Guitarist James Ruth: biography, mask, personal life

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

James Root is best known as a member of the (at the time) sensational metal band Slipknot, in which he uses the pseudonym 4. Initially, the guitarist worked for some time in the team of Corey Taylor - Stone Sour and combined participation in two groups. However, he subsequently opted for Slipknot.

From the article you will learn interesting details from the life of a musician and you can see some photos of James Root. By the way, his mask is a formidable jester with demonic features, and another hallmark of a guitarist is his tall stature.

Private matter

James Donald Root was born on October 2, 1971 in Las Vegas, the gambling city of Nevada. From early childhood, the boy remained at home all alone, as his parents were forced to earn money. Maybe that's why he grew up early. A little older guys served as an example to follow.

Jim was interested in music long before the first mustache appeared, so his mother gave him a chic gift for Christmas - a Memphis guitar. At that time he was only 13 years old. After a fair amount of practice at home, James Ruth was hired as a guitarist for the Atomic Opera team, but around '95 he left to join Stone Sour.

Career

For two years the group worked quite successfully, but the leader Corey Taylor left for Slipknot and seems to have completely forgotten about his own project. No one wanted to play in the team without him, so the Stone guys dispersed in all directions. James Ruth soon joined Deadfront and helped release the Nemesis album. However, he left them a year later, taking the place of Josh Brainard in Slipknot. At the end of the debut album in the song Purity you can already hear his playing.

In a short time, the group gained enormous popularity, and one after the other sold two vinyls. But in 2003, Slipknot almost broke up, so James Root and Corey Taylor revived Stone Sour, which turned out to be no less in demand. The very first album was sold around the world in the amount of 500,000. Therefore, the guys were nominated for a Grammy. But despite such a huge success, in 2014 James Ruth left.

Mask Evolution

The guitarist joined Slipknot towards the end of the first album (in '99), so at first he hid his face under a black leather bag (with holes for the mouth and eyes) of the previous member. However, James soon replaced the mask with another, which was a white latex face of a jester. Black diamonds flaunted in the eye area, the mouth was closed with a zipper, and the chin was hidden behind a frail beard.

In 2001, the mask changed and began to look more severe. The eyebrows were lowered angrily, the diamonds around the eyes darkened, and the raised cheekbones protruded forward. In addition, the goatee has changed to a demonic horn.

With the advent of 2004, metamorphoses again took place with the mask, and this time more significant. The face was still white as lime, and the patterns were black, but there were well-defined lips around the "lightning bolt", to which a dark line stretched from the right eye. After the implementation of All Hope Is Gone, the mask remained almost unchanged and acquired human features.

If it seemed to someone that the stage appearance of James Root resembles a character from the cult movie "The Crow" - then it really is. The musician admitted that he liked the image of Eric Draven (played by Brandon Lee in '94) so much that he was taken as the basis for his mask.

In 2013, at the Ozzfest festival in Japan, the members of Slipknot appeared before the public in a slightly different guise. The mask of James Ruth lost its chin, in place of which the musician's lush beard now flaunted, and the "skin" acquired an alien silver hue.

Facts of life

Interesting facts about James:

• The musician has several creative aliases: Peach, 4, Stuperbee, Mr. Bigs.
• James's height is 198 centimeters. He is the tallest in the group.
• He is born left-handed, but plays guitar right-handed. The fact is that Ruth belongs to a rare type of people - ambidexters who are equally good with both hands.
• In the summer of 2012, the musician had a severe stomach ache. When he was taken to the clinic, it turned out that he had a ruptured appendix. As you know, it is very dangerous for life, but everything ended well.
• James Ruth dated singer Christina Scabbia (Lacuna Coil) for thirteen years - from 2004 to 2017. However, the marriage did not end, and the young people broke up.
• Looking at the photo of the musician, you can see that James Root is now without a beard. And rightly so, because the change of image has not harmed anyone yet.

James Root equipment and guitars

Until 2007, the musician used the instruments of popular companies: Maverick, Jackson, Charvel and PRS. He then became an endorser for Fender, who created Root's signature Jim Root Telecaster. A little later, it was put on stream, and soon became the best in the Hottest Guitar nomination of the English printed edition of Total Guitar.

Starting in 2009, the musician began to often use the guitar Gibson Flying V, with pickups from EMG. In early 2010, Fender launched the Jim Root Stratocaster, which James had used on a world tour the year before.

Orange Amplifiers collaborated with Root to develop the Tiny Terror amplifier, which was introduced to the world in 2012. For the basisa Rockerverb 100 circuit was taken - James's favorite amplifier. Soon Tiny Terror was put on stream. It is worth noting that its design is made in the style of "minimalism": the front panel is decorated only with the musician's autograph and number alias 4; and the back features Stone Sour and Slipknot logos.

Similarity of last name and first name

Recently, there are rumors that the musician got married, but this is not true. The thing is that these are talks about the wedding of Theo James and Ruth Kearney - famous actors. Moreover, the star of the sensational film "Divergent" is not very happy that such a joyful event has become public. The celebration took place with the family at Villa Vistarenni (Chianti, Italy). As you can see, you should not believe what they say without checking the authenticity of the fact.