“My first Slipknot record was Vol. 3. I just missed out on the prime era, but I remember working back and discovering that first album. The first track I listened to was Liberate, and I was like, ‘What the fuck is this? This is so heavy, I can’t handle it, it’s just loads of shouting!’ It was a classic case of not being ready for an album, but then I got into some heavier stuff and went back to the first album going, ‘Oh, my fucking God! What was I thinking?’
“When we were asked to do a Slipknot cover song for Metal Hammer [issue 325, Summer 2019] we were looking at doing Get This from the debut, which was more in the extreme realm and would’ve made more sense sonically for Conjurer. We ended up doing Vermilion because we could really put our own spin on it. As a band, we try to draw so much from so many different places, but if Slipknot have had a direct influence on us, it’s in that legacy of doing things on their own terms.