Honoring the beloved bassist on what would have been his 49th birthday, the heavy music authority explores 10 of his very best career contributions to Slipknot.
It has been more than a decade since the untimely passing of one of metal music’s brightest personalities in Slipknot bassist Paul Gray. Regarded as an integral part of the masked nine, Gray was one of the founding three members of the band and boasted a musical pedigree that saw the young musician jamming as a teenage guitarist with the likes of Anal Blast, Vexx, Body Pit, The Have Nots and Inveigh Catharsis.
Making the move from Los Angeles to Des Monies, IA, Gray would find his community of contemporaries and ultimately forge a historic run with Slipknot, changing the landscape of heavy music with each of creative contributions to the band’s catalog. Inspired early on by the shred of bands like Suicidal Tendencies and specifically, ‘Hell Awaits’ from Slayer, Gray impact on the band and the culture at large remains evident as his artistic torch continues to burn bright.
Marking what would have been the musician’s 49th trip around the sun, Kerrang! has published a list of 10 of Paul Gray’s very best contributions to the Slipknot catalog. Revisiting some of the landmark moments during his four album run with Slipknot, Gray’s ability to live on through the music is just part of what made him such a special person and a significant loss. Joining the ranks of his idols like Flea, Bootsy Collins, Steve Harris and Cliff Burton, Gray’s enduring legacy is one steeped in culture shift he helped to create with Slipknot.
Read the tribute to Paul Gray via Kerrang! – HERE
Kerrang!’s 10 Best Paul Gray Tracks with Slipknot
(sic) (Slipknot, 1999)
Eyeless (Slipknot, 1999)
Purity (Slipknot, 1999)
Scissors (Slipknot, 1999)
People = Shit (Iowa, 2001)
Left Behind (Iowa, 2001)
Iowa (Iowa, 2001)
Duality (Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), 2004)
Vermilion (Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), 2004)
Psychosocial (All Hope Is Gone, 2008)
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