Bands On Bands: Jared Pilieri of Varials on Slipknot

There’s nothing I love more than finding out what bands my favorite musicians are listening to. Jared Pilieri of Philly-based metal band Varials is one such person. He’s a HUGE fan of Slipknot. Check out what he had to say about the band after the jump – and check them out on Facebook, too.

Everyone is influenced by something, whether it be music or movies or sports or anything really. For me, it was and always will be music. I’m a huge 90’s metal guy and it always played a big role in my life. I didn’t always listen to metal. I actually grew up on Top 40 and Country because sadly that was always what my mom let me listen too. It wasn’t very long after I found the band/album that would change my life forever and turn me into the musician I am today. One word; Slipknot. One of the most controversial and talked about bands to exist. I remember seeing them in magazines when I would go to the stores and always wondered about them. From their original masks that give them their identity to their impeccable live shows and outrageous music videos and not to mention their dedicated fan base worldwide, they have definitely made their mark in this world of metal. They are pretty much my favorite band of all time among other bands like Deftones and Limp Bizkit to Sevendust and System Of A Down. I grew up listening to all these bands but Slipknot was the one band that always seemed to stick out to me among the other great bands that were coming out at the time.

I was riding the bus to school one day and this bully pretty much jacked my N’Sync tape (yes I listened to them and I am a big Justin Timberlake fan til this day, so is Corey Taylor so don’t be so judgmental). He gave me a CD and I had no idea what to expect from him giving me something I never heard in my life. Was I going to like it? Was I gonna hate it? All I can say that it was fucking insanity! I pretty much felt like they were punching me in the face but at the same time it was also a wake up call. I felt so many different emotions all at once. Rage, anger, hate, etc but I was happy. It was fuel for the fire and made an outcast like me feel right at home. I wasn’t the popular kid at school so hearing this band growing up was a sense of clarity. I would go to my room and think about it day and night and what it must feel like to wear those masks and instill some fear and truth into people in the manner they were doing it. They really set the bar for a lot of other bands out there and they had so much shock value to them which made them an even bigger monster that they didn’t know they were going to become with time.

It took me awhile to get my hands on it but I got a hold of Slipknot’s self titled record. Released in 1999, the album would eventually get awarded to being double platinum following the band’s huge success, was the start of something new for metal as a whole. Being the first song I ever heard from them was “Surfacing” you couldn’t even begin to imagine how excited I was to hear what this army of 9 had in store for a 7 year old kid. I loved everything about them from their gimmick to their masks and style of music as well as the different sounds that the band experimented with. I mean the band consisted of 9 different backgrounds of music so you could only expect nothing but great things. It was like metal, punk, hardcore, thrash, hip-hop and even industrial to some elements of death metal! There was so many great songs that really stuck out to me. From the grooves in “Only One” to the end breakdown in “Eyeless” and even the DJ scratches in “Liberate” to the intensity of “(sic)” was definitely force to be reckoned with. Even their catchy hits like “Spit It Out” and “Wait & Bleed” made my heart race and I always caught myself singing the words. The songs that really stuck out to me were “Prosthetics” and “Purity” mainly for their lyrical content and the creepy yet scary vibe it brought to the table. Even the opening track was taken from a Charles Manson documentary made me the hairs on my arms stand up. It was something new and fresh that no one had ever really heard.

Both songs really opened up the insane mind of Corey Taylor and shed light on people who had certain thoughts pertaining to those feelings and all the other sick and twisted songs the band had. Being the crazy bastard he is I could never fathom what was running through his mind while writing both songs, but it did influence me to be more open and dig deep into the black abyss of my brain and recall dark things I’ve gone through in my life. Both tracks together sparked a song called “Sadist” from my band Varials’ EP entitled Recollection. Basically if you read up on all 3 songs you will see the pattern. Getting revenge and keeping a hold of someone you care about so they can’t hurt you or get away in that sense. Insanity is more or less the best way to describe it all. Other songs like “No Life” and “Surfacing” were call outs to people who were pushed around in their daily lives that felt like they were nothing in this world not even good enough to be the 50 year old scummy piece of gum on the ground and yelling back in those faces that thought they were better than us. It was a sense of hope for me essentially and helped me in more ways than anyone will know.

What a lot of people don’t understand is bands like Slipknot and also other bands like Korn, Deftones, Limp Bizkit, etc that came out of this era of what some call “Nu-Metal” was really the foundation for many of the bands you annoy your parents with today. Slipknot welcomed the freaks to the outcasts and the unpopular people who were stepped on, chewed up, and spit out just like they were in which resulted in this dark heavy music that I have come to know and love along with thousands of others maggots across the globe. This band was an outlet for me and if it wasn’t for this band and their self titled debut, I probably would not be here today at 1:30 in the morning writing this. I also wouldn’t be in a band or yelling in people’s faces and being a source for them to relate their problems to through the meanings of these songs my band has worked hard to create. Whether you love or hate this band, they have made their mark and are here to stay as far as I am concerned and who knows what they will have in store for us next. Even albums they made after that such as Iowa and Vol 3: The Subliminal Verses were all the roots to this new wave of music out there for other artists and fans to eat up and apply it to their life somehow.

To close this out, if you haven’t listened to this record or any Slipknot record for that matter, then what the hell are you waiting for? It’s in stores, on YouTube, etc. Grab it, buy it, download it, etc. Keep in mind that listening to this album it will most likely rip you to shreds with their constant heavy riffs by James Root and Mick Thompson as well as amazing bass work by Paul Gray (Gone but never forgotten), creepy ambient industrial vibes from 133, to their multiple percussion sections from Clown, Chris Fehn and Joey Jordison, brilliant DJ scratches from DJ Starscream, harsh and blistering vocals and their insane lyrical content from the madman that is Corey Taylor. Slipknot is an evil beast formed with the pure intentions of being in your face and to help you deal with whatever bullshit you are going through and also give you a swift kick in the ass. In the famous words of the 9 themselves, stay (sic).