In a brand new interview with Meltdown of the WRIF radio station in Detroit, Michigan, Crahan stated about SLIPKNOT's current status (hear audio below): «Well, we're writing as a band, and with Corey as well. Yes, we're off, and we're off for a while — for a long while. Okay, [it's] much needed. We'd been touring for three years. Corey's doing what he does, which is STONE SOUR, which is awesome. And he's living that life, which is awesome, ‹cause he does really well and love it; it›s his art. So he does that. And we're writing. We're beginning to write some music for SLIPKNOT for the new record. He's aware of it… So while we're writing, he's getting songs.»

Crahan went on to say that SLIPKNOT fans shouldn't expect any new material for quite a while. «But we're not just gonna sit around… some of us aren't just gonna sit around, because we've done that for twenty years, " he explained. "We just feel like writing. We've had so much fun writing ‹The Gray Chapter›, and people that started writing together during this album cycle never wrote together in fifteen years, so things are a little bit different and it's amazing and it's fun, and we have a good time.»

According to Shawn, SLIPKNOT is working on new music at a relaxed pace, without any involvement from outside producers. «We don't need big, fancy studios or stuff to write,» he said. «We can just go to each other's houses and write, you know what I mean? Does that mean we're in the studio? Why would we go in the studio and just spend a bunch of money right now? No. We're writing, though. We're writing for the new record, and Corey gets songs. We have a lot of stuff already that we wrote out on the road for the last three years. We have songs that we've written that are amazing.»