"We're focusing on this for a few years," Root said. "I haven't talked to or heard from anybody in Slipknot, as far as writing or moving forward on a new record."

Root, known in Slipknot as No. 4, said his Slipknot bandmates are keeping busy with other projects. Joey Jordison (No. 1) toured with Ministry and is working with bands in Canada. An avid photographer, drummer Shawn "Clown" Crahan (No. 6) is working on Slipknot's DVD "Voliminal: Inside the Nine." Paul Gray (No. 2) is touring with another band, and DJ Sid Wilson (No. 0) just released his own CD.

"Everybody's spread out, doing their own thing and relaxing at the same time," Root said.

Stone Sour is far from relaxing. The group is currently on the road as part of the Music as a Weapon tour with tour founders Disturbed [ tickets ], as well as Flyleaf and Nonpoint. The trek runs through Dec. 22.

"It's lovely," Root said of the outing. "We've pretty much toured with everybody [on the bill] in one band or another. We've been doing a lot of shows lately with Flyleaf. They're a good live band. They're very energetic."

Stone Sour's album "Come What(ever) May," peaked at No. 4 on The Billboard 200 album chart, and its single "Through Glass" climbed as high as No. 2 on Billboard's Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart.

"We didn't really expect this much from it," Root said. "When we toured on our first record ['Stone Sour'], it had the success that it had. It was a pretty successful record. We didn't expect to surpass it in the amount of time it's taken so far. Right now--where ['Come What(ever) May']'s at--it's already doing better than what the first album did."

"Through Glass" has enjoyed airplay on a variety of radio stations, ranging from alternative rock to album-oriented rock to pop stations. The cross-genre appeal pleases Root and the rest of Stone Sour--guitarist Josh Rand, bassist Shawn Economaki and drummer Roy Mayorga.

"That's kind of an accidental thing that just happens with us," Root said. "In a way, I think it's kind of good. Most of us in the band are pretty sick of this genre-specific time that we live in. Everybody's so judgmental about a certain type of music. My feeling is, if it's good and it makes you hum it out loud, or a riff sticks in your head, it's good no matter what it is--whether it's country, rap, metal, folk, pop, whatever. There are so many sub-genres and sub-categories, it'll make your head spin.

"What's cool with me is the fact that we can do something just naturally without trying to do something, and then see it achieve that type of spread. That's a pretty cool feeling. A lot of that is attributed to the fact that everyone in the band writes. Everybody has a different approach to writing. Once we bring it all together and everybody brings their flavor to it, it becomes somewhat cohesive within the band and within the album," he added.

Stone Sour is working on new material, although it hasn't officially begun work on a new album.

"We have ideas," Root said. "We still have some run-off ideas that didn't make it on this record that we didn't have a chance to work on. Josh and I just got portable ProTools rigs so we can start demoing stuff. Corey has 30 or 40 songs in his head."