02/10/2026
Eric Hendrikx MOTORCYCLE LIFE — Featuring Jim Root
***ALERT: Today is James Root’s Birthday!! 🎂🤘
Jim Root knows obsession.
For more than two decades, he’s been behind some of the heaviest riffs in modern metal as guitarist #4 in Slipknot. But when he’s not onstage or in the studio, there’s a good chance he’s in his garage tearing into a motorcycle.
Jim owns 14 bikes. He has a particular weakness for Harley-Davidson FXRs and Dynas, and he doesn’t just collect them—he builds them. Engines, transmissions, frames, fabrication. He gets into the details until, in his words, he becomes “obsessed.”
When I interviewed Jim for Motorcycle Life, we talked about growing up around bikes, looping a Yamaha YZ80 the first time he ever twisted a throttle, riding old Shovelheads to Sturgis, and why building a motorcycle scratches the same creative itch as writing music.
There’s also another side to it.
“What’s the greatest life lesson motorcycles have taught you?”
“That community matters. The motorcycle world is full of people who show up for each other—builders, machinists, fabricators, riders.”
And then there’s the solitude.
“Riding gives me space to think. It’s just me, the rumble of the motor, and the wind. That’s when I do my best thinking—those long conversations with myself that I can’t have anywhere else.”
That tension—community and solitude, noise and focus, machinery and creativity—is exactly what Motorcycle Life is about.
Proud to have Jim Root in the book. 💪🖤
Motorcycle Life: Stories, Wisdom, and Obsession from Riders Around the World
Published by Artisan Books
Available Now—Wherever Books are Sold
Photography: Jason Soria