Slipknot guitarist Jim Root was recently interviewed by ‘Gear Factor,’ and talked about the early days of his music career and revealed how he started playing guitar.

Jim Root said that he was listening to classic rock, like his parents, when he was a child. In the statement, he said that he was working on playing Motley Crue’s 1981 debut song, ‘Too Fast for Love,’ and similar songs when he got his first guitar.

While talking about his primary inspiration sources, Jim paid his respect to Mötley Crüe by giving their name before Led Zep and Metallica. We can say that Jim confirmed how much he influenced from Crüe at the beginning of his musical journey.

He also said that he was listening to iconic bands such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Metallica and inspired by these bands, including Mötley Crüe.

Here’s what Jim Root said:

“My parents were listening to a lot of classic rock and stuff like that, and I was listening to The Beatles and The Who and stuff like that, but I never had a guitar, I don’t think my parents could really afford me to get me a guitar.

So I just kind of had an old nylon-string acoustic that had maybe three strings on it that I’d bang around with or I’d use other things pretending they were guitars and stuff like that.

So, when I first started playing guitar, I was kind of going away from what my parents were listening to, and I was learning how to play these Ratt songs, and you know, like, Motley Crue songs off of [Motley Crue’s 1981 debut] ‘Too Fast for Love’ and stuff like that – Zeppelin, Black Sabbath…”

He continued:

“And then I started listening to Anthrax and Metallica and Megadeth, and that’s when I really started getting dexterity up and learning those types of songs.

I don’t know. I still go back to that, even today, you know, you’re a kid, so you’re going *plays ‘Smoke on the Water’* I remember I figured that out on this nylon-string acoustic guitar, and I was all excited, I showed my dad and that was cool and everything.

Then you’ve got the Dave Mustaine things. You get into Dave Mustaine stuff, and it’s like, ‘Shit, maybe I should practice scales.’ I’m a weird guitar player – I had the dexterity, and I kind-of knew the motions before I ever picked up a guitar.”

He added:

“Maybe in a past life I was a guitar player or something, but I kind of got it – you know how sometimes things just make sense to you without ever being taught? Like, I could play, I could move around the fretboard, but I didn’t know where to put the notes, how to tune the guitar.

I go through phases where I really have a deep love affair with it, and I can’t put one down, and then I go through phases where I fucking hate, and I don’t even want to touch it or look at it.

I was in a speed-metal band called Atomic Opera and wrote a song called ‘Across the Sea of Doom,’ that was kind of the first song I sat down, and it was before we had any kind of recording equipment other than maybe taking a boom-box and hitting Record on it.”

Click here for the source of the statement.