Following a flurry of bucket-list moments, the Scranton goth-metallers are crossing off another one with their new single Playing God, collaborating with a personal hero in the form of Corey Taylor. Any seasoned Motionless fan will know that they would not be the band they are today if it wasn’t for Slipknot‘s violent, confrontational influence, and Chris thought there was no greater opportunity to try and make his dream a reality.
“I reached out and tried to be very upfront and honest about it,” recalls Chris. “He ended up being very cool and very excited about it. I wish I had a camera to capture my reaction when I heard it for the first time. He went so hard, and it’s just so, so aggressive. I can’t believe that’s our voices next to each other.
“He’s an exemplary role model that any band member should look up to, as to how you want to conduct yourself in that type of setting, and then also as a human being. I’m so grateful to get the chance to work with him and admire him for that.”
While Afraid Of The Dark was the natural lead single that represents what Chris deems the “emotional backbone” of Decades, Playing God is a far fierier counterpart, placing in its crosshairs the ever-worsening toxicity of the internet.
“You open up any social media platform and you’re just berated with rage bait, hot takes, engagement farming, mostly people just straight-up lying about shit,” Chris says, becoming more animated with frustration as he speaks. “It pushed me away from social media. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t want to be on there.
“The amount of stuff that the internet says about all of those things I discussed – artists, entertainers of any type – is so, so disheartening to me, and I’m so angry about it, even though I know I shouldn’t be. I wanted to write a song that I felt was a raw expression of that emotion, to be like, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck all of the bottom-feeding rats of social media that have no identity themselves, they have nothing to offer the world, and so their default is to utilise bands, artists, entertainers, whoever, to just bolster their own fucking social currency.’”