With Slipknot's triumphant return to stage announced -- June 24 at Sonisphere Festival in Switzerland -- the question now is how the masked outfit will fill the space left by the untimely passing of bassist Paul Gray. "It's one of the things that we're talking about right now," frontman Corey Taylor revealed to Artisan News Service.

"Whatever we do will make sense at the end of the day," Taylor continued, admitting one thing he is sure of. "He'll never be replaced, and it'll never be anything that will be OK, basically, but when the time comes, we'll figure it out."

Though the band has made nothing close to an official statement, what has been said publicly by members indicates that Slipknot will remain an octet, not replacing Gray with an official member to take a mask and number. Blabbermouth cites a recent interview with drummer Joey Jordison to back this fact up.

"We're not gonna have anyone on stage right now," Jordison said to The Pulse of Radio. "The bass player, he'll be behind me, you know, when I'm playing to lock in with me, but there's no one right now to go onstage. There's no replacement for Paul right now."

%VIRTUAL-globalVideoEmbed-{"videoIds":"517567492","width":"456","height":"357"}%

More From Noisecreep