GL Arts & Entertainment

August 23, 2010

Sweet success

By RICH HOWELLS
rhowells@golackawanna.com

When members of a highly successful band like Slipknot form another band, critics are quick to label the new group a “side project.”

After three Grammy nominations, two gold-certified albums, and several packed tours since their debut in 2002, guitarist Josh Rand isn’t worried about Stone Sour living in another band’s shadow. In fact, he’s confident that with the upcoming release of their third album, “Audio Secrecy,” they’re continuing to cast their own silhouette.

Stone Sour will co-headline the 36-date Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival, which comes to Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain on Friday, Aug. 27. Rand, a Des Moines, Iowa native, said he never expected the band, or his life, to develop the way it has.

“When me and Corey (Taylor) started Stone Sour, I didn’t think it would grow into what it is. If you had told me 10 years ago when we were at his grandma’s house cutting vocals to ‘Get Inside’ that we would have this conversation 10 years later, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Rand said.

Rand was a childhood friend of Taylor, who quickly rose to fame in 1999 as the singer of heavy metal band Slipknot.

After a Canadian tour, Taylor returned to their hometown to record some songs with Rand that they had discussed on New Year’s Eve of 2000.

“Really, for me, it was just having fun, and for Corey it was a way to be able to sing because he ultimately cut his teeth as a singer singing. He had to change that for Slipknot. He wasn’t always ascreamer or a growler,” Rand said.

Taylor was the creator and singer of a band called Stone Sour before replacing founding vocalist Anders Colsefini in Slipknot.

He recruited guitarist Jim Root, who had performed in both bands, for a new version of Stone Sour.

Root and Rand formed the current dual guitar assault that has helped define Stone Sour’s distinctive, unpredictable sound.

“We can have that 14-year-old kid that hates the world that will listen to ‘Get Inside,’ ‘30/30-150’ or ‘Hell and Consequences,’ but at the same time, we can have his mom, who might be a soccer mom, listening to ‘Through Glass,’ ‘Sillyworld’ and ‘Bother.’ It’s a cool thing,” Rand said with a laugh.

That dichotomy served Stone Sour well on the September 7 release of “Audio Secrecy,” which was recorded in Nashville’s Blackbird Studios with producer Nick Raskulinecz.

Rand and Root continued to experiment, recording both guitar parts simultaneously to give the songs an unpolished sound.

“‘Mission Statement,’ I believe, was the first song we did, and there was just an energy there. (Raskulinecz) was just like, ‘This is sick.’ We’re not perfect in terms of looking at it on a computer screen using the track markers, but it feels good, more locked in to each other. So we said, ‘The hell with it. We’ll do all of it like that.’”

The gamble paid off.

The band recently offered “Mission Statement” as a free download on their website for a limited time, and fans downloaded the track more than 1,000 times an hour within a two-day period.

Rand’s roots and influences are in metal and thrash, but in order to become a better guitar player, he said that he has started listening to more jazz and blues - genres he never gave a chance as a teen.

“The thing I’m proudest of is just growing up as a listener and as a player, because before I was all about just playing the heavy stuff. I found it more challenging and fun to try and do some of these songs laying back and writing some of the ear-candy stuff that the average person doesn’t catch unless you’re really dissecting the music,” Rand said.

Rand hasn’t let his skill or his fame go to his head.

He is still close with the friends he grew up with, and he recently enrolled himself in online guitar courses at Berklee College of Music.

“I could spend the rest of life every day waking up and spending all day playing guitar and still never master playing guitar. It’s impossible. I think when you get to the level of having success, you have to be willing to check your ego and admit, ‘I don’t know everything.’”

As Rand hits the road this month, he knows that Stone Sour doesn’t have to prove themselves to anyone.

“I don’t know very many side project bands that have had the success that we’ve had,” he said. “It would be different if it was only one album, but we continue to constantly get bigger and bigger.”

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