Roadrunner Records UK sat down recently and spoke to STONE SOUR and SLIPKNOT guitarist Jim Root about his guitar playing career and gear, and below you can read and excerpt from this interview from the Gear Nerd series.

Q: When did you first start playing guitar and was it the first instrument you ever picked up?

A: "Yeah, my parents had an old nylon string acoustic guitar that I would mess around on which I think had like two stings on it when I was like, 12/13 years old and then I begged them from the time I was 12 until I was probably 14 or 15 for a guitar and they got me this Memphis - not any brand name or anything - like a Les Paul Jr copy, like a double cut away. That was alright, then I begged and begged and begged for a nice guitar and I got a bass, cause the person at the guitar shop told them that if I wanna learn guitar, that I gotta start with bass. I got a Cort bass it looked like a Fender P Bass and I did one bass lesson with that and Paul Wilson, the guy I did the bass lessons with, saw I had good dexterity and a good ear and I pretty much schooled the lesson so I went right out from the lesson, and was like 'err Dad... [aughs] I don’t wanna play bass, I wanna play guitar cause all my favourite guys play guitar', and then I got a Takamine electric guitar, so that was kind of like my first real quick guitar. My first real real guitar I had was a Charvel, model 1 and that was when I was 15 I think I got that."

Read the full interview at this location.