Come What(ever) May - Production

Production

In September 2005, lead singer Corey Taylor announced that Stone Sour would return with a second album. He said that they had written over 30 songs, some during the writing process of Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), the third album by vocalist Taylor and guitarist James Root's other band Slipknot, and that they were working on demoing the tracks before entering the studio. Dave Fortman was originally slated to produce the album, however, on January 22, 2006 Stone Sour began working on the album with producer Nick Raskulinecz at Dave Grohl's personal studio (Studio 606), in Los Angeles. Time in the studio began with a week of pre-production, during which guitarist Josh Rand says producer Raskulinecz "pushed to the brink and back" to help fine-tune the songs they had previously written. Though Rand and Taylor wrote most of the music and lyrics for the first album, respectively, writing for Come What(ever) May was done by all members.

Following this, the band set out to record 18 tracks and work began on recording Joel Ekman's drum tracks. However, Ekman was forced to leave the studio after four weeks due to his young son's diagnosis of a brainstem glioma. With the fate of the album in jeopardy, Stone Sour recruited ex-Soulfly member Roy Mayorga as a session drummer. Mayorga recorded drums for all but two tracks on the album, Godsmack drummer Shannon Larkin performed on the track "30/30-150" and guitarist Root performed drums on the bonus track "The Day I Let Go." In an interview with Revolver during the recording process vocalist Taylor talked about the differences between this album and their previous album, Stone Sour. He said that pressures from fans and the record label were much larger; also noting that he "thrives on the pressure, because it gets going." While promising that "the album's gonna be miles above the first one," Taylor explained that it is "more melodic and darker". In late March 2006, drummer Joel Ekman officially left Stone Sour and the band was talking with a few drummers who could replace him. On April 7, 2006 the recording sessions for Come What(ever) May concluded. A month later session drummer Roy Mayorga joined Stone Sour on a full-time basis.