Slipknot bassist Alessandro Venturella said he predicted his identity would be revealed due to his tattoos
Slipknot bassist Alessandro ‘Vman’ Venturella has said he predicted his identity would be revealed prematurely after he joined the band in 2014 due to his distinctive hand tattoos.
Venturella – who had previously worked as a guitar tech for bands such as Mastodon and Coheed and Cambria, and played in the bands Krokodil and Cry for Silence – became a member of Slipknot during the recording of the band’s fifth studio album, ‘.5: The Gray Chapter’.
The album was the band’s first without founding drummer Joey Jordison – who was fired in 2013 – and bassist Paul Gray, who died in 2010. It marked the first to feature both Venturella as well as current drummer Jay Weinberg.
Venturella and Weinberg’s identities were not shared prior to the album’s arrival, with both appearing masked in the video for its lead single, ‘The Devil in I’. Eagle-eyed viewers were able to deduce that Venturella was the band’s new bassist due to the distinctive tattoos that can be seen on the his hand in the video for ‘The Devil in I’.
As Blabbermouth reports, Venturella was recently asked in an interview with Australian magazine Heavy if he had gotten in trouble for having his identity revealed before the band had formally announced he had joined the band.
“Oh, no. There was no trouble. It was a funny one, because I remember saying, ‘Should I put some black tattoo gloves on or something like that?’ And they were, like, ‘Ah, no one’s gonna get it,'” Venturella said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
“And I was, like, ‘Okay.’ I’ve worked for quite a few high-profile bands. If it’s not gonna be called out by a fan, it’s gonna be called out by someone in a teching position or someone from another band going, ‘Oh, that’s fucking Vman… That’s Vman’s tattoo.’ I mean, once you’ve seen [my tattoos], it’s pretty [obvious who it is].
“And then there was also a good grace period of six months where I just disappeared off the face of the planet. And I was getting messages. I couldn’t tell anyone what I was doing. I was, like, ‘I’m just away at the moment.’ I think it kind of got pieced together pretty quickly.”
Back in 2019, during an interview with Bass Guitar magazine, Venturella discussed how he went from being a guitar tech to the bassist for one of the world’s biggest metal bands. He said he was teching for Mastodon’s Brent Hinds at the time, when he got a call from his friend, Slipknot guitarist Jim Root, asking if he knew any bass players.
“When I found out what for, I put my hand up right away,” Venturalla said. “[Root] pointed out, ‘But you don’t play bass?’ and I said something to the effect that I could do whatever he needed from me. Then I just had to make sure it was true.”
“My approach isn’t the same as Paul’s,” he said during the same interview. “I can’t be him and never will be; every player is ultimately born different,” he explained. “As the rhythm section, we’re there to hold the fort.”
Venturella has gone on to release two more albums with Slipknot since joining the band – 2019’s ‘We Are Not Your Kind’ and last year’s ‘The End, So Far’. In a four-star review of the latter, NME said that while it “may rattle many of the metal faithful”, the band’s seventh studio album “is a true Slipknot record”.
“Aside from the blood, the gore, the theatrics and the noise, there’s clearly always been much more to the band’s ability to shock and surprise – and now it seems their next left turn of an era could be their most daring yet.”
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Alex Gallagher
NME
