That's usually what happens with AC/DC: you make an album, and then you're on the road flat out. And the only time you ever get near a studio is generally after you've done a year of touring.
I'd been working on new Slipknot material since the end of the 'All Hope Is Gone' tour cycle, but I ended up with so much stuff, I had to take a step back and stop working on it.
We'd tour for a year and a half and do an album and then tour for another year and a half and do another album. We thought we were invincible, but someone should have said, 'You guys need to take a little time off.'
The period of time between when you're done with a record and when you start touring is the worst period of a time in a musician's life.
We didn't burn out. We were fresh. So when you go through the 13 shows, that was it until the next time. That way, you went out and did your concerts and things, and you were ready to go again.
I finished touring the last record and I started recording new .I never really left the bubble, which is I think a good thing. I was just very focused. Maybe I should have taken a break or something, and not done such a long push.
Each album takes two or two-and-a-half years to finish between recording and touring. It's like being with an old boyfriend every single night watching the same things on TV. There is a world out there going on that I'm missing.
Like, I'd rather tour maybe six months out of the year, instead of nine.
We had gone out on the road in 94 and 95 for a three month American tour, and we realised, as did our manager and booking agent at the time, that we have really exhausted it, and we can't make money at this anymore.
When we came off the tour for the last album, we started on this one. We've just been chipping away at it. We're not in that much of a hurry, because when we release a Blur album, that's a three year promotion and touring cycle.
I know a lot of bands that will make their first record and get to a certain level, and then when the second record comes out, they can start where they left off as a headlining act playing in front of a certain number of people, or they can go back out and make a lot less money and open for people.
Each album has its own cycle. We wanted to capture all those feelings and moments for this touring cycle.
