

“Maybe that’s what that dream meant… because it’s Paul, but it’s not really Paul, you know?”

Gray died in May 2010 of an accidental overdose, with the band paying tribute to him on their 2014 album .5: The Gray Chapter.

Slipknot are currently on tour across Europe in support of their 2019 album We Are Not Your Kind.

The run will come to an end in Helsinki on February 24, with the band then visiting Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines, before their Knotfest Roadshow tour across North America throughout May and June with A Day To Remember, Underoath and Code Orange

Slipknot will return to Europe over the summer for Knotfest UK at The National Bowl in Milton Keynes and Knotfest At Sea.

Slipknot: We Are Not Your Kind (opens in new tab)

Slipknot: We Are Not Your Kind (opens in new tab)
Slipknot's new album We Are Not Your Kind was released through Roadrunner Records in 2019. The follow-up to .5: The Gray Chapter features the lead single Unsainted.

Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers and magazines as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. After initially joining our news desk in the summer of 2014, he moved to the e-commerce team full-time in 2020. He maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott grew up listening to rock and prog, cutting his teeth on bands such as Marillion and Magnum before his focus shifted to alternative and post-punk in the late 80s. His favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Ned's Atomic Dustbin and Drab Majesty, but he also still has a deep love of Rush.