Paul Gray Tribute

Gray was born in Los Angeles, California. Later his family relocated to Des Moines, Iowa. In his youth, Gray performed in bands such as Nuclear Blast, Vexx, Body Pit, and Inveigh Catharsis.

In June 2003, Gray crashed his car into another vehicle. After police were called to the scene and searched his car, Gray was arrested for possession of cannabis, cocaine, drug paraphernalia, and failure to obey a traffic signal.[1][2]

At the time of his death, he was one of 3 original members of Slipknot remaining in the band, and the only one who had maintained his original role in the band due to Clown's switch from main drums to custom percussion during the early days. He was one of the two members not born in Iowa (the other is Jim Root, who was born in Las Vegas). In 2010 Slipknot released the Download 2009 performance on DVD in memory of Gray.

Besides Slipknot, Gray filled in as bassist for Unida during their 2003 tour, appeared on Drop Dead, Gorgeous' Worse Than a Fairy Tale, toured briefly with Reggie and the Full Effect and appeared on the Roadrunner United project, performing bass on "The Enemy" and "Baptized in the Redemption" from the project's album The All-Star Sessions.

Slipknot awarded Nikki Sixx the "Bassist of the Year" award from the Revolver: Golden Gods event. It was originally going to go to Paul, but it was given to Nikki Sixx because he was second runner up.