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In early 1999, when an unsigned Slipknot erupted onto the metal scene with a distinctive look and sound, no-one quite knew what to expect. The nine-piece line-up, wearing masks and overalls, performed savage stage shows that left the band covered in blood, sweat and vomit. Musically they delivered a percussive-based brand of manic rap-core that was straight out of left field. In fact, it came straight out of mid-western redneck USA - the farming state of Iowa. This week, the band's second album - incidentally entitled Iowa - debuted at number two on the Australian charts. In the UK it's number one.

"When we started working on the music for this album we started to see all these things were coming out - a lot of personal issues - basically a lot of reflections of where we came from," explains Slipknot singer Corey Taylor. "So it just made sense to name the album Iowa. Also, it was to give people a different perspective of a State that is just seen as place with lots of cows and farmers. We're here to say it's not all about that," says Taylor. In a metal scene infiltrated by make-up wearing pretty boys with a passion for power chords, Slipknot's Iowa promises to once again label heavy metal as armed and dangerous. "The music is a lot heavier, a lot darker, a lot faster and the lyrics are a lot deeper," Taylor says. "We went back to our roots of thrash and black metal and created something that is going to piss a lot of people off."

That's a scary thought, considering the brutal breakneck ferocity of Slipknot's platinum selling self-titled debut release. However, Taylor is adamant his band was never going to give its fans, or "maggots" as they refer to them, anything less. "We had a lot of places where could go with this record. People were telling us, "Oh you can go commercial, you could do a whole covers single thing' or whatever, but we didn't want to. We wanted to stay true to where we started from and keep doing what we've always done. Keep brutalizing everything we do, brutalizing the music, so it was just a natural step." There's also a ew stage show, which should be seen in Australia before the end of the year on the Iowa world tour.

The new stage resembles a kind of rock 'n' roll hell, complete with 666 signs, pentagrams, flames and a goat's head dripping in blood. Not that any of the band members are even remotely satanic. "No, not at all," Taylor says. "We are just proving a point. People assume because you put three numbers together you must be satanic. We could be mathematicians."

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Local Boys Do Good (and Bad)
Lori Brookhart

Misfits... maybe. Freaks... definitely. Lucifer's children... who's to say? Weirdos ... possibly. Sadistic cult... one never knows.

Call them what you will, Slipknot doesn't really give a shit. They know who they are, they do what they want, they do it for themselves and they get off on it. Encountering this pandemonious seven man accompaniment should be one of Iowa's must see tourist attractions.

After taking the title in the 1996 KKDM Battle of the Bands, Slipknot has been making head way in 1997. Mate, Feed, Kill, Repeat, the band's first CD release has sold close to 500 copies since the Halloween release party and shows are increasingly climbing in attendance.

Slipknot has been back in the studio and muzi.com Magazine was there to witness the next step for Des Moines' mob squad. The recording process takes patience, skill, and input. With seven members, positive and at times hasty, opinionated input isn't hard to come by. The first night of studio time at SR Audio in Urbandale entailed fine tuning and sound checks, lots of sitting around, and an excessive amount of sick and often indescribable demented jokes.

WARNING: This is not all fun and games kids. Recording a Slipknot CD takes a process of laying out the music, then cutting the vocals, and finally adding the eccentric sounds that capture Slipknot , hence the garbage can, the keg, the power saw and the samples, which utilizes hi-tech computerized and dangerously innovative techniques. The process then goes to mixing, mastering, and finally distribution. After the tedious business was taken care of, the musicians were turned loose to do their thing.

Slipknot was very open about their future. I talked with most of band, but received the majority direct quotations from lead drummer, Nathan.

Q:Why are you back in the studio?

We've learned how to write songs differently. Through playing live and as time has gone by we've experienced a lot of different sounds. Songs we originally recorded we have come up with new things for. When we started out we came up with a lot of kick ass ideas that most bands go their whole career without coming up with; that's something to be proud of. Slipknot has become more now than ever before.

Q:Are you redoing Mate, Feed, Kill, Repeat ?

No, we are coming in [the studio] and focusing on the way things are now in the band. Everything is gelled differently. When we first recorded [Mate, Feed, Kill, Repeat.] we had a different guitar player at the time, a different lead guitar player, and we didn't have our sampler.

Q:How do you record a power saw anyway?

Very carefully and with inexpensive microphones. Right here in the studio there are sparks flying everywhere!

Q:Explain the percussion methods in the band.

I play the main set which is all acoustic drums, and I am the main drummer; I sit in the back and I am the glue that holds the band together. The Clown is a total power drummer, he is all aggression. Now, we have acquired using electronic drums to work with the samples for a different element to the music. The third drummer is taking care of a tribal, auxiliary sound while also doing his vocals. We wanted three perspectives for an almost auditory overkill. We are a very percussion heavy band.

Q:How did the funk/ disco component enter into SlipKnot's genre of music?

Pretty much from different influences. It first appeared in "Do Nothing/Bitch Slap" which is this song that goes through funk, to industrial, to jazz, then to all out heaviness, with disco in the middle. It worked itself out magically. But we are always going to be a heavy band. All our diverse elements are going to be based around heavy riffs because for us there is nothing like playing all out pissed aggressive music, that's what really gets us off. Throwing in [the funk, the disco, the rap] just adds so much spice. I don't like going to see bands who just wear flannel and stand up there and play their three chords, there's more to life than that and more to music.

Q:What runs through your mind when you are playing a show?

I personally really don't know what the hell is going on. I'm on auto-pilot. I can't comprehend what is going on because of the adrenaline rush. Plus I'm behind a set of drums, symbols, a mask, and sweat. When we finish playing it takes me about an our or two to talk about the show or anything.

Q:As apart of the audience I see the crowd's reaction, what is your take on Slipknot's audience?

First of all we play for ourselves.Everything is about playing live. We started this out of pure boredom and we took a chance. People like it and keep coming back for more. When the crowd is into the show we can definitely feed off that. The crazier they become the more crazed we become. You'll never once hear this band ever fucking take a stand against all out brutal moshing. Get out your anger if that is what we do to you. Get your angst out about your wife, your boyfriend, your parents, your job, school, your life, being born-- get it all out. We condone it, we love it, and we'll join you.

Q:May 24 was Slipknot's first all-age show; was it important to reach that audience?

Basically, we haven't done one yet and there is a lot of people who have wanted to come out and see us. The over 21 crowd has seen us numerous times. Since we've been playing out live over a year we've been asked constantly to do an all-age show. They [the under 21ers] either try to get in, sneak in or whatever and that really sucks for them because they too buy our CD and want to see the live show.

Q:Was there obvious pressure in competing in the 1996 Battle of the Bands?

We were definitely psyched. I've never seen us come together as much as we did at that time. Recording is one thing but when it came to the pressure we were all really competitive. I think that'.

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Ross Robinson: Producer Extraordinaire
Metal-is.com

Ross Robinson is by far the most influential producer of the past decade. Period. When he hooked up with a young band from Bakersfield called Korn in the early Nineties, he changed the landscape of heavy music for years to come. His credits include Sepultura's mindblowing 'Roots', Soulfly, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, Amen, Tura Satana, Cold, Glassjaw and, er, Vanilla Ice.

However, Ross Robinson's first musical endeavour wasn't producing. He played guitar in the ill-fated metal band Détente, whose only album, 'Recognize No Authority', was released in 1986. He also formed the progressive speed metal group Catalepsy with drummer Dave McClain (today in Machine Head), which later transformed into Murdercar.

Admitting that he had a huge ego problem at the time, Ross looks back at this period in his life with remorse. "It became physically painful for me to play guitar, because I was judging my playing so bad. The natural progression out of that was - since I love music and being radical with it - I switched to recording," Ross told Martin Carlsson during a visit to Stockholm to promote his new label I Am Records. Ross convinced a record engineer to give him an internship at his studio and learned the craft. He worked on the WASP epic 'The Crimson Idol' (1992), but in his spare time, he had all his efforts focused into a much more brutal combo, Fear Factory.

"During that time, we recorded 18 songs with Fear Factory, recorded and mixed in ten days. They got signed up with that tape and basically, I was cut out. I was really angry, and my anger just kept building and building this massive frustration inside of me. I just wanted to kill those guys. I used to work out and train, just so if I saw them in person, I would kill them.

"But at the time, I didn't realise that my anger and my ego fucked that up. I had a lot of stuff going on that didn't create a good situation between us. I was basically searching to put all that energy into something that was productive.

"I learned to have the band sign a contract before I would record them. With Fear Factory, I got a friend who sold pot to pay for it. He basically got screwed over and I was totally, like, angry. But I claim a lot of responsibility for that. Each step of the way I learned. Then I found a band which turned into Korn."

Was this when they were called LAPD?

Ross: This was right after LAPD, 'cause Dave (McClain) and I played with LAPD before. I remember Munky, him and I talked, and we sat down and got a really close bond, we totally connected. I remembered him, and I had this amazing calling inside of me, 'I have to find another band'. I looked in the paper and I found this little club called Coconut Teaser and there was five people there, it was James, David and Fieldy. They had a different singer and they could barely play through one song without stopping in the middle of it. I felt the beat and the groove in there, and I thought it was really good. James had a low-tuned guitar, and it had that Carcass thing that I was into, the beat was like Faith No More, and I thought it was cool.

We stuck together for a year and a half before they were signed and in that time, I had this really wild spiritual awakening thing happening, and I let go of all my anger. I discovered a power inside of me that was waiting to be called on. I did the first Korn record with that power and we created a genre of music which today I think totally sucks. I'd hate to do this now. I don't hate Korn, but I really dislike all the bands copying them. It's time for a change.

Having said that, by producing lots of these bands, you are, in a way, to blame for the Korn scene…

R: Yeah, at the time it was OK, but now it's not cool for me. I don't think it's good any more at all. Anything I can do to destroy that genre today I will, 'cause any band that copies it is pure garbage. Total garbage. I'm done.

There are still a lot of people that feel that Slipknot is merely a continuation of early Korn…

R: Yeah, it's a melting pot of a lot of different things. Mostly it's a melting pot of death metal and one of the directions I wanted them to go towards, more punk, more out of control stuff. At the time when I did the Slipknot album, there wasn't, like, a dirty feeling inside for me to do it. The next album is gonna be a complete distraction. We're gonna do it as heavy, as radical and as ridiculous as possible.

When you say 'ridiculous', some people perceive Slipknot as sort of a joke wearing masks…

R: Yeah, the masks are an extension of the personalities they hold inside of themselves. It could be looked at as a circus act, but they're only showing their true face, rather than a fake one. For them, that's what they're doing. Feels good to me.

First Korn blew up, then Limp Bizkit. I remember being in the studio when you did the latest Machine Head record. You pointed at a gold disc from the first Limp Bizkit album and said something along the lines of "I did that band and now they've abandoned me."

R: You know, I turned down the last two Limp Bizkit records. They called me to come in and work with them on the vocals. Of course they tried to haggle me down, but I wouldn't budge. Even that amount of money isn't worth it. The feeling I have about what the singer of Limp Bizkit does and what he stands for, it's not what I'm about. The gold record you saw was earned and after that, there was a lot of payola and cheesy things went down to make that 'Faith' song blow up. I tried to make them not do that song. I'll take the residual check and do great bands like Amen. If it doesn't make money, I don't mind.

What bugs me about Limp Bizkit and Korn is that they're entrepreneurs who prefer to stay in America and put out albums every year instead of touring Europe…

R: Korn didn't play here 'cause there's no Coors Lite here! That's why they didn't come back, seriously. That was their biggest complaint, and I'm not joking. It's funny, but it's kinda not cool for the fans, you know. But they made it out finally, right?

When you started working with Korn, could you see that sound having the impact that it did?

R: No, my thing was to make music, and that was it. I wasn't into getting paid or anything except for standing up for what I deserve, so I got the manager to take care of that part. In the beginning, in the middle or now, it was never about making money. Turning down the Limp Bizkit album, I lost probably a couple of million dollars. It would be easy money to do something like that.

I did Machine Head instead and I'm so not into the rapping, the 808's and the funky shit that they did. I fought it the whole way, and it felt very wrong for me. Robb Flynn is very headstrong. Everybody sees me as the perpetrator, changing them, but that is total bullshit. I wish there was a videotape of the arguments we had. I don't wanna do that crap any more. There are some good moments on the Machine Head album, I think, but the Adidas rock thing, I'm so not down with that. I told Robb that I can't do the next record if there's any rapping, any sort of funky thing, space suits, you know?

And what was his reaction?

R: Kind of disappointed, but, you know, he's cool. He's my friend.

What are your strengths as a producer?

R: To open up the soul and get it on the tape. I don't give a fuck if it's in tune or if it's in time, it just needs to give soul. What happens is each person in the band has one mind with the same thought and you can get that energy. And when they're playing together, it's like an Indian circle, a prayer circle where the real spirit happens - you get the chills. So alive and perfect. It's like a ball of energy that floats in the middle of the room and it goes straight to tape. That's what I do.

And balance in music - I have a voice that guides me through, that's beyond what I know in my brain. I can do anything and have it be so important, because the invisible is on tape. I make records that communicate from the soul heart to your soul heart. It doesn't have to do with the ears, it's pure spirit.

Are there any areas involving your production work that you feel you have to work on?

R: I could always be more patient. Especially if a band member isn't very good, if they're not up to the level of the other guys. It's totally important to get all the vibes together, that's what makes a band special. Just patience, I think. I feel like I have a lot, but I did the At The Drive-In record… it's gonna come out and blow people's minds. They're totally different to anything that I've done. The guitars aren't heavy metal, they're on fire, like Gang Of Four. Really great melodies. The best live shit I ever seen. They fucking rule. I did it right before Amen, but I was impatient with the drummer. It took a long time to do the drums, but I learnt a lot. He gave every drop of blood on that record, and I pushed and pushed. I think he got his feelings hurt at times, but I think we got a great record out of it. I just wish I was more patient with him.

Did that end your relationship?

R: I'm sure it has, but he can listen to his record and know that he couldn't have done a better job.

In an interview with Metal-Is, Tom Araya mentioned that you're one of the candidates to produce the next Slayer album. Interestingly, their new song 'Here Comes The Pain' has that detuned sound that you're trying to get away from…

R: I met those guys. I was craving so much more. I'm used to working with bands that are fucking on fire, man… you know, that will not do anything else but music or die. I explained to them what I craved and I threw my crutches on the ground and freaked them out a bit. Kerry King was like all over it. It was interesting, but they didn't call me back. I don't wanna be the guy that, like, does the Adidas, modern, low-tuned stuff. That's fucking Carcass. I'm kind of embarrassed of my past. If I would do anything like that today, it would kill me. Now it's time to fucking destroy it, man. Wreck it!

Your name has also been linked to the Norwegian black metal band Emperor…

R: There has been a lot of hate mail about me. I don't want it to interfere with their trip, because it's so important, that scene, and what they do is so important and great. The guitar player has said something like "We're never gonna work with that guy", and I just backed off. I don't know, they have one more record on their deal and I don't know if they're gonna break up. If I'm doing it, I'm gonna put them on my label. I wouldn't do it on a small label, I'd bring it over.

So who got the hate mail?

R: The magazines. I read a lot of stuff. They (Emperor) do what I crave. Before Jonathan Davis did his vocals on his new record, I made him buy the Emperor album to know what the vibe and the real deal is. That's how into them I am.

Do you think you'll ever work with Max Cavalera and Soulfly again?

R: No, I don't think so. Max and I have a great connection, but again, the Adidas rock thing… Me, as a fan, I want them to be hardcore and full metal, no funky stuff. As long as he would do a funky thing, which is bizarre, I can't do it. There are parts of the last Soulfly album that I feel kind of embarrassed by. When I hear it, it just doesn't feel right to me. That record was kind of thrown together and the band members weren't in the band. Max had a couple of riffs and stuff, and we built the record around it. The new album that I heard is very Adidas rock. I can't even listen to it, it cringes me up, and to me, it's so dead and so uncool. It's cool that he does it, and there are a lot of people that are gonna jump around to his music, that's cool. But me, personally, I'm just so not down with that genre.

Let's talk about your label I Am Records. It's going through Virgin, although the company is not known as a place for heavy music, but then they signed A Perfect Circle…

R: That's what I'm doing here also. Amen was the first signing and I know for a fact that it's the most extreme major label act ever. Period. And I'm proud of that. No compromise in any way, in any shape or form. With the art, with the music, everything we needed, it all went so smooth and so good, everybody just welcomed us with open arms. They loved the band and the music, total support. It's one of the high priority acts on Virgin.

What's ahead of you now?

R: I'm starting the new Slipknot in the fall, and in-between doing that, I want to find another band. I'm looking for the new destroyers of planet earth, whatever that means. If you have any ideas of any bands or whatever, send it to Virgin c/o me and I'll get it. If somebody thinks they can handle that, I'll give them a record deal.

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Beauty And The Beast:
Behind the mask of Slipknot's Mick (7) Thomson
Sandy Masuo

It’s hard to imagine Slipknot guitarist Mick Thompson, more commonly known as 7, getting teary-eyed over a ballad like Ozzy Osbourne’s “Good-Bye to Romance,” but somewhere under the hockey player from hell latex mask is a man with a soft spot for melodic eloquence, and a hard-ass guitar teacher. Before Slipknot’s wave of success began to swell, Thompson worked at Ye Olde Guitar Shoppe in Des Moines, Iowa, where he cultivated his playing technique, a fervent love of gear and a guitar pedagogy that was actually surprisingly sensitive to his students’ needs. The 26 year old characterizes himself as an anti-social, obsessive shredder, so it’s something of an irony that he wound up making a name (or at least a number) for himself as part of a nine-piece ensemble that’s built a following with primal, grinding rant-o-ramas that have more in common with the minimalist rumblings of the industrial underground than the epic scenarios of prog-rock. But Thompson is the missing link between the two worlds, attacking Slipknot’s raw music with the refined sensibility of an artist.

Guitar.com: Is there a method to the madness? Is Slipknot an art band?

Mick Thompson: No. We just do what we do. That’s what’s funny. A lot of times people think we’re really contrived -- like we sit down and have band meetings and decide what we’re gonna do. Everything just evolved over the last five years. We could never know that we were going to get a record deal. No one in Des Moines ever got a record deal, so it was never even a consideration. It’s always been just to make ourselves happy. That’s what’s cool about it; it’s honest. We could have never predicted the kind of success we’ve got. I thought we’d be lucky to sell 100,000 records.

Guitar.com: Did you have trouble building a following locally?

Thompson: Noooo. We had a sick following. Our fans have always been fanatics. Nobody’s a wishy-washy Slipknot fan. You love us or you don’t. That’s what’s good -- there’s a lot of emotion wrapped up in that.

Guitar.com: Being a guy who was so heavily into shreddage, do you ever feel cramped by Slipknot’s music because there isn’t much room for you to groove?

Thompson: See, we used to have leads back in the day. They got cut out in pre-production. “Sick” used to have a big long shredder lead where I got to do sweep arpeggios and harmonic minor runs and all this kind of stuff. It was a lot of fun cause people would get a little taste of it. It wasn’t the whole show, but they’d be like, “Goddamn, you can play.” But now I don’t really have that. I get a little sweep thing on a song called “Me Inside” but the way it ended up getting mixed was it got panned out about half way through so you can’t hear that I’m doing minor diminished sweeps. Plus we put a phaser on it. “Sick” doesn’t need a lead in anymore. While I love doing that stuff I wouldn’t want to do something that wasn’t positively affecting the song. Admittedly I was pissed off for a while -- the wind was kind of pulled out of my proverbial sails a little bit -- but I’m not mad. And who knows what’s going to be on the next record? Probably no shredding, unfortunately, but the stuff we’re working on for the next record is definitely more technical.

Guitar.com: When you were in your most obsessive phase of guitar playing, was it some kind of spiritual quest a la Steve Vai?

Thompson: No. I just did what I did. I never took any cues from anybody. I never copied anybody. I’ve always just played ’cause I have to. Everyday I’d drive home from work, I wouldn’t clean up -- nothing. I used to have this big dark spot on my wall where I would lean across my 100-watt Marshall half stack I had in my bedroom and hit the power switch and every day sit down filthy on the edge of my bed and play my guitar just ’cause I had to hear it. I’d end up sitting there for a few hours and then realize I had to take a piss and I was starving.

Guitar.com: Not to get all “what color is your parachute” but they say that’s when you know you’ve found your calling. It’s the thing that makes you forget time and lose track of self.

Thompson: That’s what I’ve always said about drugs. I don’t even understand why you’d need it. If you need to escape from your world -- I can sit in my room and play my guitar and I’m not me, I’m not anything. I’m not aware of anything. In a way it’s like meditation, but never intentional. I’ve never sought to do that, it just ended up happening that way and now I can look back and go “Whoa, I just spent four hours sitting there and I don’t recall seeing anything in the room.” I can’t really remember any time I focused my vision on anything. I’m just gone.

Guitar.com: Who were you influenced by?

Thompson: That’s such a funny question – like I’m supposed to sound like whatever bands I listen to. I was such a huge Hendrix freak. I still love Hendrix. But does my playing sound like Hendrix? No. You don’t have to be a product of [your influences]… But yeah, definitely Hendrix. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Couldn’t Stand the Weather was amazing. My dad got that when I was like 11 and I got to go see him when I was 13. I skipped a baseball game I had that day and went.

Guitar.com: Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the thing you love.

Thompson: Yeah, I’m glad I missed that game. I was supposed to pitch that night too. It was like, “Sorry guys. Duty calls.” God what else? Flotsam & Jetsam's Doomsday for the Deceiver. That was a huge inspiration speed metal-wise -- playing really fast and huge arrangements. Metallica, Ride the Lightning. Suicidal Tendencies’ How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can’t Even Smile Today. Anthrax, old Iron Maiden stuff -- Number of the Beast and Piece of Mind. Fates Warning. People think Dream Theater is good? Fates Warning smokes them… They are probably the greatest progressive metal band ever to exist. Very overlooked too… They’ll always do Dream Theater articles, but they never do any justice to Fates Warning -- and Dream Theater were hugely influenced by Fates Warning. John Petrucci’s a great guitar player but I’m always left without much. I like parts of Awake and a bunch of Images & Words but after that it’s like, “Where’s your soul?”

Guitar.com: That’s a problem with a lot of high-end tech players.

Thompson: Yeah, a lot of times it doesn’t connect. That’s one thing I’ve always done in my leads, which you’ve never gotten to hear, but they’re always very lyrical. I can play insanely fast, but speed doesn’t mean anything without taste. That’s the thing I love about Randy Rhoads and Johnny Winter -- old Johnny Winter back when he was still doin’ rock stuff. “Theme For An Imaginary Western” by Mountain has one of the greatest leads ever done on it. It’s so tasty. That’s the thing I always try to keep -- a theme. I can improvise but I prefer to write something [so] it flows. It takes you somewhere. Maybe something that reoccurs a little later in another form similar… melody-wise but people wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a melody in itself.

Guitar.com: A recapitulation.

Thompson: Yeah. That’s the kind of stuff Randy Rhoads did. Listen to the lead for “Good-Bye To Romance.” That song makes me cry. I’m sorry, but John Petrucci has never in his life touched the “Good-Bye to Romance” solo. He’s a much better technical guitar player than Randy Rhoads. In fact I’m probably technically a better guitar player than Randy Rhoads ’cause I pull off a lot of things that Randy Rhoads never did.

Guitar.com: But he played with so much feeling.

Thompson: Oh my God. I would never even think to blaspheme and say that I could consider myself anything like Randy Rhoads. Technically I can shred arpeggios at the speed of light all day long and I never saw Randy Rhoads do that, but who gives a rat’s ass? I didn’t write the “Good-Bye to Romance” lead. That’s so much more important. And a lot of people who say that kind of stuff say it because they don’t have the technique and they can’t actually play. That’s their crutch. Like, “That’s real fast, but these four notes I play mean something.” I’m like, “Yeah, that’s a nice excuse for not being able to play fast ’cause you know you would if you could.”

Guitar.com: Sour grapes.

Thompson: Exactly… Why not push yourself? I always told my students -- if you ever [believe] you’re good, you’re gonna suck. You’ll get complacent. Kids in school kiss your ass ’cause you play the guitar and maybe you’re not even very good at all but your buddies think you are. As soon as you start to believe that, where’s your drive? Where’s your desire? That’s all gone.

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Interview with Corey Taylor
Hit Parader - May 2000

Slipknot is bizarre. Slipknot is weird. Slipknot is strange. Slipknot is a 9 man mutant army comprised of 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,and 8 ( perhaps better known as, DJ Sid Wilson, Drummer Joey Jordison, Bassist Paul Gray, Percussionist Chris Fehn, Guitarist James Root, Sampler Craig Jones, Percussionist Shawn Crahan, Guitarist Mick Thompson and Vocalist Corey Taylor.) In the relatively short span of time that has elapsed since the release of their self titled debut album, they have created a unique style of metallic mayhem that has set the world on fire! As they stand on stage dressed in their Clockwork Orange coveralls, their faces shrouded by an array of self-made tribalistic masks, emitting a sound that has been dubbed from everything from "L.A Non-Metal" to "Ultra-Violent Death-Hop" you can't help but wonder where these Iowa boys made their radical turn in the "wrong" direction. But all such words mean little to Slipknot. Following their headline-grabbing stint at last years Ozzfest, and their acceptance by the hard rock underground as the form's latest "saviors", these heartland rockers have proven their metal mettle time and time again. Recently we caught up with Taylor to lean all we could about the unusual band known as Slipknot.

Hit Parader: First there was Ozzfest. Then, the Livin' La Vida Loco tour. Coming from a small town it seems like a long show for a band from Iowa to succeed like Slipknot has, what are your thoughts on that?

Corey Taylor: It's pretty amazing, it was something I dreamt about when I was a kid. But, I always knew it was going to happen, you work your ass off, you give something special to the people. You're going to get something in return. To go on tour with Black Sabbath and Slayer, who I grew up listening to, it was like "Oh my God!!" It was amazing!

H.P: What are the masks about? Could it be hiding your identities like Kiss?

C.T.: It's weird man, when people recognize us without our masks on we will sit and talk with them. We're not afraid of who we are, Slipknot that is, where with Kiss it's a 24/7 kind of thing. When we're on stage that's who we are. The mask thing isn't something we sat down and said, "Ok, we're going to this gimmick thing to sell albums." We started with the music first, the mask thing is something that happened in the basement, it clicked and we said, "What can we do to make out music more insane?" Then the coveralls came in. We got so sick and tired of the whole music is product stuff, like, "What's my new hair style of the day?", "This is my name", or like, "I'm from so and so." The music should be first and foremost!

H.P:Being from Iowa, how did nine talented musicians that are on the same page, hook up to form Slipknot?

C.T.:Being from Des Moines, I understand it. Des Moines is kind of like a graveyard with buildings shooting up from it. It's a small place, 200 thousand people, with the majority being old people. It's got the second highest concentration of old people in the country. Try being a fifteen year old in that kind of puritanical, totalarian environment. There's nothing to do there at that age except rage! You're going totally nuts inside. I don't want to say it made us who we are but it played a part in the bands attitude. It made us work 3 times as hard for it, because nobody knew what to do with us. We would play in some tiny club, in front of twenty people. We're killing each other and these people wouldn't know what to look at first, but the music stuck with them. We all came up in bands with each other, so we all knew each other. We were the one's watching each other play, it was neutral. We were the ones in bands that set us apart. The one's that would stay out 'till two in the morning hanging up flyers. We were the ones that would wake up in the middle of a kick-ass dream and say, "I've got an idea for that song." That's why it was easy for us to find the people with the common goal and dream, instead of a band we're a family. We're an army if you want to get down to it.

H.P:You guys have sold a lot of albums without the aid of radio or MTV. How does that feel?

C.T.: It's pretty crazy, man! I don't even know how to describe it anymore. At first, I was giddy, but now it's gotten insane. Like you said, no airplay, no MTV, none of that stuff. We've been going out and doing it all ourselves, working our asses off, and the kids are getting behind it. And it shows in the sales. It's pretty flattering. It's also humbling in a way because alot of kids feel the same way we do. They're tired of getting messed over, tired of having their hopes up on a band and getting let down. I can't count how many times that has happened to me. You bring this out on the road, you put all these emotions on this album. People really draw on it. There is aggression sadness all the sick stuff fans relate to. And at our live show, kids go away saying, "You've got to see this band!" We love it when people don't know what to do with us, it makes us go off harder. It's getting to the point where the word is spreading, and the shows are getting crazier. The kids are venting out. That gets in the air, we're breathing it in. It's like death in the air. It's like this little cycle, we feed it in, they give it back to us, we keep pushing it back until the last note is hit. Kids haven't had a band like that in a long time.

H.P:The next Millennium is here. What is Slipknot going to do in Y2K?

C.T.:Destroy everything! We're taking over and there's nothing anybody can do about it! I'm telling you, it's going down. Nobody mess with the Knot, the Knot does the messing

back

Joey "2" Jordison Metal Update Interview

Most metal bands that "break through" commercially start by forming a bond with the "underground" community. Through touring and independent label releases they build a core audience, then later leverage their carefully-crafted street credibility into a more mainstream type of acceptance with subsequent releases. Slipknot is, perhaps, in the opposite position. In the first days of the 21st Century, Slipknot is selling tons of records to mainstream kids. While their debut Roadrunner album has sold over 300,000 copies, it has primarily done so without the support of the underground metal community. Too much media hype, too many fourteen year old Korn fans, too much of a "nu-metal" vibe for the true metalheads to embrace, right? Well spend a minute talking with drummer Joey Jordison, a.k.a. #1, and you might just change your mind. Once you get to know him, you'll realize the fact that Joey's personal metal credibility is undeniable. And once you hear him talk of what's next for Slipknot, I dare you not to become curious about this unique commercial juggernaut of a band who doesn't want to turn its collective back on metal and is willing to fight for the acceptance of our scene.

Metal Update: How important is it to you to go back and establish the core foundation of fans from the metal underground that might have disregarded you thus far due to the band's almost immediate massive mainstream acceptance and early hype?

1: The weird thing about this band was . . . underground people have certain bands that are so special to them - the whole thing really means so much. And then like, some fucking eighth grade kid wearing a Korn shirt has the record and they feel the band has cheapened. A lot of times that's not the band's fault. If you listen to a song like "Eeyore", which is a bonus track on the record, or if you listen to "Get this" from the digipack, or "Surfacing" or "[sic]" or even like fucking "Scissors" the roots are death metal, thrash, speed metal, and I could go on and on about all those bands. I know all the songs, and I know every fucking label.

MU: Well, that's what we hope to do here, Joey. The whole point of us talking to you today is to address the question, "Is Slipknot a metal band?". . .

1: Yes, we're a metal band! With a capital "M"!

MU: (laughs) Cool. But does Slipknot care about the underground metal scene? Basically, what I'm asking is, can you guys hang, and do you want to?

1: I'm right where you are. I'm a fan of music, I still go to shows. The records I buy are sure as hell not top 40. The current success of the band is due to the fact that we speak to a lot of those kids in a way they haven't been spoken to before. And, a lot of that music that they hear - even though, to me, I've heard it and know that bands have been doing this a long time - these kids have never heard it because it is a completely different audience. Kids that listen to Slipknot now have never heard Suffocation, even though that's what is in my CD player.

MU: Well then I guess asking straight up if you yourself are a metalhead at this point is a silly question.

1: I'm wearing a Venom t-shirt now, dude! My t-shirt collection ranges from like Mercyful Fate to Venom to old Kiss, Black Sabbath, etc.

MU: Musically speaking, does Slipknot have more in common with Limp Bizkit or Morbid Angel?

1: Morbid Angel.

MU: Why do you say that?

1: Let me tell you why. If you listen to the riff in "Eyeless", to me that's a complete Morbid Angel ripoff. I admit it. It's got a ghost bend in the guitar which is a complete Immolation and Morbid Angel trademark. Where the string is bent up before it is even hit and then released when it is stricken down. It's a riff in "Eyeless", a break down part - "duh-duh-duh . . . weeeooowwwn . . . duh-duh-duh dudda-duh." That's Morbid Angel. Listen to "Here in After" by Immolation. That's where we get that from.

MU: I think you guys get lumped in with the whole "nu-metal" thing.

1: We do.

MU: And thus, a lot of the underground metalheads never gave you a chance.

1: That's because we happened so quick. That sucks for us because . . . Hey. Everyone who has the Slipknot record is a dedicated fan, and I appreciate it, and I will go above and beyond the realms of anything to do anything for them because they are the reason we are here. But the underground metal kids should also be happy because the current success of Slipknot, on songs like "Surfacing" and "[sic]" that have super-fast sixteenth-note double-bass -- none of those other fuckers in the other bands they lump us with could contend with that. Wait till you hear our fuckin' next record. This is just like the - dude, we've got three songs, and you wanna hear some serious shit. It smokes our first album. The shit's twice as technical, three times as heavy. The first track on the album's gonna be called "People=Shit". It opens up with a grindbeat with sixteenth-note double-bass and four layers of black metal and death metal screams.

MU: You're obviously a killer drummer.

1: Thank you.

MU: What were you doin' prior to Slipknot?

1: Ever hear of the band Anal Blast?

MU: Sure.

1: Me and Paul, the bass player started that band. That CD that they have out called 'Vaginal Vempire' - We wrote every song on there.

MU: Doesn't somebody from that band have something to do with Milwaukee Metalfest?

1: Don Decker. He helps book a lot of the bands. He runs metalfest shows. Anyway, I used to be in a thrash band and Paul and Mick were in this death metal band called Body Pit. And a lot of their songs that they wrote in Body Pit that are really technical and ultra-heavy are gonna be on the next record. 'Cause we saved 'em. This is our template: we've got a lot of the new-school kids who like our band, we've got a lot of the underground kids who like our band. When the next record comes out, a lot of those new-school kids are gonna be really turned on to the whole underground metal thing. 'Cause we've got mainstream success, but we want to use that mainstream success to throw in our old influences and ultra-heavy shit on the next record. And everyone will hear it.

MU: That's fantastic.

1: You know, bands like Cannibal Corpse, bands like Immolation, and say, Internal Bleeding have a lot in common with what we do. And these bands might have more success because of us.

MU: There is a rumor going around right now that Pantera is considering taking Satyricon on the road with them. A lot of people would be down on Satyricon for taking that tour. Some people would say that's them selling out.

1: They're not selling out, man. There's so many kids that aren't smart enough and don't have the resources to go out and find music like that. Honestly, they're not smart enough, they don't have the magazines, how can you blame someone? They just don't know. But if they hear the music, a lot of people will be like "I never knew this shit existed, but it fuckin' rules! I'll drop $15 on the album."

MU: Whatever else you think of Pantera. at least Phil Anselmo uses his mainstream success to try to prop up underground acts.

1: I know those guys. They're good friends of ours.

MU: Phil's a metalhead.

1: Dude, they're all metalheads. They're white trash, rebel flag wearin', we don't give a shit, we're fuckin' drunk, it's metal time. Yeah, they don't sound like Immortal, but they're metal, dude. There's a bunch of forms of metal. And I hate the mentality but I used to be this way too: anybody who's sold more than 100,000 records can fuck off. Well, I'm in the situation now where we have. And, you know, the greatest thing about all of the naysayers now who don't really think that we are necessarily metal, even though songs like "[sic]" and "Surfacing" and "Eyeless", all those songs are full-on metal songs, sorry, we have a lot of other influences that aren't black or death metal, but this next record's gonna shut a lot of fuckin' people's mouths.

MU: What other kinds of influences are on your current record?

1: There's a lot. We were on the cover of Terrorizer this last month, and I think they got it. They go, when the record first came out, they were very skeptical. Ross Robinson produced it and all that shit. Does that mean it will have more in common with Korn than it should? And I remember they reviewed the album a few issues before and said that the first opening track has more in common with Suffocation than Spineshank. I was like, finally. They understand it. This is a magazine dedicated to a lot of the underground, you know, traditional metal, power metal, black metal, and death metal. None of that trendy new shit.

MU: What other influences are on the record?

1: Well, like I said, I'm wearing a Venom t-shirt, and that has a lot to do with it. If you listen to a song like "Red Light Fever", off 'Welcome to Hell', if it was cleaned up and produced a lot better, I think it would have a lot to do with the tempos that we play on the album. Songs like that. Of course old Mercyful Fate and King Diamond, even though we don't use that kind of vocal, Mickey Dee is a great drummer, and I learned a lot of shit from that guy. Black Sabbath . . . the whole death metal movement had a lot to do with the structures of our songs. Even though we try to write a little bit more traditional song structures, the tempo changes - if you listen to like "Surfacing", there's this break where I stop and the bass goes "budda-da didda-di dadda-da . . . ," I'd like to see anyone who follows Korn try to play that riff.

MU: What do you think of Limp Bizkit?

1: They can fuck right off.

MU: Korn?

1: They can fuck right off.

MU: Don't you think that Korn has elements . . .

1: You know what? I can't say that about them because they at least did start that whole neo-metal movement, but their last couple records have sucked.

MU: Is there a Roadrunner sound?

1: No. It's trendy, dude. Roadrunner's gettin' too trendy with shit, tryin' to make more records, they're tryin' to become a major label. When we signed to them, all they said was "don't say that you're metal in interviews." I'm like, "dude, you signed Malevolent Creation!" 'Retribution' is one of the best fuckin' death metal albums ever recorded. Don't tell me we're not metal.

MU: You are what you are. But Roadrunner is obviously putting a lot behind you guys as well.

1: Well, the funny thing was . . . it was a big choice. Ross mainly helped get our deal there. And Monty came and saw us, saying that this is cool and exciting and that nothing had gotten him this excited in a while 'cause there are so many elements covered within this band, we need to jump on it now or someone else will. Now we had a bunch of offers from major labels. But the first thing was that we wanted to remain underground. We were like, we're gonna go with Roadrunner, 'cause at the time they weren't breaking anybody. The biggest thing they had was Sepultura. And the 'Roots' album, a lot of people disagree, but I think it is a great record.

MU: What do you think of the new Machine Head?

1: 'Burn My Eyes' is still the favorite. But, 'The Burning Red', which also has "burn" in the title, I don't get that, but it's got some good stuff on it, I do like it. People get in that mood where if it mellows out a little bit, they hate it.

MU: To my ears, the difference between 'Burn My Eyes' and 'The Burning Red' is what you would call the Roadrunner sound.

1: Definitely. That's what sucks about it.

MU: But obviously the relationship is working for you guys, at least form a business perspective.

1: That's 'cause we don't listen to anybody but ourselves.

MU: Let's talk about Ross Robinson. There's rumors . . .

1: Are you talking about the Emperor thing?

MU: Yeah. Does he listen to stuff like that?

1: Dude, he comes from - he came to a practice before he saw one of our shows. He heard the demo, he flew in, and when we played he had a smile on his face from ear to ear. And the reason was - he stopped the song. He's like, "man, I've waiting for a band like you guys, 'cause you got the elements covered of what music has today, but you come from a school . . ." - first bands he names: Morbid Angel and Carcass.

MU: So you're saying that Ross is a smart guy who knows how to sell records, but he is a metal fan too.

1: When he first did Korn, there was not a band remotely like that in the world. So it was new. He wants to do bands like that, he wants to pick up on new bands. He doesn't want to get with a band who imitates what he has done before. Even though he did Limp Bizkit, they were more rap oriented, and it was still a new thing. All he wants to do now - when he picked us up, he picked Amen up, we're like his whole initial project to get away from that sound. Now he's talked to Emperor, told them how he'd like to do it. Now think of how all the Emperor fans would react if they found out Ross Robinson was producing the next Emperor record!

MU: They'd freak.

1: They'd freak.

MU: It's because the fans would expect that the choice of Ross as producer would signal Emperor's desire to change to a more mainstream approach. Like, say, Sepultura did.

1: Yeah, but they were changing on 'Chaos A.D.' They had the drums already going, they had the tempos slowin' down to more kinda crunchy thrash shit. I never considered Sepultura a death metal band, ever. They never had the death metal thing, they were a heavy, heavy thrash/speed metal band.

MU: What do you think Emperor would sound like if Ross Robinson produced it?

1: I think the tone - they have this really . . . you know, the black metal reverb. A really tinny sound, treble out the fuckin' ass. Ross would bring a more immediate, probably a darker tone. The drums would have darker tones, it would be probably more pleasurable to the ear to listen to. Now people that listen to black metal shit, that's what they're down with. All those fuckin' bands that they listen to have that shit fuckin' production. But I think after a while you become accustomed. Just like in the old days when Terry Date was producing Dark Angel and Overkill and all those fuckin' bands, they all had that slick, fuckin' loud cymbals but punchy low-end type of sound, kinda like the Deftones are doin' now. But I think Ross would bring a more pleasurable tone to listen to, but I think the vocals and the performance out of the instruments would be better than anything they'd ever done before. And I think it would be Emperor - just with a different production, a different look on things. I think it would be great. I would love to hear it. Because I know the way Ross is, the dude's a metal guy. He used to play guitar in a band that had a song on like Metal Massacre Volume 3 or Volume 4. It was complete metal, thrashy shit. Then he started doin' production, doin' internships with W.A.S.P. and shit, makin' W.A.S.P. records. When you are a young kid, W.A.S.P. is pretty metal. I mean, it's cheese, but . . .

MU: W.A.S.P. are cool.

1: They played Warlocks! Speaking of which we just got a Warlock endorsement from B.C. Rich. (laughs)

MU: I gotta confess that I am more of a fan now than I was when we began this interview.

1: Well, I gotta tell you. We get so many different groups of kids that come to our shows. We get straight up black metal . . . we went to Europe, and I went out to this club, hoping to meet some fans. Now, Europe is a weird place, dude, 'cause those kids fucking live metal. I mean, all our shows were sold out. But they seem to pay more attention there. And I was talking to this girl who said "I hate Slipknot's commercial success.* But what she didn't realize, was that I was there with my Marduk shirt on. And she said, "you're not the drummer of Slipknot, he would never wear a shirt like that." And I had a studded metal belt on, and these boots, but she knew the red stripes in my hair. Then I got to talking to her about all of these bands, and we were talking about black metal. She went home, listened to the record, and then I saw her the next day at the show and she realized where all of those influences come in. It's like, you listen to the record and you think one thing. You come to see the show, and then you realize where a lot of that shit comes in, you actually see the band perform it, then you actually go back and listen to the record and it makes a ton more sense.

MU: I didn't think Slipknot was for me. But I listened, and the shit is intense.

1: It's so cool. This is the only interview I've been excited to do. I did Alternative Press yesterday, I did Spin the other day. And I hate - I don't like doin' 'em. I have to do them though because I have a responsibility to those kids. I haven't had this much fun doin' an interview. You guys are like me. We could be friends. Not even talking about the band, just being fans of metal.

MU: Absolutely. Let's shift gears for a second. What do you think of Marilyn Manson?

1: I have mixed opinions on the guy. It rules that I have mixed opinions because he brings that reaction out. Everyone has a reaction to Marilyn Manson and most people dis him, but I'm not going to dis him. I'll tell you what, to do the things he has done, and get it out to that many people, especially with MTV showing videos of pigeons takin' a shit on him . . .

MU: But is he doing crazy shit which happened to become successful, or is he successful because he's doin' some pretty crazy shit?

1: Hmmm . . . interesting question . . .

MU: Scratch that question. Let's keep it about Slipknot. How do you explain the crazy costumes and the masks to the underground metal scene?

1: That's where most of the problems come in with the underground metal scene. 'Cause to us, that shit ain't funny, that's serious. We never wanted to be about the Marilyn Manson rock star fashion thing. I don't speak over kids. I speak directly to them. Day in, day out, reactions to fuckin' life itself. We keep our lyrics open-ended so that they can get a positive reaction from them, or could be a negative reaction to bring out positivity. Those masks that we wear - we literally feel that way. We wear the scan bar code system and put tribal markings on the outfit and number ourselves 0-8. How many pictures do you see of the band . . . Have you seen the band live?

MU: Well . . . I went to Ozzfest, but I think I was drinkin' a beer waiting for Slayer to come on during your set. (laughs)

1: I don't blame you dude! You didn't come to see us. But when you see pictures of the band, do they look funny to you or cartoony?

MU: No, I mean . . . are you asking me if it looks like you're trying to be silly?

1: Yeah.

MU: No, not at all.

1: OK. That's what I'm asking. 'Cause our guitarist, Mick, just got asked to join Brutality. And he already knew all the songs, he's ready to go. But this is the unit, and this is where he actually felt more accomplished as an artist to get his creative desires out. Because, where we came from, all the finger pointing and ridiculing for trying to do hard music brought about the masks and the trying to keep the rock star cliches bullshit out of it. 'Cause I'm not gonna cheat any of those fans. And that originally means all my friends in the underground music scene. Those are the original kids, those are the people who are carrying it on! Magazines like Metal Maniacs and people who listen to say, Satyricon - some of those fans think that even being in that magazine is selling out for them. How am I gonna explain myself to them? Even though I listen to the same shit. They just don't want to fuckin' hear it.

MU: You're right about that, for a certain portion of the underground community, their whole game is to be holier than thou, or, if you will, unholier than thou. (laughs) I guess you lose them, and you can't be for everybody I guess. So will you ever give up the costumes or phase them out?

1: No, because our band is so over-compulsive with art, our imagery, and most importantly our music. Down the road . . . it's gonna be a Slipknot album. Everything you like about Slipknot is gonna be on the next record. Except, for the majority of our fans, it's gonna be something that they will not have the nearest clue where it came from. But, to the fans who are a lot of naysayers and skeptics, I think they will embrace the second record a lot more than the first.

MU: What was your favorite band on the Ozzfest tour you did?

1: Slayer, dude. (laughs) Well, I actually gotta say Black Sabbath because they are the forefathers of metal. But after Black Sabbath, definitely Slayer.

MU: Did you hang with those guys?

1: Sure.

MU: What is Slayer's place in modern music?

1: I've seen those guys live, like five times. I've never seen them go for it as much as they did on Ozzfest. Jeff Hanneman hasn't banged his head as much as he did on Ozzfest ever before. I'm talkin' even back in the 'Hell Awaits' days. And that dude has done thousands and thousands of shows.

MU: Why do you think he went so crazy?

1: He was giving the middle finger to all the trendy-ass bullshit. We burned a fuckin' picture of Fred Durst on stage the other night. This month's Teen People has a fuckin' spread of that drummer from Korn in a Calvin Klein jeans ad! That's why we wear the masks, and don't let the faces and the clothing endorsements take over. We wear stuff that cannot be the subject of an endorsement to make the band more cheesy, to get more money or to get involved with ego shit. Now I'm not sayin' that we'd would do that anyway, but we're takin' a safety precaution and we're rebelling against all of that. We're like a musical hit squad that will fuckin' kill anything. The most important thing is this. I want your audience to know we give them the four-horn devil salute, and that our music is completely influenced by the same music they listen to, and when they hear the next record, it is for them. We do a cover of Terrorizer's "Fear Napalm"!

MU: Cool! Any last words for the metallic legions out there?

1: Thanks to all our fans who bought our record. I do have to thank them first and foremost. And if there are other people, your readers, who want to venture out and listen to something different than what they are hearing right now, they should know that I listen to the same stuff as they do, and the next record is for them. I promise.

back

IGN For Men: Slipknot Interview
Spence D.

There's not much to do in Des Moines. Or so I've been told. You see, I haven't actually ever been to said Midwest metropolis in Iowa, but I've talked with a few cats from the area. Dudes who know what it's like to grow up bored in the middle of America. I'm of course speaking about Slipknot, the surging 9-piece combo who are currently reinventing the way we look at the sonic genre known as heavy metal.

IGN For Men snagged an exclusive with 3/9 of the band, specifically Jim, Mick, and Corey from Slipknot. Actually many Slipknot fans probably know them as #4, #7, and #8, respectively. At any rate, attempting to interview three of the nine members of Slipknot was a chore in and of itself, especially with the band on the road. The result was a tag team styled interview done in three parts. The event kicked off with #4 (guitarist Jim) , then #7 (guitarist Mick) tagged in, and the final shots were followed by #8 (frontman Corey), who rounded out the match.

What follows is Parts I & II, a tandem interview with guitarists Jim and Mick. You'll have to wait until Monday for Part III with Corey.

NOW SERVING NUMBER FOUR (A Brief Verbal Respite With Jim)

IGN For Men: Does your music give you nightmares or is it a by-product of them?

Jim: Umm the music is definitely a product of nightmares.

IGN For Men: Then it's safe to say that you have pretty vivid and nasty nightmares, right?

Jim: Umm, yeah, for the most part.

IGN For Men: If the music is a by-product of your nightmares, how do you transfer it from the nightmares into music?

Jim: Depends. I mean it can be a vibe. Sometimes you can have a nightmare about music, right? You know? I've had all kinds of weird nightmares. I mean everything from you know, being a World War II fighter pilot to just having a burning head turn around telling me that I'm going to burn in hell, you know what I mean?

IGN For Men: Do you try and save those visions and bring them with you to practice?

Jim: Yeah. Sometimes those visions are pretty vivid, you know?

IGN For Men: Do you ever share 'em with the other guys?

Jim: Umm, yeah if I do it's usually just with Corey [the lead singer].

IGN For Men: Mick's a lot taller than you, right?

Jim: No. I'm much taller than Mick.

IGN For Men: Really?

Jim: Yeah.

IGN For Men: Well he certainly looks bigger than you, especially on-stage. Plus all the articles that I've read with the band talk about how big Mick is.

Jim: Yeah, he likes to embellish his size [laughs]. He's about 6' 2" with boots on. I'm 6-foot 6".

IGN For Men: I noticed that you've gotten a new mask. You used to sport a black bondage mask with this hookey-dook thing on top.

Jim: Yeah that was my hair [laughs].

IGN For Men: Oh, sticking out of a hole on top of the mask?

Jim: Yeah, that little hookey-dook thing.

IGN For Men: I thought it was like one of those duster things, you know those hand held dust mops?

Jim: No, I had purple hair and I pulled it up through the top of it.

IGN For Men: Ahh, but now you're rockin' more like an S&M whiteface mask.

Jim: Yeah. Well, you know, the bondage hood was really painful. I played one show in it and it really sucked. It trapped all the sweat around my head and it filled my ears up with sweat and it pushed into my eye sockets and it was a real pain in the ass. So it was time for me to develop my own thing.

IGN For Men: Did the sweat in your ears affect your playing at all?

Jim: Yeah it did. It was like playing underwater, you know. It was pretty bad. I was like 'Screw this.' They were like 'Cut holes in the ears so they can drain and you can hear everything.' And I was like 'No, $%&* this mask. I'm going to do something new.'

IGN For Men: If you could name one character from literature, TV, comic books, whatever, who would it be that has most influenced your playing?

Jim: Hmmm, from anything ever? Wow, that's a tough one. I try not to take too much influence as far as I'm concerned. You know what I mean? But I'd really have to say that [laughs]... damn! I'm just drawing a blank there. I think it had something to do with old Warner Bros. cartoons.

IGN For Men: Not the frog?

Jim: No, not the frog.

IGN For Men: Or Pepe Le Pew?

Jim: Not Pepe. Probably Daffy Duck, you know?

IGN For Men: Ahh, okay.

Jim: 'Cause he was always pissed off, you know. He was always screaming and doing his little arm thing.

IGN For Men: What do you guys bring along with you on the road?

Jim: To listen to?

IGN For Men: Yeah, but also do you stock the bus with video games, movies, and such?

Jim: Oh yeah. We've got Playstation and we had a Dreamcast and the hot game right now is Tony Hawks' Pro Skater. Oh yeah. That game rules.

IGN For Men: I haven't played it yet...

Jim: Oh God you gotta play it. I prefer the Playstation.

IGN For Men: Other than Tony Hawks, what's your all time favorite?

Jim: Umm, all time favorite? Wow! Siphon Filter was really good. I just played a game called Medal of Honor that I really liked a lot. I'm more into the shoot 'em up games, the pretend - you're - a - war - hero - go -kill - a - bunch - of - people games, you know?

IGN For Men: I'm all about the third person zombie killing games myself.

Jim: Yeah, yeah. I like those too, like Resident Evil and things like that. I'm really into those. What else have I played that was really cool? I liked Ace Combat 2 was a really cool game.

IGN For Men: Do you guys have tournaments between the nine of you? Or are you more into single playing?

Jim: [laughs]. Some of us aren't into it. But the tournaments usually happen with the drummers. And that's when they get out the Twisted Metal. And they'll do Twisted Metal until 5 in the morning. Yeah, pretty crazy.

IGN For Men: Do you ever get it on that action?

Jim: We usually don't bring enough controllers with us.

IGN For Men: What about on the tune front? Do you have your Gordon Lightfoot records along while Mick quietly listens to John Denver 8-tracks?

Jim: Uh, you know, everybody kind of listens to little bit different stuff. My CD collections varies. It's got everything from the Beatles to Entombed in it. But Joey listens to a lot of Mr. Bungle and stuff like that. Everybody has their own tastes.

IGN For Men: On your Welcome To Our Neighborhood video I believe it's Corey who says that there's nothing but skating rinks and graveyards in Des Moines. Which did you hang out at?

Jim: [laughs] See we would do the all night skates. The parents would drop us off there and then we would sneak out and go to the graveyards.

IGN For Men: And at the graveyards you were getting drunk and stones, right?

Jim: Uh, you know. Doing whatever kids do. It was either hang out there or McDonalds.

IGN For Men: Naw, I went to High School in a small town, too, so it was either McDonalds, stay at home, or steal street signs.

Jim: Oh yeah, there was all kinds of that going on. When we got our license a friend of mine had a '68 Buick LeSabre and we used to drive around and knock over Stop signs and Yield signs and stupid $%&*.

********************************************************************************

NOW SERVING NUMBER SEVEN (Laying It On The Line With Mick)

IGN For Men: I've never been to Iowa.

Mick: It all sucks.

IGN For Men: But isn't it all relative to your point of reference?

Mick: Well, that's what's really interesting. I grew up, I mean $%&*, I live a mile and a half from the hospital I was born at, you know? So it's like you don't get out much and then you go out and see the US a few times and go to Europe and $%&* and then come back and it gives you some awesome perspective as to just how completely retarded it is where you live.

IGN For Men: Yeah, but your cost of living has got to be mad cheap. I mean I could probably come out there and buy a really cool house for really cheap.

Mick: Well, there again, really cheap is you know...My roommate is from a small town in Iowa and he thinks what we pay in rent is high. And I laugh because it's like...I just went out two days ago and started renting a house and it's like twice what our rent is at our apartment.

IGN For Men: What are you paying at the apartment?

Mick: Umm, 400 bucks.

IGN For Men: And you're now paying $800 for a house?

Mick: Yeah, 3-bedroom, 2-story house with a basement.

IGN For Men: Dude, I'm paying $400 for a small, small room in San Francisco with no parking.

Mick: That's what I heard. And in LA you pay like 1100 dollars for like a small efficiency.

IGN For Men: It's the same here in SF and even worse in New York.

Mick: See I've got a nice full basement with a shower and $%&*. I've got a deck and a garage.

IGN For Men: Oh, you're stylin'.

Mick: Yeah! But him being from a really $%&*!@# small town, he thinks our 400-dollar a month apartment is just outrageous. I'm like 'Man, get over it!' I'm from the suburbs, where it is considerably a little more expensive out there, but...an evil product of the suburbs.

IGN For Men: There's more of us out there than you realize.

Mick: [laughs] Yeah!

IGN For Men: Jim told me that you don't wear your masks in practice, but do you still practice all hunched over and head snapping and flailing?

Mick: No, that's what's funny. Obviously I get into it and I feel it. When I walk out on stage and the look in people's eyes and $%&* and the crowd yelling 'Slipknot!' for 10-minutes before you come out, I mean that gets you really jacked. I mean the thought of walking into a town where you've never been before and there's people $%&*!@# yellin' your name and shit that are there to see you, it's the greatest feeling on earth. I mean it's amazing. I mean no one could ever imagine that that would ever happen in their life. Certainly not me. I don't know, it's the coolest. So you get really psyched up. And then you come out on stage and see the $%&*!@# look on people's faces when you walk out and I really feed on that. Sometimes when we've rolled into a place and they've never seen us before, this is going back a ways before you could go look at us on the Internet and you could get the CD anywhere. Each town took two shows, basically. The first show they'd stand there and watch like 'What the $%&* is this?' Like it was a train wreck or something. And then the second show we'd have lots of pits. I mean the first shows would have some pits, but most people were standing there like 'Huh?' And it was always frustrating to me 'cause I really feed off the crowd and if the crowd's just kind of standing there I just want to throw my guitar down and start smacking people.

IGN For Men: Hey, is your music derived from your nightmares at all?

Mick: I don't really have any nightmares. I don't know. Everybody's different and that's just me. It's just very natural. $%&*, I guess being on the outside and not knowing where things come from it might...there's a lot of people who talk about things being scary and I watch tape and I'm kind of sick looking on stage, but it is very fitting. The music is definitely a side of my personality that is there and it gets to come out.

IGN For Men: Hell, we all have our dark sides.

Mick: Yeah, some bigger than others.

IGN For Men: I talked with Clive Barker a few weeks ago and he mentioned that if he didn't have his writing as an outlet he'd surely be locked up in the loony bin.

Mick: Well I've said before if there wasn't such a thing as masturbation there'd definitely be a body count [laughs].

IGN For Men: Jim was talking about his Playstation fixation on tour, what about you?

Mick: No, I had my 64 out on the road like two tours ago. I bought Knockout Kings Boxing. I played like probably 30 straight hours of that until I beat Muhammad Ali with three or four different guys that I had created. Then I kinda grew tired of it.

IGN For Men: So have you been leaving the console at home lately?

Mick: Yeah, yeah, you know, people beatin' the $%&* out of your stuff. Somebody else can bring their 64, 'cause I don't like watching my controllers get thrown.

IGN For Men: You'd rather play in the safety of your own home, then?

Mick: Oh yeah, I'm a puss. I'm like 'Dude, you know, you break my controller, it's your ass.' I'd rather not even have it come to that, so I'll leave it at home. But I run through phases. Sometimes I do that [play N64] a lot more and sometimes I'm just like 'Ehhh, I'm burnt out.' And those kinds of times I usually just do a lot of sleeping.

IGN For Men: So do you guys roll as fat as John Madden, the king of open road travel?

Mick: Oh yeah! Especially are new bus that we just got. It's a 2000, total rolling palace. Oh $%&*, it's potential is yet to be realized. We've got virtual reality goggles in every bunk. You can like lay in your bunk watching TV, strap the $%&* on, it's got the headphones and total wraparound. So I think I'm gonna be partaking of that a little bit more.

IGN For Men: Man, you're just gonna be a vegetable between shows.

Mick: Exactly. Not only that, we've got a satellite and the satellite cards, so we've got all the channels...

IGN For Men: You'll get to watch Japanese Death Match Wrestling and cool stuff like that then you lucky bastard.

Mick: Oh yeah, that kind of stuff is awesome. Man I got to watch the Holyfield / Lewis fight before I went on stage. I was sittin' there 20-minutes before we went on and the fight was over. Then I had to run inside and quickly get changed. But we've got like the three hardcore porno channels and I've never experienced that with the virtual reality goggles. What's cool about that, too, is typically I'm a connoisseur of fine pornography, but I don't dig watchin' it around dudes, know what I'm sayin'? You walk in and there's four guys sittin' there watchin' some guy taggin' some plastic titted strumpet and I'm like 'What's wrong with you guys?' I mean this is activity for one, as far as I'm concerned.

IGN For Men: So you never watch porn with your lady?

Mick: I've never done that. I don't need that $%&*, anyway, 'cause it's not like anything in porno...I get a little bit more creative than that. Besides, my whole thing is my girlfriend lookin' at other dicks thing. Like nah, nah, nah.

IGN For Men: Ahh, penis envy, so to speak.

Mick: Well not envy. It doesn't matter smaller or bigger or whatever, she might like it more than mine. And I couldn't possibly live with that, you know?

IGN For Men: Have you ever considered a gig in the adult film world?

Mick: Well, I've always said, as a joke, that my guitar playing is simply a stepping stone to my porno career.

IGN For Men: What would your porn name be, then?

Mick: I don't know. The good ones like Rip Hyman and $%&* are already taken. Hmmm, yeah, I don't know, that would definitely take some thought and I've never really put any thought into the name, but my God, I've thought about what I'd do. But I've got a girlfriend. And some people have girlfriends, but it's just some goofy bitch that they're porkin'. But I actually $%&*!@# love and care for mine. It's one of those things, I just couldn't do it. But you know, if everything fell apart I'd like to lend my woodsmanship to a video sometime in my life. But
if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen.

IGN For Men: Well it's always wise to have a back-up career option, you know?

Mick: Yeah [laughs] I didn't go to college, but I can $%&*. Just don't tell my mom [laughs].

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IGN For Men: Slipknot Interview Part 3
Spence D.

Des Moines, Iowa. Some refer to it as the middle of America, while others refer to it as the middle of nowhere. Regardless of your stance on the region, one thing's for damn sure: Des Moines knows how to rock. Actually, I'm not sure about the whole town, but the nine guys who make up Slipknot definitely know how to rock.

In just a few short years, Slipknot has risen from the dying cornfields and barren farmlands of this bastion of Americana living to turn the world of heavy music (once called metal) on it's collective ass. Surging throbs of molten rhythms and scream therapy verbal discharge are the Slipknot specialty.

Last week IGN For Men brought you an entertaining 2-part interview with Jim and Mick, the guitarists behind the grueling Slipknot six-string assault (if you missed that one, slam your cursor here to read it).

Now IGN For Men is proud to bring you an exclusive interview with Slipknot frontman Corey (a.k.a. #8). Before Slipknot, Corey spent time working in an adult bookstore, so he has a wee bit of porn connoisseurism lodged within his persona. On top of that he's a comic book readin' fool. And of course, he's a rock-n-roll maniac.

So now, without further adieu, here's the IGN For Men Interview with Slipknot: Part 3

IGN For Men: Hey man, I recently interviewed one of the vivid girls. I only bring this up 'cause I know you have a bit of a porn background yourself.

Corey: Which one was it?

IGN For Men: Kira Kener.

Corey: Ooooooh, yeah. She rules.

IGN For Men: So, let's talk porn, baby!

Corey: I was watchin' porn when I was 13-years old.

IGN For Men: What's your all-time classic porn flick, then?

Corey: Oh $%&*.! I don't know man. My taste expands. But like in the '80s when they had really bad $%&*!@# hairdos and the bright lipstick was goin' on, I wasn't down with that. Once the '90s kicked-in though, man! You know, that's when amateur porn really started to kick-in, you know, and I was pretty down with that. But I'd have to say that my favorite of all time would have to be Vivid's Nylon. Very good movie. It's got Celeste in it.

IGN For Men: I'm more from the Deep Throat era myself.

Corey: Okay, right on. I dug that movie. I loved the '70s ones because everybody was hairy, you know. It was real, pretty $%&*!@' real lookin'. Everybody was ugly and they were just $%&*!@!

IGN For Men: How did you fall into the adult bookstore gig?

Corey: A friend of mine was working there. It's kind of funny because she'd been working there for awhile and then after I started she quit. I said 'What the $%^&, man!?' So I worked at a porn shop called the Adult Emporium for about three years, you know? It was probably the best job I ever had, you know? 'Cause I'd work the midnite-eight shift, the graveyard shift, and all the freaks would come in on my shift, you know? It $%&*!@# ruled, because what else do you need to write about except for real people?

IGN For Men: Is that where some of your lyrical inspirations evolved from?

Corey: Ummm, not really. A lot of it was just spending a lot of time sittin' there by myself. See, I worked by myself, you know? And a lot of times I was just kickin' it, gettin' very introspective. When there's nothing to do, you've got all your work done, all you can do is sit there and kind of reflect. I think a lot of that [my lyrics] had to do with the long hours I spent there.

IGN For Men: Are the craziest mutha$%&*!@# really from Des Moines?

Corey: Most of 'em are. I tell ya, this comes from a standpoint where a lot of the crazy people in the bigger towns, a lot of it is shock value. You know, they put on a huge front 'cause they want everyone to think that they're $%&*!@# outrageous, so out there. But you go to a town like Des Moines, man, where a lot of people are so full of pent up energy, man, that it's just amazing dude. It's like you get 'em in a $%&*!@# party situation and you do not know what the $%&* is gonna happen. Especially when you're growing up, man. There's nothing for kids to do. So you definitely develop a destructive $%&*!@# behavior just from the fact that the only thing to do is break #$%* and it pisses the old people off, which is pretty cool, you know? So, like I said, you get really introspective, you develop a really cool sense of self.

IGN For Men: Wouldn't you say that you guys are going for shock value, what with the disturbing nightmare masks, the visceral soniference, and the $%&* you! attitude?

Corey: Not really, man. I mean you've got to realize the reason that we did this, was that we put the masks on because so many people...we're musicians and we play music, man. We're kind of rebelling against [the continued commercialism of modern music; musicians doing Calvin Klein ads, etc.]. Obviously it [our masks] have a great look, but the reason that we started doing it in the first place was because we'd seen so many $%&*!@ bands suck the money dick and just completely cheese out to where they would get onstage and they'd be like 'Hey, look! Do you like my new hairdo?' 'Cool!' 'D'ya like my new shirt that I bought on Santa Monica Boulevard today?' 'Cool!' 'Here's my new shoes, I'm endorsed.' 'Cool!' It's like '$%&* you, man! Play your $%&*!@' music!' Nobody gives a $%&*, they want to $%&*!@' hear your music. And that's why we did the masks, that's why we did the coveralls, that's why we did all those things. We were like '$%&* my face! Here's my mask, this is what the music turns me into.' And 'You know what? $%&* the clothing and the $%&*!@' fashion show that these other mutha$%&*!@# are puttin' on! Here's my cover alls, deal with that!' And 'Oh, music is product?' 'No, music is expression, here's my $%&*!@' barcode. There's your product!' 'Oh you want my name? You want to $%&*!@' be a namedropper? Here's my number on my right arm.' 'Piss off and die!' You know, we were so $%&*!@' tired of being let down and seeing so many other kids being let down by this $%&* that it was either you wait and wait and wait or you do it yourself.

IGN For Men: And there isn't any corporate Slipknot sponsorship either, right?

Corey: $%&* no! The only real sponsorship we have is for like guitars and $%&*, which we need 'cause we can't afford to buy
our own $%&* right now.

IGN For Men: So I guess we shouldn't expect a Slipknot Gap commercial anytime soon, should we?

Corey: $%&* no! Negative. You will not and if you ever do see us, dude, shoot us in the face 'cause we don't know what the hell we're doin'. We're not in this for the $%&*!@# modeling. We're not in this for any of that $%&*, dude. The music mainly and $%&*!@ foremost. We don't give a $%&* about all that crap.

IGN For Men: And the chicks. I know you want to get the chicks and backstage groupies.

Corey: Oh well, you know. It used to be that, but I have a girlfriend right now. I'm behaving myself, I'm not getting into the 'Road Warrior' stories yet. Y'see, I did that $%&* a long time ago, man. Like everything you can do on the road, I did. So it holds no #$%&*! mystery or secret key for me, know what I'm sayin'? If I ever want to do it I'll probably have to take $%&* in somebody's mouth. That's how $%&*!@ far out there I've become, dude. I'm tellin' you.

IGN For Men:Well that would be takin' it one step further than Mike Patton, who once took a $%&* on stage in the early days of Mr. Bungle.

Corey: Oh I don't doubt that, man. He's $%^&*!@ gone. He's like one of my heroes. He's like one of the baddest $%^!@ singers of all time. He's a really incredible singer, man. He has done so much with his voice, just his voice. I don't know if you've heard his solo record, with the throat noises? It's amazing. Plus the Fatomos album, it's so good, dude. It's a very acquired taste. We had the privilege of seein' them live when we recorded our album. We were just blown away. We bought the album when it came out and it was exactly like it was on stage, man. If you can, definitely check it out. And listen to it with an open $%&*!@ mind. It makes Bungle look like Lawrence Welk. It's that $%^&!@-up.

IGN For Men: Besides showing what the music does to you inside, the masks also provide quite a bit of anonymity. I mean earlier you said I could shoot you if you ever took a Gap commercial. Hell, I'd be delighted to honor that request, but I don't know what the hell you look like. That's why you guys really wear the masks, so if anybody really hates your $%&8, they don't know what you look like.

Corey: [laughs] Yeah, I love it dude. I was walkin' around in the Virgin Megastore the other day and I saw so many Slipknot shirts, it was $%&*!@' hilarious 'cause none of 'em recognized me. It ruled. I mean that's what it's all about.

IGN For Men: So will you ever do the 'Slipknot Unmasked Tour' a la KISS?

Corey: I don't think so, man. I mean, no [laughs] $%&* no! I don't know man. I mean if it ever gets down to the point where we take the masks off, I think that's gonna be the time to call it a day, you know what I'm sayin'? Because that's so much a part of what we are. The masks are really just another $%&*!@' instrument for us to use.

IGN For Men: So you're not hiding from the world, then?

Corey: Not really. We're not really hiding anything. I mean we're actually showing more of what we're expressing than you think. Everybody wants to think that we're hiding behind these masks, you know? That's bullshit. If we were hiding, you'd never see us. But we're out, we got out and $%&*!@' live our lives. We do our things. If kids $%&*!@' recognize us, we stop and talk to 'em. I think they respect that more than a bunch of guys that kinda just huddle on the $%&*!@' bus and don't talk to anybody and then just get out and do our thing. Because we do this it keeps us well rounded. It keeps us very down to earth, it keeps us doing what we want to do, it keeps our eyes on the prize.

IGN For Men: Since you don't huddle on the tour bus, what do you do to pass the time while out on the road? Mick confessed to being a bit of an N64 head, but that he doesn't bring his set-up on tour as the rest of you guys thrash his controllers.

Corey: [laughs] Mick likes to bitch, that's all I'm sayin'. As for me, I like to watch, I like to coach, y'know? I see patterns and $%&* and then I'll tell 'em about it. I don't have the hand coordination for it for some reason. I can work a joystick like a mutha$%&*!@, like the old Atari 2600's. That was my game. I can play at the arcade and $%&*, but I can't get into the Nintendo thing. There's only one real game that I like to play anyway and that's Tetris, the heroin of $%&*!@' arcade games. It's so addictive, dude. I had to buy like two or three different games 'cause I was burnin' 'em out. I sit in bed, $%&*!@' put on my headphones and play Tetris. And that's on a boring night.

IGN For Men: What do you coach and who do you end up coaching?

Corey: Umm, I think it's for like the first person games like Goldeneye, your Dooms. I remember $%&* because people are very busy looking around for other $%&*, so they forget to file things in their head. I'm not playing and I'm not sweating getting killed, so I'm remembering all the details and $%&*. So I coach like that. I coach on the new Tony Hawk game. I see $%&* when they're $%&*!@' skating and I remember where it is. I'm like 'Go back! Go back! You might need a little more speed to $%&*!@' do a grind on that pipe right there!'

IGN For Men: What kind of nightmares do you have?

Corey: [laughs] That's a little personal, isn't it?

IGN For Men: Okay, do they influence your lyrics?

Corey: A little bit, yeah. I wrote "Purity" because of a nightmare. I had the nightmare because of the story. It $%&*!@ me up so bad that I crawled underneath my bed and wrote it. But I don't want to delve too far into that. Let's just say that when I have nightmares they shake me so bad that I fall out of bed. It doesn't happen all that often, but when they come on, they come on. I got some $%&* goin' on, you know? But it's nothin' that I think any other normal maladjusted person wouldn't have, you know? I deal with it. I have the perfect outlet for it. It's [our music] very cathartic. It's one of things that I'm very glad that I have because if I didn't have it I'd probably be dead.

IGN For Men: Clive Barker told me something to that very effect about his writing.

Corey: Clive Barker? Cool. It makes sense, man, especially when you're dealing with very personal subject matter.

IGN For Men: I know that the two things to do in Des Moines are to go to the skating rink or the graveyard. Which did you prefer hanging out at?

Corey: What do you think man? I was at the $%^&*!' graveyard [laughs]. There was one, Woodland Cemetery, it's like right in the middle of town, it's not too far away from downtown, where we'd hang out. We'd get so drunk that we'd actually contemplate digging up a skull and drinkin' wine out of it [laughs]. You know?

IGN For Men: Which superhero or super villain inspires you the most?

Corey: Oh $%&*! [laughs]. You would ask the comic freak which superhero/super villain inspires me.

IGN For Men: Hey, I didn't know you were a comic freak.

Corey: Oh yeah. I am so into $%&*!@' comics. I collect comics, I collect action figures. I do it up.

IGN For Men: Rattle off some titles that you dig.

Corey: I've been collecting Spider-man since I was a kid.

IGN For Men: Romita, McFarlane, or Larsen?

Corey: I like 'em all, to tell you the truth. I'm not very particular. I care about the stories. I love McFarlane's look. I love Romita's look. I love Erik Larsen's look. I love 'em all. I even love the old Stan Lee/SteveDitko look. It's all Spidey to me. Whenever anybody gives any love to Spidey, I $%&*!@' love that $%&*. I like...ummm, oh christ, dude. When I really started gettin' into it, I collected some titles that aren't even $%&*!@' around anymore, 'cause they got cancelled. Which is bullshit. I collected Hellstorm: Prince of Lies, I still collect Preacher, which is one of the baddest $%&*!@' comics on the planet. If you read it, you're lucky. If you don't go $%&*!@' check it out.

IGN For Men: I read Preacher, among other titles. Savage Dragon is my guilty pleasure, though. I dig Larsen's art and the mindless bash 'em up violence in every issue.

Corey: Oh absolutely! See I loved...I got into <1>DV8 for awhile before they changed writers and it turned stupid. DV8 were like the freaks of Gen13. They were the $%&*!@' alcoholics, the $%&*!@' drug addicts, the whores, you know? It $%^&*!' ruled! The first 12 issues are probably the baddest stories I have ever $%^&*!' read, man. They were so $%&*!@' cool. There's a lot more that I collect. But I started gettin' really into $%&*!@' action figures and kind of layin' off the [comics]. Wait, The Darkness, it's so $%&*!@' rad, dude!

IGN For Men: I read the early Garth Ennis issues only.

Corey: Ennis $%&*!@' rules!

IGN For Men: What's your most prized figure?

Corey: Aww $%&*. I think all of 'em dude. Ummm, I'd have to say...$%&*, I don't know, dude. You've got to realize that I've got like 13 huge boxes full of action figures still in the package. Yeah, I'm pretty $%&*!@' serious about it. See, when I didn't pay rent I used to spend my whole paycheck on [action figures]. That and drinkin'. Those were like my two passions.

IGN For Men: Action figures and getting drunk, right on!

Corey: That was it!

IGN For Men: Did you ever get drunk and play with the figures?

Corey: Aww no, no. I'd only take 'em out of the package if I had doubles. And I'd only get doubles when people would buy them for me. I'd be like 'Oh, I've got this one already' and then I'd take it out. I've got an old school Spider-man swinging from the light in my bedroom. He's hangin' from it. It rules. God, my most prized? Right now, at this moment, it would probably be the new Movies Maniacs 2 series. Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, it's got Michael Myers, it's got Ghostface from Scream, it's got The Crow, it's got Pumpkinhead, it's got Chucky and Bride of Chucky.

IGN For Men: My buddy is really into the Puppet Master ones.

Corey: I've got some of those. I want to get the two originals. I need the main guy with the hook and the knife. I can't find him. I've got Six Shooter. And Pinhead rules. You know, those movies suck, but they're actually pretty cool. I'm also a movie freak, too. Aww man, I gotta be done now. $%&* man, we'll have to hook up next time around and we'll talk some more shop. That'll $%&*!@' rule, man. I don't get to talk about this $%&* very often.

IGN For Men: No problem.

Corey: That's cool man, let's save it for next time. Take it easy.

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Slipknot: Spit It Out
Jess Redmon via Shoutweb.com

Slipknot have redefined the confines of new metal with their mind-blowing and defining Roadrunner debut. In opening for Coal Chamber and touring nonstop across the United States, the 9-piece band from Iowa has brought upon a reputation not easy to beat. The band has recently gone gold, selling over 500,000 copies of their debut, and the band continues to sell records based on their immense reputation. We sat down with Joey Jordison (#1) to discuss everything that is Slipknot.

Joey: Fuck the salt & pepper shaker, the sweet & low, the candle and the ash tray. That's the first thing you list when you print this.

ShoutWeb: How do you change when you're behind a mask?

Joey: We don't necessarily change. People are always asking us about the mask thing. They're like "you wear masks" and we're like "no we don't". That's the way feel, that's the actual personality that we live everyday. The fact is that we just get to go on stage every night and be that, it is our medication and we're really lucky that we get to do that. We don't change at all. Whatever you see is exactly how we are, all day long.

ShoutWeb: Is it easier to express violence with anonymity?

Joey: No, I don't think in that way. Being of the anonymous factor is to keep all the rock star cliche and the ego bullshit gone, so the bigger the band gets we can remain grounded. We can keep the music focused and not rob the kids of any music. You see a lot of bands, as soon as they start getting big, closing endorsements, getting involved with money, producing videos, going out with fucking porn stars and that's not where it started. What got them big is when they were grounded. It got to a certain point and then they moved away from it and we don't ever want to move away from it. That's why the anonymity comes in.

ShoutWeb: Why do you think you guys express this pure hate, pure violence, pure emotion better than most people?

Joey: The way we portray comes from where we come from, our home town and the evolution of trying to come from somewhere, and make it out of somewhere, when there was absolutely no outlet for what we were trying to do. We were walking around with our wrists split open, going please look at what we're trying to do and there was no one there. Where we come from it's baron, there's nothing there as far as music's concerned, there's not one thing there. You really have to develop a sense of self, super early-on, to make sure you can take the music and have enough substance and content for people to see it for what it's worth. If you can make it in Des Moines, or come out of Des Moines, I think you can pretty much do it anywhere. There no one gives a fuck, I mean there's no outlet, there's nothing for heavy music. That's where most of that comes out because we were degraded for so long and had fingers pointing at us, no one really gave a fuck.

ShoutWeb: I've heard that it is rumored that Korn wants you guys to open for their upcoming tour?

Joey: I've heard that, but we haven't committed to anything. I don't think necessarily that it's that much of a true rumor. There's been certain talk, because our management works at their record label and helps a lot with a lot of their records, but as of now there's no plans to doing it.

ShoutWeb: Is that something you're opposed to?

Joey: No, we're not opposed to it at all. I'll go on the record saying I'm not a fan of Korn's latest record, I mean there's a couple good songs on it, or even their last one. I am a huge fan of the first two and I think what they did is they opened a lot of doors as far as this music is concerned. I would love to go out on the road with them because their crowd is so big. A lot of our crowd is the concert going public, the really hardcore underground metal kids. We're like a huge underground metal band, we're getting so big so fast. Everyone that comes to these shows generally has our record, to where like a lot of people that might sell more records than this don't necessarily go to concerts because maybe they're 10-years-old and bought it because they're on MTV. Or they're on the radio all-the-time and there's a guy that has a 9-5 job with a wife and 3 kids who never even goes to shows. Those are the people we need to get out to next and that would be the perfect tour for them.

ShoutWeb: "Wait & Bleed" is hitting radio now. Is that a song you're glad is representing you?

Joey: We wouldn't have wrote a song if we didn't plan on it representing the band right, even though it's not one of the more hate filled song, the emotion in it is so thick you can cut it with a knife. It showcases the songwriting structure that is really concise with the band where by everyone is still doing something in it, but it's not so complex where you lose your mind. Corey has a lot of good vocal melodies in that song so it really helps us out in that area too. So we're really glad that one is getting a little airplay here and there. Hopefully it will help sell a couple more records and turn more people onto your side, as far as liking the band, and make a couple more fans out of it.

ShoutWeb: What are the video plans for "Wait & Bleed"?

Joey: There's video plans and the video is going to be something that has never been done before. I think you guys will really like it. The video is complete complex with it. I can't put the cat out of the bag, but soon you'll be hearing about it on the internet and you'll be hearing about what we did with it. It's bad ass.

ShoutWeb: We just interviewed Dez from Coal Chamber and he was talking about their second album "Chamber Music" and how they moved a little more from the hate and rage because not every emotion in life is hate and rage. Do you ever envision you guys doing that?

Joey: I don't know necessarily about moving away from that type of sound, because that's what we're drawn to mostly. I do agree. You can't go through every element of life like that. The things that have been done to us and the evolution that we've tried to come through as a band, we have enough hate and rage to fill probably 3 or 4 records, we have a lot of shit to work out still. You keep someone in a cage and you cage them up for 24 years, then you let them out upon the word with what he wants to get out, he wants to live his life the way he wants to live it. You cage him up for 24 years and let him go, he's got some shit to work out and there's a lot of more years left of that. We still have a lot of fucking demons to exercise, it's not nearly done yet.

ShoutWeb: I took a bus to Woodstock this Summer and went through Iowa, all through Iowa. I was listening to Slipknot the whole time.

Joey: That kicks ass dude.

ShoutWeb: I was just like, how the fuck did these guys come out of here?

Joey: That's what everyone's asking.

ShoutWeb: What are your guys goals?

Joey: We want our record to go gold, we want to nail a couple more tours. We want to tour for at least another 10 months on this record, taking as furthest as possible without becoming a parody of ourselves. Like only going out for touring for money and or scared to write the second record. We want to write a second record that buries this one. A lot of critics right now are like there's no way they can top the first record, in a way I can see where they're coming from. First of all, you have a 9-piece band with 3 drummers, 2 guitar players, a bass player, DJ, a sampler and a lead singer and come out with 15-tracks of mind-numbing noise. Selling fucking 10,000 records, plus without hardly any radio or video play. They're like there's something about this that when the next record comes it might not be as important. So that's why we're really concentrating, really trying to get in touch with ourselves to write the next record. That's the next goal. We don't have a plan, we go day-by-day and see what happens with it. That's what we've always done, it was never a plan that this would even happen. I can't believe it's happening, it's freaking us out. It's a real important part of the band's evolution to write the next record and have it be just as pointed as this one.

ShoutWeb: Would you be happy if "Wait & Bleed" was on MTV getting lots of play?

Joey: We don't plan for it. I'm not scared of it, but it's not something that I necessarily crave at all. I kind of like where we're at right now, playing for our hardcore fans, it's more personal that way. Sometimes if a band gets a lot of MTV play, the next thing you know people are like automatically not liking that band because some schmuck down the street, who has no clue what heavy music is, is listening to it now. The part that will pave the way for us will be the next album when it comes out, twice as heavy as this one, our true fans will understand and they'll stick with us. It's not something I necessarily want.

ShoutWeb: What might you draw on for the next record? How will life on the road change your perspective?

Joey: I'll tell you what, we come from a place, that when you actually get something through there, through yourself, you really appreciate it. You've got to respect your gift a lot. This is our gift and you can't take it for granted. Don't abuse your gift. It's not something that can be fucked with. I don't want to destroy it, I want it to last as long as possible, because I know it's not going to last as long as possible. We'll go on to do other things after a while, they might suck, they might be good, who knows. None of it will be Slipknot, none of it will have the substance of what we've already created.

ShoutWeb: Do you feel proud that you've sold this many records without radio play. Just because someone like me has told 20 people that you have to go out and buy this record.

Joey: Thanks man, we're totally proud of the factor of that. It's amazing. It's amazing for us and we're so thankful we have the fans, if we didn't have the fans we wouldn't be shit. We'll stand out in the rain, out in the show, every fucking night to make sure to sign as much of their shit.

ShoutWeb: Are you guys going to go back to Des Moines for the next record?

Joey: Yeah, we'll write it in Des Moines and we'll probably go out with our producer Ross Robinson in the confined hills of Malibu at Indigo to record it there. We'll probably mix it at a different place, to get a little more of a crisp sound out of it.

ShoutWeb: Any final words?

Joey: Thanks to our fans, keep coming out to the shows. Thank you so much for supporting. We have slipknot1.com, slipknot2.com. You can go and check that shit out. Updates will be coming, we've had a hard time updating them lately. We run both those sites, we don't have some jackass at some fucking computer lab running those things that knows nothing about music. We handle everything by ourselves, we make all the decisions by ourselves and that way we'll make sure the fans never get fucking robbed out of any fucking thing. Thanks to everyone else and thanks to you guys for the interview, I appreciate it a lot.

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MTV Slipknot Interview Transcript (March 2000)

MTV News: Have you guys rescheduled that infamous Oklahoma City show yet?

Corey Taylor: We're working on it right now. We're doing the Europe shows, then we're coming back to do some make-up shows in Canada, and then, hopefully, we're going to hit every city we've unfortunately had to cancel.

Joey Jordison: And then secondary markets that we haven't hit yet.

MTV: I can't imagine there are markets that you guys haven't hit yet.

JJ: Actually, we've hit all the markets. There are just certain cities... We were destined to go to places where other bands would not go. I mean, we play in a lot of places that a lot of bands don't go. Those kids take that to the grave, and it really means a lot to them when you go to a place that the population of the town is 2,000 people and 70 kids show up. But, still, it's a show, and those kids buy your record, therefore they deserve to see the band, just like a kid in New York or L.A. or Chicago gets to see the bands.

MTV: Is part of that approach based on your experience growing up in Iowa?

JJ: Exactly. Ozzy came, you know, in 1981 and bit the head off a bat...

CT: Which ruled.

JJ: Maybe that had something to do with the way we all turned out. But the fact is, he got banned from there. And every time he would try to come back, he would end up canceling the show. He was basically one of the biggest metal artists, you know, besides Kiss, that would really be able ever to come through Des Moines. So those were the shows. Half of them would get canceled and whatever, but as far as like underground bands and bands not of that stature, they would never come through, so that's why we want to go through all those markets and all those cities and make sure that happens for those kids.

MTV: Part of your big trip to New York was a ''Conan O'Brien'' appearance. What are your thoughts on that? What was your reaction when that was booked and it was a done deal?

CT: What do I get to break.

Shawn Crahan: You have to understand, Slipknot is based on the theory of infecting as many people in this world as possible. It's world domination, and we're big fans of the ''Conan O'Brien'' show. The ongoing joke was, ''We'll see what we can do. Can we get on something like the 'Conan O'Brien' show or 'Letterman,' or something like that?'' And it's happened. Personally, I can't speak for everybody, but I just think it's a huge victory for hard music. I love it. It's an honor.

JJ: When we play there, we will be the heaviest band to have ever played on that show. So that is a huge victory for heavy music.

CT: We're breaking down a lot of walls. You know, people have always looked at this music with disdain, and that's fine, because anybody who doesn't like this music really doesn't get it to begin with. But for kids who want to see something special like that, want to feel something special like that, man, I mean, it's really cool. When you get a band that you really get into like that, that's something you can't take away and you remember that forever. I'm so sick and tired of these old people talking about, ''I remember when I saw The Beatles on 'Ed Sullivan.''' Shut up! Okay? Who cares. But that was something special for them, so hopefully this will be something special for the kids.

JJ: I used to work at a gas station in Des Moines, and I used to have this little TV. Faith No More has been one of my favorite bands for a long time, and I never got to see them live because of where we come from and all that stuff. I didn't have the transportation to go elsewhere. Regardless, they were on ''Conan O'Brien,'' I remember that, and that's the only time, besides videos and stuff, that I really ever got to see them.

MTV: You've gone a long way without a lot of help from mainstream outlets like our channel or mainstream rock radio.

JJ: We'll just go ahead and say about zero help instead of a little help. We'll say zero help.

MTV: All right... is there one thing that you credit the most with what you've been able to do so far? Is it getting on Ozzfest last summer?

JJ: No, I'll tell you what it is. The way I see it and the way all the guys in the band see it, when you go out and speak to a kid one on one and you speak in his language through songs about what that guy experiences day and day out, that's what I think makes it. I think a lot of bands go out, and even though they're kind of speaking one on one, they speak a little bit over a lot of these kid's heads. I mean, this kid gets up at 6:30 and stubs his toe on the way to the shower and has his mom yelling at him, and he has to go to school, and maybe he's not getting good grades, and his girlfriend's breaking up with him, and he has to come home, and then he has to do it all over again, and he goes to bed and it's ''Groundhog Day'' for him, and that's what it's like for us. And it's still like that for us every day when we're in Des Moines and we're writing music. You know, we're not going to go to some big, fancy recording studio and write the next record, because that's the poison that's infected us and made us write this great album that is speaking to kids in such a good language.

CT: You got to keep it real, dude, or you're not going to keep anything.

MTV: You mentioned the idea of your next record. Do you guys have a timetable?

SC: We don't abide by anybody's time, but we're thinking about it. We're writing songs as we speak, so we'll be doing some of that stuff. We've always been a band that prioritizes what's most important, and right now we have a sold-out European tour, and we're hitting four new countries: Scotland, Spain, Italy, and Austria. We're over there for six weeks. That's the most important thing right now. But while we're over there, every time we do sound checks and stuff, we are writing. We're looking forward to making a new album. Exactly when that is going to be, I don't know.

JJ: Oh, you'll like that new record.

CT: If you don't, we'll cut your feet off.

JJ: The only plan right now is kill everybody.

CT: Kill everybody.

SC: Do you understand that? Did you get that?

CT: Do you understand what we're saying? Kill everybody.

JJ: The first song on the new record is ''People Equal Sh**.'' Just because we're on MTV, don't you guys worry about anything getting weak. Honestly. We're infecting more people.

SC: We play for ourselves and our fans, and they're one and the same. And that's all we got to say.

JJ: The only plan is kill everybody.

CT: Kill everybody.

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Slipknot Drummer Carries On Despite Head Wound
MTV.com

Despite insisting on wearing rubber masks and black jumpsuits while performing in temperatures over 90 degrees, it was a head wound and not heatstroke that sent one member of Slipknot to the hospital following the band's performance at Ozzfest '99 on Tuesday.

Percussionist Shawn Crahan struck his head on his drumkit during a rather animated performance at the PNC Bank Center in Holmdel, New Jersey on Tuesday. The blow came during the second song of the band's set and left Crahan with a gash over his left eye. Clad in his trademark clown mask and jumpsuit, the drummer managed to finish the set, which came on a day when temperatures stretched into the high 90s in Holmdel. Crahan even signed a few autographs before he was whisked off to Holmdel's Bayshore Hospital, where he received five stitches to close the wound.

Crahan will be back behind his drumkit (which includes an empty beer keg) when Slipknot takes the second stage at Ozzfest '99's second Holmdel date on Thursday.

Here's where you can catch the band (as well as Black Sabbath, Rob Zombie, Slayer, Deftones, Primus, System Of A Down, Fear Factory, Drain STH, and others) on the road with Ozzfest.

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Slipknot Drummer Splits Head Open On Stage...Again
MTV.com

And they say lightning never strikes twice in the same place... Slipknot member #6 (otherwise known as Shawn Crahan) split his head open for the second time this summer during the band's Ozzfest performance in Seattle on Sunday. As the show unfolded at The Gorge, the drummer (one of three percussionists the band employs) one again knocked his head against his drumkit, not surprising considering that the band consists of nine men in rubber masks who flail wildly around the stage during performances.

The percussionist, who wound up with a gash that extended from the bridge of his nose up along his forehead, managed to finish his band's set before being taken to a local hospital. Crahan, who also received a mild concussion, took home 17 stitches as a reminder of his time in Seattle.

As we first reported in June, the drummer received a handful of stitches after smashing his head into his drumkit during a performance in Holmdel, New Jersey. Crahan managed to finish the band's set that day and even sign autographs before heading to a hospital to receive stitches for the wound.

After Ozzfest wraps up this weekend in California, the unstoppable Slipknot will hit the road with Coal Chamber and Machine Head for a tour that kicks off on August 19. If you can't wait that long, you can check out the band's recently released self-titled album, which is in stores now.

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American Psychoes
Kerrang! Magazine

Stand aside Marilyn Manson, and tell System Of A Down the news - masked madmen Slipknot are using leather bondage hoods, spiked divers' helmets and drum kits made our of the Space Shuttle to take lunacy to bizarre new levels. Welcome to the world's most insane band...

"When I think of Slipknot," says the fearsomely large, dread-locked figure, "I think of somebody tied to a stake, and there's all this evil swarming around them. The Slipknot is what's holding them to that situation. It's kind of like our music. It holds you down and you can't escape.."

The figure's name is Corey, and he's seated in a darkened room here at Indigo Ranch Studios located up the secluded hills above Malibu, California.

Corey is a singer for a nine piece bunch of stark raving lunatics who call themselves Slipknot. There's an eerie calm to his voice which makes it difficult not to squirm uncomfortable as he talks. He could well have a warm smile on his face, but it's impossible to tell. A wrinkled pale green mask - looking like something out of 'Nightmare on Elm Street' director Wes Craven's worst, er, nightmare - covers his entire face.

Slithering out of the stultifying Mid-West confines of Des Moines, Iowa, Slipknot bludgeon the forms of thrash metal, hardcore and hip-hop until the become unrecognizable. An explosive live show earned them a reputation that reached the ears of famed producer Ross Robinson. They're here at Robinson's studios to record their debut album, set for release on Roadrunner this summer.

The rest of the band are gathered outside in the blazing Californian sun. They all wear numbered crimson boiler suits and an assortment of bondage hoods, horror movie masks and other bizarre types of headgear. The masks are obviously causing them discomfort in the heat, yet not one will remove his 'face' in public. Nutters.

Sure, Indigo Ranch has survived visitations by such heel-raisers as Machine Head, Korn, Limp Bizkit and Soulfly. It's withstood the occasional rattlesnake invasion, and sighting of tarantulas, black widow spiders, coyotes, foxes, skunks and mountain lions are not uncommon. But this is a different sort of wildlife. This is Slipknot

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Slipknot Feature
Guitar.com

What began as a side project for a bunch of headbangers has mutated into a nine- member metal monstrosity. And in case you're wondering, the outlandish, mask-wearing tactics that Des Moines, Iowa-based Slipknot employ on stage (which you may have seen them wearing at OZZfest this summer) date back to the band's more innocent early days. Guitarist Mick (no last names please) recalls the group's New Year's Eve show in 1995, the year they tied the Knot: "I went on stage with a Little Bo Peep costume that I rented."

But the masks Slipknot now sport in concert, and on the cover of their pummeling yet intricately woven self-titled new album, certainly aren't cute. Take, for example, the court jester mask covering the face of guitarist James, who joined the group in January. "I've puked through it a few times," he admits. "It's got boogers stuck in it and my roommates are pissed at me because it stinks up the whole house."

Even though Slipknot's producer was Ross Robinson (Korn's first two albums), Mick (who now performs in a leather bondage mask) and James claim their band has nothing in common with the ever-growing, hip-hop-flavored new-school of metal. "Pffff! Please," says Mick, who handles bestial, death metal-inspired riffage as well as eerie effects ( as in "Surfacing" and "Spit It Out"). "I grew up listening to fuckin' Morbid Angel and Deicide, okay? I come from stuff like that, not Korn."

So as you might expect, Mick and James wouldn't be caught dead playing seven-string guitars, which Korn's Munky and Head-and all their little disciples-champion so vehemently. "Seven-string guitars are gay," says Mick, who used a custom Jackson on Slipknot. "You have this humongous neck that's considerably harder to navigate—and I have big fuckin' hands." But like many Korn songs, Slipknot tunes like "Scissors" and "Prosthetics" deal with disturbing subject matter. Even so, Mick chooses not to reveal any exact themes. "I'd rather not talk about them," he shrugs. "I usually leave it up to [the listeners] to work it out for themselves."While listening to the alternately harsh and melodic "Wait and Bleed" or the twisted and roaring "Eyeless," you might wonder how a band with nine members can achieve such a surgically precise roar. Indeed, things could have gotten mighty messy.

As it turns out, not every member (the band also includes singer Corey, bassist Paul, drummer Joey, percussionists Chris and Shawn, turntable-ist Sid, and sampler Craig) plays on every song. "Things never get cluttered," Mick says. "We only use shit that fits. If there's a song in which Shawn and Chris' percussion has no place, then it's not in there."

During the band's bombastic stage shows, however, each member always has a key role. "If some don't have [musical] parts, they run around and fuck with everybody else in the band," says James, who played an ESP LPD Horizon on the album. "Sid and Shawn tend to get into fights, and sometimes that spills over to the other guys. And sometimes it spills out into the crowd."

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Hookidup Interviews Slipknot
9Fingers.com

#1 Joey:

Do you remember the in-store signing in Chicago in August? And do you remember the fans waiting for you at the back of the store?

Yes I do. The girls that were crying, yeah I do remember those girls, the crying girls.

How do you feel about that signing?

It's great. Every time we can go meet our fans one on one it's a great opportunity to get in touch with them. Because not all the time on tour we get the chance to do that cos of interviews and sound checks and playing. It's always a great thing and we like doing it.

Is it true that Mick and James signed a deal with BC Rich guitars?

They signed nothing, but they are getting free BC Rich guitars custom made.

What's the natural color of James' hair?

Brown

Do you respond to emails?

Yeah but we are getting so many now, that we can only do the industry ones, and a few fan ones. Because it's just so hard to you know? I mean we are getting like 500 plus a day now. How do you respond to all that? I mean it takes you all day.

How many personalities do you think Sid has?

Oh, at least four hundred and fifty thousand.

Where do you think Corey's lyrics come from?

From personal experiences mostly.

Is the Pantera tour on or off?

It is waiting to be on. Because right now they are going through some stuff and they are not ready to go. Basically that is what it is. We'll see in the future.

What is Corey's new mask made of?

Rubber.

Does he have a new mask?

Kinda, not really.

What do you think of shitty bands like KoRn, Limp Bizkit, and Kid Rock?

I don't think much about them actually. I don't consume myself with many bands because we are so busy with what's going on with our own.

Will you always stay heavy and not be about the money?

Absolutely.

How many bones have Shawn and Sid broken while fighting?

Shawn and Sid right now both have broken rib cages. As we speak, they have broken rib cages, right now. So I think it totals somewhere for each member probably around four or five (bones) for each one of them.

Regarding the address in the booklet and the home video, who gets the shit the fans send?

We all do, we all get it.

Is there a special meaning to these numbers? 87062134?

They are lucky numbers or they have a number assignment that has to do with what instrument you play in the band. Those two things basically make up the number.

Which drummers are you most heavily influenced by? Do you use your own personal style or do you use things you've picked up from other drummers?

Ok that's easy. There are a lot of things that I've picked up. Like the super fast double bass comes from listening to a lot of earlier Slayer records, and death metal. But most of my style is pretty much inventive and new. I don't wanna copy or emulate anyone. I kinda wanna build my own style. I think kids understand that, and it's cool that people ask questions like that. The next record I think is going to break new ground. I've got to keep setting goals for myself.

What do you think of people making masks and jumpsuits?

I think it's great. We encourage it.

Did you wear masks while making your self-titled CD?

Yeah, not all the time, but a lot of the time.

Can you elaborate on the meaning of "you can't see California without Marlon Brando's eyes" in "Eyeless"?

Yeah well it's kind of like just peripheral nonsense. It's not supposed to really mean any certain thing. People always wonder what it is. It's just supposed to be just a fucking shot at like the fact that California being such a big state and that Marlon Brando being such a big figure as far as movies...When we were making our album we were trying to come out upon the world, it was kind of like an ironic type twist to put into the song.

Have you started work on the new album yet?

Yes we have.

What is your approach towards writing music?

As far as writing style goes, I've played guitars before, and play drums; so I might like come up with a bunch of guitar riffs, and bring it to the other guys. Or, sometimes we'll just be sitting in practice and someone will come up with something and we start building off that. Percussionists will come in we've got a system where they play in 3' and 7's and I play in 4's and 8's. It works out really well. And then the sampler and the DJ work together. Corey will listen to it the whole time and come in with the vocals. We have a bunch of different spontaneous ways of writing songs, there's not really any certain formula. But that's what makes Slipknot, Slipknot.

Do you have any information on when the jumpsuits are coming out?

Within the next month.

How did you guys get into percussion opposed to straight drums?

We just always had a fixation for extra types of drums, but not necessarily tribal. Cos we're not from the jungle or anything. We like the heaviness of the extra percussion accenting the guitar riffs. Especially when you see it live, it's like an overload on all the senses. That's why we like it.

How long will you be touring?

We will be touring all the way up until the end of next summer.

What motivates you guys to keep your incredible intensity show after show?

Just the fact that we have a lot of fans that we don't want to let down. And make sure that they get their show 150%...We owe it to them...They're the only reason why we're here. We're not here for anything else besides the fans.

What kind of cymbals do you use?

Zildjian right now, but I'm getting a Sabian endorsement I think. So...I'm switching.

Will you always remain close with your fans, hanging out after shows etc.?

Absolutely, always.

Did you guys mind that Roadrunner went ahead and released your video after you guys said you wanted to wait?

Well, we made it accessible to where we wanted to do it. We changed everything in it. Roadrunner had it the way they wanted to do it, and we thought it sucked. So we changed it a bunch of times and we made it the way we wanted to and put it out. It's just an introductory thing. The real home video comes out next year.

Do you think that people put more attention into the mystery of your faces and masks, or do you think that people are really feeling what you're all about?

I think it depends on how hardcore the fan is. If the fan is completely into what you're doing, then they are going to see it the way we see it - the emotion of it. The people who detract, they're gonna want to think something else. Love or hate it, I don't care, it's all good with me- it doesn't matter.

What is the picture on the inside cover of the CD tray?

Me and Shawn constructed that. (We) came up with the concept for that. That's our roadie, Tom. We wrapped him up in all this cellophane and stuff and he's naked under that. It was like minus 20 degrees in the winter in that shed. He almost died actually. He had hypothermia when we brought him in. We only took like four pictures of him in that because he was hurting so much. We were like holy shit- what are we doing? He couldn't breath you know? Completely wrapped in cellophane, he was naked under it, and we had fucking tubes and like heart monitors on his dick and his brain. We had a whole halo over him and he was completely submissive. I mean, it's a Slipknot picture you know?

Was your "People=Shit" mentality at all influenced by Gulliver's Travels' Jonathan Swift?

No.

Were you masked during the M.F.K.R. days?

At times, but not really though.

Who where the members at that time who are still in the band today?

Just me, Paul, and Shawn.

Did the old singer leave before or after you had found Corey?

After we found Corey.

Some of the riffs of "(sic)" can be heard in the song "Slipknot". Are there any other riffs or ideas from the old songs that appear in the other songs on your self-titled album?

Probably old songs that no ones ever heard, not the ones that have been recorded.

What is the age range of all nine members?

22-30

How come slipknot underestimates their fans? They could easily play in way larger play places instead of places like Birch Hill in Old Bridge.

That's our booking agent, man. I don't have a clue why that shit happens. I just play the drums and hang with the fans, that's it.

What state is the favorite state to play in? And you receive the most response from the crowd?

Every state, man. I can't narrow it down. I know it's the cheesy way out, but it's the truth.

Will you be on Ozzfest 2000?

More than likely, but you never know what fucking graves we might dig with our mouths or ties that we might set. Being as crazy of a band that we are.

Will you play "Despise" or "Get This" live anymore?

"Despise?" No...Yes we play "Get This."

When are you releasing the second album?

The label wants to put it out next fall...But we don't want to rush it, we don't want to wait too long to put it out, but we want to make sure it's right.

Are you going to be touring with Static-X anytime soon?

Probably not, but you never know. I don't know.

How does it make you feel to know that you have fans that have pictures of you naked with duct tape over your mouth?

They must have made them because we've never done that before. So they're liars, see?

Who was your major musical influence?

Kiss.

What do you think of being compared to Mushroomhead?

Who the hell is Mushroomhead?

Do you remember the fighting that broke out Cleveland, Ohio?

Nope.

Will you ever play a show in central Virginia?

Sure.

Will you go to Scotland anytime soon?

I hope so, that would be cool.

Major influences other than Kiss?

Black Sabbath, Slayer, Merciful Fate, Venom.

Do you think living in Des Moines, Iowa could have been any worse?

We're pretty proud of the place actually.

What's going on with the re-issue of the CD without "Frail Limb Nursery" and "Purity?"

You know, you can sue for anything in this country, doesn't matter what it is. Some guy is suing us over the fact that he came up with the concept of it or some shit.

The guy from Crimescene.com?

Yeah...So our lawyer told us to just take it off to avoid a bunch of shit. So we put a song called "Me Inside" on the album, that people have wanted actually for a long time. The street team is handing out samplers with "Me Inside" so that people don't have to buy the album again for that song.

Do you think that you will ever play any gigs not wearing your masks?

Not right now I can't fathom it. But in the future, you never know.

How do you feel about the comparisons to KoRn?

I really don't hear that many.

What will the second video be like?

It's just more of like the backstage type thing. More of the organic type things that we do like day in day out, that people wanna see, that's not on the home video. The home video right now is more pretty straight forward live songs, interviews and stuff. The second one is gonna be a lot more of the spontaneous fun shit that we do backstage.

Who would you like to open for you?

I would like to bring Amen back on the road with us. That's what I would like to do.

Do you get a lot of zits from your masks?

Nope I do not.

How many people know that you are really in Slipknot?

A lot of people know. I'm easy to identify because of how short I am and my hair. Which is fine with me, it's not big deal.

Do you use your mask during sex?

I haven't yet.

Do you plan to?

I might have to...You're giving me ideas.

Any action figures coming out?

No I don't think so, but maybe.

If you became a ghost, who would you haunt and what would you do to them?

Wow that's a good one, this would take all night...It would either be chicks I've had crushes on for like ever, or like people that I cannot stand that like totally need to be scared the fuck out of their minds. I don't know...Actually, the thing is that I think everyone would surprised about the answers that I would say. But the thing is I don't want to say them because people would just think that I need to be put in the mental hospital.

Who is your dream girl or your dream guy?

Definitely no dream guy...Haha. I don't know because you never know until you see her.

Will the Clown and Sid ever leave each other alone?

No...But right now they are because they both have broken ribs...They're scared to beat the shit out of each other because they know no one wants to lose.

Which member of the band is a ladies man?

Sid is...

Will M.F.K.R. ever come back out?

Definitely not, that will never come back out.

#5 133mhz:

Where did you get 133 from?

It's just an old nickname I've had for years.

How did you get into samples?

I was the only one who knew how to do it, so I did it.

Maria Gonzales (Roadrunner Records Publicist):

How much will the jumpsuits be?

$120

What will they look like?

They are going to be one color that will be totally different from Slipknot's coveralls that they use on stage.

How long will it be until they come out?

Not too long because they are already working on them and in the process. They are just waiting to get approval.

#0 Sid:

Can you tell me about DJ Phase II?

That's my best friend. He taught me how to DJ. He currently did a CD, it's not like a released everywhere type thing. It's more like a demo type thing, but we are working on getting CDs out by him, me and DJ JR, Sub 2(spelling), and DJ Rek, all of the Soundproof Coalition. He's(DJ Phase II) in my opinion the most talented house DJ out there right now. He used to spin hardcore, but it's not really in demand any more.

#8 Corey:

When is the song with you and Sticky Fingaz coming out?

I'm not sure right now. It's still in the middle of all the paper work and publishing and all that bullshit. It should be out soon. It will be on something he's doing.

Will you be doing a song for the Snot tribute album?

There was talk of it, yeah. It's actually a tribute to Lynn. Tumor asked me to do a track with him, but cos of the scheduling, I don't know when I'm going to be able to get in there. But, I do want to be a part of it. So, hopefully if time permits, I'll get in on it.

What do your tattoos on your neck mean?

The one on my right side means father and the one on my left side means death.

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Interview with Chris "3" Fehn - Washington D.C. Nightclub; January 23
Josh of 9 Fingers.com

9fingers: Ok, to start, what do you guys do for fun on here? (the bus)

Chris: Play video games, watch movies...

9fingers: Yeah, I saw somebody back there playing Tony Hawk (Pro Skater for Playstation).

Chris: Oh yeah. Play alot of cards, you know, shit like that. Fuckmonkeys (laughs), go bowling, umm, lets see...

9fingers: Do you play Tony Hawk?

Chris: Yeah.

9fingers: High score?

Chris: I don't know, (thinks for a second) I can't remember. I think like 30,000.

9fingers: (laughs) Nah, see if you can beat 70,000.

Chris: Craig's got like 90,000 in one move.

9fingers: Damn. I've only got the demo version with the Chicago Skate Park level. Can't pull off phat combos in the demo.

Chris: Yeah...

9fingers: (looks around empty bus) So, where's everybody else?

Chris: You mean, where are they at?

9fingers: Yeah, the rest of the band.

Chris: They're all inside, hangin' around, doin' stuff.

9fingers: Ah, alright. Every check out that Crimescene site (www.crimescene.com) ?

Chris: Yeah, I saw it when we were in the studio, but I didn't really look at it too hard. So I haven't seen it since, it's just kind of a joke now. You know?...

9fingers: Uh huh.

Chris: ...after what happenned.

9fingers: What'd they say about Purity and Frail Limb Nursery? Were they like "Take those songs off or we'll sue!!"?

Chris: Yeah umm, I'm not really too sure at this time. I don't know what's been going down with that, but we'll see.

9fingers: So, you still play "Purity" live, right?

Chris: Absolutely, it's a good song.

9fingers: Indeed it is. Do you play "Me Inside" and "Get This" live too?

Chris: Uh huh.

9fingers: I heard "Me Inside" for the first time last week. It's a dope song.

Chris: Yeah it is!

9fingers: Any word on the condition of Corey's grandmother? Last time I was here, he spent a while talking (during our interview, which can be read here) about how his grandmother was sick and how badly he wanted to finish that leg of the tour and get back to her.

Chris: Yeah dude, she's better now.

9fingers: Good to hear.

Chris: Definitely.

9fingers: So you're gonna be on The Late Show (Conan O'Brien).

Chris: Yeah, in February. (Feb. 25th)

9fingers: Know what you're gonna play?

Chris: Probably "Wait and Bleed."

9fingers: Thought so. Are you gonna play the toned-down (mellower radio) version?

Chris: Nah, we're gonna play it straight up. It's gonna be live, so yeah. It'll be brutal dude. I'm gonna trash some shit for sure.

9fingers: (laughs) I can't wait to see the look on Conan's face. You know?

Chris: (laughs) Absolutely! We'll do our thing and see how it goes.

9fingers: People are saying that if the Conan appearance goes well, then MTV is gonna try and get a piece of the action.

Chris: Fuck them.

9fingers: Thank you!

Chris: Yep. You know, even if they do play it on MTV, I could care less. None of my favorite bands ever got played on MTV, except when Headbanger's Ball was on.

9fingers: Ahhh yes, the ball.

Chris: (laughs) Right on.

9fingers: I hear Shawn's making a new mask.

Chris: Mmm hmm.

9fingers: What's that gonna be like? Cuz I can't imagine him as anything but a clown.

Chris: I'll let you find that out for yourself. I've seen it, and all I can say is, it's still a clown, and it's pretty sick.

9fingers: Ever gonna change yours?

Chris: Maybe in the future, might get it to do some stuff.

9fingers: Ok, that's about it. Anything you wanna say?

Chris: It's gonna be a brutal show dude.

9fingers: Alright, thanks for the interview.

Chris: You bet

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Interview with Shawn, Corey, Sid, James and Paul
Josh of 9 Fingers.com

9fingers: When you guys were in Odessa, Texas do you remember the guy wearing/holding the gas mask in the air?

Shawn: Yes absolutely and I want to tell fans, I know faces and I recognize faces but we're terrible at names, but we remember everyone's face.

9fingers: What was it like to play Locobazooka, and will they return to Worcester anytime soon?

Shawn: It was pretty cool- we like the outdoor feel and the tents and the local people selling jewelry and stuff- Les Claypool actually got to watch us- cos he never got to see us at Ozzfest because of slots -we liked it, we'll do it again if they ask us.

9fingers: Who did you guys hang out with on the Ozzfest tour?

Shawn: (HED)pe and System of a Down

9fingers: How was it being on a major tour like that? Get sick of it fast? Miss it?

Shawn: It's kinda weird cos a lot of bands didn't like Ozzfest but we loved it we're looking forward to hopefully being on it this year were gonna try, we might not be but we're gonna try

9fingers: Do you like seeing girls at your shows? Or do you think they should stay home and not get hurt?

Shawn: I love seeing girls at shows because girls are girls and they feel pain and love and all that stuff too and they've got the magic so- girls

9fingers: Do you like Madonna?

Shawn: I love Madonna she's hot -she kicks ass for her age -one thing about Madonna is that she's constantly changing it up and doing what she feels.

9fingers: Who do you think the sexiest woman alive is?

Shawn: my wife

9fingers: Dead?

Shawn & Sid & Paul: Marilyn Monroe

9fingers: Any of you guys vegetarian? Vegans? Virgins?

Shawn: No, no and no.

9fingers: In the song (SIC), what does it say at the beginning? Does it say Pick up the Pace or here comes the pain?

Shawn: Here comes the pain

9fingers: What do you think about other bands using alternate percussion, do you think that the other bands would be ripping you off?

Shawn: Well all that stuff isn't just brand new with Slipknot -so um it depends you know? its kinda like... "Do you know who Slipknot is?", "Yeah" "Do you know they use two percussionists?", " Yeah" "Do you like Slipknot?", " Yeah" "Do you guys wanna be like Slipknot?", " Yeah" Then I have a problem with it -especially like we'll know who's copying when the percussion's getting a little wacked then ill have a problem with it

9fingers: What is the song "Prosthetics" about?

Corey: The song's based loosely on a 1960's movie called the collector- it is about a guy who kidnaps this girl and basically adds her to his collection and keeps her there -it's a weird kind of psychological thing, and prosthetics takes it a little bit further -where he is put into a deep sick psychosis and he goes through the whole collecting thing, at the end of the song he ends up killing her and having sex with her

9fingers: Will you ever come to Jackson, MS in the near future?

Shawn: We hope to be coming everywhere- if we'll play Odessa, Texas- then we'll play everywhere- Odessa will go down in remembrance of the tour.

9fingers: What are your favorite horror movies?

Shawn: all the Evil Deads, Army of Darkness, the Shining, the Exorcist.

9fingers: Have you heard of the band called REVOLT?

Shawn: no Paul: no Sid: no

9fingers: What are your future touring plans (ie.the rumors of the pantera tour)?

Shawn: We will be doing pantera- what I can tell you is that Pantera came to the first show on this tour- we hung out with Vinny and Darrell, they loved us they loved the show, they loved the band, they invited us to their strip club- we hung out with them -they are talking to our management personally- I mean Darrel and Vinny are personally talking to our management -there are some dates in a lot of December- the band stays out of all that. You can tell us that were on Pantera tour, but until I'm there ready to go on the show, I wont believe it but, that isn't something that's hype- that's probably gonna happen.

9fingers: Whose musical career do you most admire, and why(apart from your own)?

Shawn: We like Mike Patton a lot because he is just a music genius- because he is able to reach out and do a bunch of other things with out worrying about the industry he'll put out a Bungle album that will be crazy and then the next Bungle album will be like a bunch of love songs - and he does it cos he needs to and he'll put out an album about pasta recipes - we also like bands like Neurosis - their new album is just incredible -they stay true to what they are- they are not trying to grab on to a trend or trying to change it up to get some money- they do whats in their hearts -slipknot likes people who stay true to their hearts- Picasso and Vangogh and Cezanne never made any money when they were doing impressioning Cezanne was selling still-lifes for food money- he painted because he had to paint and because he loved to paint

9fingers: England is getting siccer...can't wait for their tour.

Shawn: we will go to England and Australia- in November we are trying to go overseas-we are trying to get on the Big Day Out (Australia), were trying to, but we'll see

9fingers: What is Slipknot all about as a group what do they represent or what is their main motivation?

Shawn: I specifically think Slipknot has always been and always will be about truth -we play for ourselves- we listen to our hearts- we play the music we were born to play-we do what we want -we don't make concessions for anybody, we come out and we do the best we can for the fans every night -we don't try to outdo ourselves -we don't try to be somebody else- so I think the bare minimum would be that we're truth - that's all that you can be- if you don't lie to yourself and stay true to yourself, then you'll succeed.

9fingers: How have things changed at home in Des Moines since your success?

Shawn: Des Moines hasn't changed, it will always be Des Moines, what I can tell you is that Slipknot is not there to defend itself everyday - back when we were home when everyone was talking shit we were there to defend ourselves- now that we're out living our dream, were still loved by the fans, the only difference is when we started Slipknot there weren't a lot of metal bands there, and now we go home and everyone is playing metal music.

9fingers: Do you plan on working with Ross Robinson again?

Shawn: We will work with Ross Robinson again, we love him -he is like a 10th member.

9fingers: When is your video is coming out?

Shawn: Home video is not coming out we don't feel the fans are ready for our home video because it's not time- we want everyone in the world to have at least to see us twice before we start expressing our serious views and our comedy and our horror-we are definitely gonna release the song "Spit it Out" - there might be a few live songs on there because it would be upsetting for the fans to only get the "Spit it Out" video and there will be a very few sit down answers in the video but we haven't even agreed to that yet- no exploitation of our band- when we feel ready to do something we'll do it- we won't be told when to make a home video.

9fingers: (For Paul) what do you think of Cliff Burton?

Paul: He was an amazing bass player, he was really good- it was a shame he died- I hope I don't die in a bus accident- he slammed a lot.

9fingers: (For James) What do you think about Slayer and Metallica?

James: I think Slayer and Metallica are good.

9fingers: When will you release jumpsuits?

Shawn: They are in the making right now-nothing is gonna be released until all the members of the band have jumpsuits that can't be duplicated- we are going to take our jumpsuits all the way so we're separated from the fans- we're expecting in the years to come to have a little army- the jumpsuits will probably be by the company Dickies- we don't wear anything under them when we play -we want everyone to be like us like that way.

9fingers: Are you gonna do your own headlining tour?

Shawn: Not anytime soon- it's been talked about but its not something that we're excited about, because we want this band to in a very honest way get to where we want to be- I don't think the band is ready to headline- we are fine with playing with great bands like Coal Chamber, Machine Head and Pantera.

9fingers: Will you do any more signings?

Shawn: Yes we want to hopefully soon I love that -I love being in that environment -I want to do as many as possible -and I'm waiting for the kids to turn it up- I'm waiting for some crazy shit to go on.

9fingers: What is going on in the songs, "Scissors"/"Eeyore"?

Shawn: It's the hidden track- Slipknot was based on the theory that we would never give up any style of music that we loved to play -for anyone- that we would gel things together under the name slipknot- it goes from all styles from beginning to end Corey: "Eeyore" is just about this one fucking guy from Des Moines, Iowa - he has long blonde fucking hair and he is a prick to people in the fucking pit he's a Thor looking jerkoff- he loves our band but he's a dick to everyone in the pit -he likes to hit fucking chicks-the song is about me losing my mind and just tearing the shit out of him.

9fingers: What is up with Marlon Brando?

Shawn: Joey and I were walking in New York and we overheard this guy saying it-and it hit me really hard- I don't want to explain it because I think people should work for content- no one should be given intelligence, you should search your own brain-if you know who Marlon Brando is, and you know what he became, and you know where he came from- its just like it's the best line of all time.

9fingers: What's up with "Purity"?

Shawn: It's like this- whether it's real or not, it affected Corey very much, the thought of it- so it was able to influence him- the song is not directly one hundred percent about it Corey: I still think its real -see the thing whether it's true or not, it's a real story- that we read about -that fucked our whole world up -can you imagine a girl being buried in a box and having all this lecherous bullshit drip down on her from this guy? and thinking that there is hope, because this kid is taking some bizarre note to this guy he doesn't even know- thinking that you are holding on to the shirt of hope -and you wake up and you're dead you're buried in mud -they find the note about a week later shoved in a library book for gods sakes -it just hurts your head- it's a case of what is good and bad in people- the box alone is reason enough to be like, 'I cant stand to be fucking human'- how can someone fucking do this to somebody? What is inside of us that is so fucking wrong? he had written quotes from Edgar Allen Poe and lots of fucked up things on the box.

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Insanity Returns To Metal
Vinni Cecolini

With producer and I Am Records honcho Ross Robinson looking on, Slipknot made and early appearance during the New Jersey stop at Ozzfest '99 and nearly stole the festival in the process. Crowding the stage, the Des Moines, Iowa nine-piece dressed in matching black prison jump suits and sporting an array of bizzare clown masks, mixed new metal sounds with brutal agression. Employed were three percussionists on stage - a proper drummer and two others who stand at the front of the stage pounding on makeshift kits fitted with beer kegs. During songs where the other two drummers are not needed they run around the stage, moshing and roughhousing.

Unfortunately, during the band's second song, the ironically titled Eyeless, one of the rambunctious prop/drummers, Shawn Crahan, bashes his head, it is not until the end of the band's triumphant set that anyone realizes what had happened.

As he is led from the stage to an awaiting ambulance, he would receive five stiches at a nearby hospital, Crahan pauses to sign autographs for fans and asks if they liked his band's set. Referring to themselves as "0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8" Slipknot are actually made up of DJ Sid Wilson, drummer Joey Jordison, bassist Paul Gray, percussionist Chris Fehn, guitarist Jim Root, sampler raig Jones, guitarist Mick Thompson and vocalist Corey Taylor, respectively. They formed in 1995 and fter under going the usual growing pains and line-up changes, arrived at what they now consider "a family unit". In 1996 they recorded and distributed the self-recorded debut Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.

Attracting the attention of a number of independant and major labels, the band signed with New Metal guru Ross Robinson's fledgling I Am Records in 1997 and entered his famed Indigo Ranch Studios to record their self-titled sophomore opus.

Surprisingly, the record is Roadrunner, who distributes I Am Records biggest debut. Caputring the band's live sound, it mixes pummeling metal Sic and Surfacing and catchly new metal anthems Wait and Bleed and Spit it Out, but it is on stage where the band truly shines.

"Our live show is unlike anthing that is going in out there. Seeing is believing." says Crahan. Despite haivng nine members in the band, the nutty precussionist says that Slipknot is truly a family unit, whose sound relies "on one another".

"We've maintained an excellent practice schedule for the past three years," he says. "Everybody's on time; Everybody is always there and we always practice as a unit. If one guy, even our DJ were gone, it just wouldn't be the same without him. Without even one person, something is really, really missing. Everybody has to be present. Even the littlest things make the songs

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Spitting It Out
Robyn Doreian

Robyn Doreian joins Slipknot in Memphis, Tennessee to discover just what the fuss over the 18-legged hate machine is all about. Drummer Joey Jordison (1) makes it abundantly clear

It's seven o'clock and the thousand-seater New Daisy Theatre is near to bursting at the seams. The queue at the merchandise stall alternates between fans wearing gas masks and Jason Vorhees style face apparel. Memphis, Tennessee has never seen anything like it, and neither have I for that matter.

You see, Slipknot are not your usual rock band. They are made up of nine intense, focussed individuals who have the worst attitude in the world. They hate everyone and everything, and will stop at nothing to deliver a humongous 'fuck you' to all the non-believers. Put simply, they have a fire in their bellies that refuses to go out.

All this comes from being raised in Des Moines, Iowa, a town in middle America where no one would give them the time of day, let alone take their music seriously. When the band came together in 1995, their collective hate was off the Richter scale. Slipknot became the perfect vehicle for years of pent up rage, and rather than go on a killing spree, they chose to use the stage as their weapon.

Diminutive drummer Joey Jordison (1), the sole conventional percussionist, is seated on the band's bus out of view of the throngs of fans who have encircled it. Alongside founding members Shawn (6) and Paul (2), he was an early recruit to the Slipknot cause.

When I first came into the band I was like, 'I have to be either in this band or I have to destroy it because it's so good', recalls the pint-sized thumper. We formed Slipknot and wanted to search the inner soul to the hilt, and say what we wanted and not worry about what anyone thought, refusing to compromise. All of us had a lot to say and that involved three drummers, two guitarists, a sampler, a DJ, bass guitarist and singer to get it all out.

We didn't want to be about names and faces, we wanted to be about music so used the tool of hiding our faces and having number assignments and barcodes on the back. Everyone lives out their own personality by the masks they put on. They go inside themselves, picking the face they wearbecause that is who they are. We wanted to play the heaviest fucking intense fucking music known to man; that is what we are throwing out at the audience and that is the best tool we have.

The allocation of number assignments also came easily to each member, like they were somehow already chosen for them.

I have a lot of things in my life that I would not like to discuss based on that number, says Joey. Everyone has something in their life that they never really come to terms with. Each member of this band has a number within their life. Corey has mad things attached to his (8) that he has been through in his life, and everyone had it instilled in their head so there was no argument about choosing them. There are so many things I could tell you about my number but I just wouldn't be able to say it right.

The pure hate and nihilistic lyrics are a result of living in Iowa - the sterile environment which failed to nurture or inspire any creativity.

You stick nine guys together who have had no outlet for their whole lives, and you live in Iowa and you come out on a fucking stage then you have some shit to portray, states Joey. We were walking around like ghosts, slitting our wrists open saying, 'Please take a look at this, look at what we are trying to do'. When we put it together and came to doing a live show all the elements of being downgraded, not appreciated, being given nothing because we live in such a shithole, all that came out.

There is no way you can go through life thinking everything is great because it is not. Look at all the fucked up shit that goes on. The world is a sick fucking place. The fact is you can come to our show and get all your aggressions out and go away feeling relieved. I want everyone to get a rush of emotion from it.

It appears that the fans aren't the only ones getting emotional. At an instore record signing session in Chicago their innovative stage costumes were met with a less than amused response from the local constabulary. Unbeknown to the band, they were parked next to a jewelry store an donce masked, ten police cars arrived with guns ready to shoot, assuming their were about to do a job.

There was also an appearance on Howard Stern's New York radio show which left the shock jock bewildered by their antics.

Sid (0) took it upon himself to stand in the corner of the studio wanking whilst another member crapped in a bucket as a memento of their visit. It seems that the band revel in the exhibitionist opportunities Slipknot allows them.

I guess it just comes into the over compulsive personalities everyone has, explains Joey. When someone tries to test us we will go above and beyond to make sure you leave with some sort of distaste in your mouth. As sick as it may sound, it goes back to where we come from, why people=shit, why we sing the lyrics we do, we why are so fucking pissed off all the time.

This is our gift and we respect it a lot, so much so that the only way to get our point across is to give you our blood, literally, and we do it all the time. We have to call our manager every day and say, 'Have the credit card ready, because something could happen at any time' - we might all end up in hospital or all get arrested and it will always be like that.

Joey also contributes a great deal of creativity to the band.

I think there are a lot of guys in the band who have an artistic side, with me being one of them, he says. I came up with the people=shit logo as it was something we were all feeling. Everyone not only has to be a very good musician to be in the band but they also have to have a good artistic side to them, to be able to portray what we want them to portray in the band.

I am always drawing pictures, cartoons, little dumb stuff. When you open the CD, under the tray there is a guy wrapped in cellophane. I came up with that concept with Shawn when we were at Indigo Ranch. Everyday I wake up wondering what I can do for the band that day, and that involves everything from art to music.

Kicking against the pricks is paying huge dividends for the avant-garde metallers. With very little help from the press the cult of Slipknot has spread like wildfire across the States where 'Slipknot' has become the fastest selling debut album in Roadrunner's history. Try 100,000 copies in 10 weeks for size and that's just for starters.

We're just nine fucking geeks who speak to those kids in a language that they understand because we speak to them on a street level, says Joey. The only reason we are here is for our fans. We don't care about music critics, about what people say about our music because most of the people who write this shit either haven't seen the band or listened to the record.

Of course there is the danger that some people will dismiss us saying we are just an image,but listen to our record and tell us we are faking shit, like the emotion Corey is pouring out, that that is some contrived, assembled shit...

We're a punching bag. We're here for us to get all our shit out of our system, that's why when we play a show we don't want anyone getting hurt. It is dangerous music and it is very, very nihilistic and it always will be that way.

Whilst on the topic of image, do you attract any strange groupies?

No we don't, laughs Joey. You think we would, and sometimes I hope we would and it sucks! We chose not to be about our names or faces because we didn't want to be some rock star cliche. If one of the downfalls is not getting laid after the show, well so be it, because no one knows who we are and that is the best thing about it.

After the show, the fact that I can walk through a bunch of people and they are all standing around talking about the show, and I walk by and they don't even know it's me, or that I'm in the band. If that is one of the downfalls, then it is the best downfall I have ever heard of coz' I get to hear the kids talk and they don't even know who the fuck I am, and the fact that they say such kind words about us is such a good feeling.

And with that, Joey disappears to assume his alter ego of number 1. What follows is nine masked men in grey boiler suits performing what I can only describe as one of the most gripping live shows I have seen for years. An uneasy cocktail of rage, chaos and spontaneity, it resembles an end of term concert at the Bauhaus.

Between the gruesome persona of guitarist Mick Thompson (7) who arrives fresh from a snack of fava beans and chilled chianti, the unsettling swaying of the Clown (6) aboard his titanium drumkit, and DJ Sid (0) running across the stage like a deranged ape, it quickly becomes surreal, yet unbearably compelling.

After 45 minutes of psychotic induced energy, I get it. I really do. And once you see them live you will too. Slipknot are the band we've been waiting too long for.

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Slipknot Interview
Anonymous

Des Moines, Iowa doesn't seem like a place that would spawn the next step in the evolution of heavy metal, but it has. Slipknot, the heart and soul of Des Moines' brutally heavy underground scene, has officially begun their rampage. Having grown from six pieces to nine over the last three years, Slipknot presents a shocking picture of the harshness of commercialism today. Dressed in matching jumpsuits, each individually numbered, the members of Slipknot are purveyors of a madness that has never been tapped in the metal community. Blending intense rhythms and blast beats with twisted samples and scratching has become easy for this band. They blend every element that has made metal heavy, and they do it with a precision that is insofar unparalleled. Their live show is a free for all of chaos and craziness that stole the show the first night of the Ozzfest summer metal gathering.

Their short history has many twists and turns, and it has led them down the path to the doorstep of metal guru Ross Robinson. He produced their debut album, Slipknot (Explicit), out at the end of June on Roadrunner Records, and gave them the support they needed to jump out at mainstream America on the Ozzfest tour with some of metal's biggest names today. Their presence will be known very soon, and the interview that follows will tell you why.

Shawn: Basically, we've been together since late '95, and we started off as a six piece. We played here locally in Des Moines, Iowa, and our philosophy had always been we wanted to do something really different. Back at the time, there was no metal going on, there was no hardcore, nothing, so we decided to be true to ourselves. We had all been in bands that had opened up for each other, and the scene had become just terrible. No one really gave a fuck about music, so we formed Slipknot, and we played this all reggae bar. It was in a terrible part of town, we could only get Thursday nights, and we used to flyer so much in this town, we were putting up three thousand to five thousand flyers. The bar owner would get a call from the city saying they were going to fine him for every flyer. He'd call us, and we apologized, but he said 'Keep it Up!' So we started bringing a lot of people and we kind of started a new scene. The music has always been the most important thing with Slipknot, but we also have a stage show. It just started everything here in Des Moines.

Corey: It just got sicker and sicker as it went on, it was just really cool. We just kept pushing the boundaries of what people thought was the norm. We just said, 'Fuck that. We're gonna do what we want, when we want, how we want it, and we're gonna make this buzz' that was in our heads come out musically, and it just transferred that way.

Shawn: We released an album, and it was called Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. It was an eight-song demo with a hidden track. That whole album didn't really have any structure. The thing that Slipknot was about was that we'd try anything we wanted, as long as it felt, as a band, that it belonged to Slipknot. We have songs that go from total death metal to grindcore right into funk and disco, all in like four majors. But we made it Slipknot. We made it so it wasn't a joke. It was really powerful and it was really us. We were basically soul-searching for our true entity, and trying to figure out exactly what we were going to be. Things have definitely changed now; that was all before we got signed to Roadrunner, and we figured it all out. We just played lots of shows.

Corey: We busted our ass for two years straight.

Shawn: Lots of work, playing the Midwest, developing the music, developing the lyrics, and the concept behind Slipknot. When the music was solid, well, we're the type of band, number one, we have this ongoing joke, whether you're male, female, animal, bird, we don't care what you are, when you come into the practice room, everybody in the band, in unison, will say…

Corey: Girl in the practice room!

Shawn: No matter what, that's what we say. And we've always had this philosophy: We don't want any outside sources trying to develop our minds. We don't allow people in our practice room unless it's absolutely necessary. Ross Robinson came to look at us, so we had to let him in our practice room. We still said, 'Girl in the practice room.' Of course, Ross was the tenth member without even knowing it yet. We've always cared about what we think. We don't want friends downstairs going, 'That riff is really cool.' We won't even release a song live until we've played it for a month and really analyzed it. We just busted our ass with our concept, and once the music is done, because it is the most important thing, then we start thinking about other little things to push the envelope with the show. We've always stood away from being this band who felt like they have to have women on the stage getting naked.

Corey: We're one of the few bands who don't try to cater to the audience. It's pretty funny, because that just draws more people in. It keeps us true to ourselves, and the audience true to what they dig. Once you start writing to a particular audience, then you're screwed. You've lost your individuality, your creativity, and your niche on what your were trying to do in the first place. You try to keep the purest form of expression possible. That's when the shit that gives you shivers comes out.

Shawn: We've tried to stay away from strippers, big fancy explosions. That's not saying in the future we won't push the envelope wherever we're going. We'll always push it to the next level. The thing that's really special about Slipknot is that when you come to a show you have nine crazed motherfuckers who are in your face, completely aggressive. Brutality is our first name. What happens is the way you perceive us is so natural to the way we act; it's not the stage. The masks are an extension of ourselves. Everybody fits into their entity. The way we act is so natural to the way we are as real people that we don't need all that crap. Once in a while we do things, Corey and I got a severed beaver tail from a fan. It actually came from a police officer. Because beaver tail, in Iowa, are extremely illegal, unless you have a permit to trap beaver. So this officer had it, and he gave it to us, he said we were the only people in the world who would appreciate something like this. At the time, I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do with a beaver tail. So I bring it, and I tell Corey, 'I got a present for you!' Next thing you know, we get out there and, boom, we're gone, dude. When we're onstage, it's the whole thing. Corey and I pretty much start digesting this beaver tail. We're squeezing the juice, oozing the fluids all over us.

Corey: We get offstage and we're like puking our guts out. What the fuck was I thinking, you know? But when you're onstage, you're in that zone, you'll do anything and everything possible to bring it out of your system. I don't know if that's good or bad.

Shawn: We'll do lots of things that don't make sense to us either, until we indulge in the act of doing it, spontaneously.

You're all numbered. What reasons do you give for that?

Corey: I think, originally, we were just going to wear jumpsuits and have the barcodes on the back. We figured we might as well take that further and number ourselves. If we were going to be wearing the barcode anyway, we were basically saying, 'Hey, how ya doing? We're a product.' But it was more than that. It's a symbol of how far people take shit in the world today, as far as commercially. The real reason we started doing music in the first place was like, 'Hey, fuck you. Your symbolism is bullshit!' We started putting numbers on the jumpsuits, and I basically said, 'I want the number eight.' For some reason or another, the number eight has always been I guess you'd say a lucky number, but it just made sense to me, to grab the number eight. Shawn grabbed six because it meant something to him, and it just followed suit.

Shawn: It was weird, because everybody when we did it, the barcode, the boiler suits we wear, there is a lot more to them, we just leave a lot of things for the fans, they can take it the way they want. We have our own little entities that we think of, but it was highly unusual that when we actually did number ourselves, that everybody fell into a number. No one thought. It's zero through eight. We discussed stuff, like what about the number ten, but it just happened the way it did. It really felt good. Everyone had different reasons for picking their numbers.

You recorded with Ross Robinson (Soulfly, Limp Bizkit, Sepultura, Korn). To me, he's recorded some of the best albums in the last five years. What's it like being up at Indigo Ranch, hanging out and the whole process? How long were you actually there?

Corey: We were in pre-production in Cole Rehearsal Space for about a week, then we went right to the studio and started getting the sound down. It was about a month and a half.

Shawn: One thing I can tell you with Ross is that we are a highly aggressive band, and we get real crazy. We were so hungry for this album. We were so fucking sick of waiting to be signed. I don't know if bands talk about the anxiety they go through, trying to make this happen. Sometimes it can put people against each other. So we get there, and Ross tells us we're the hungriest band he's ever witnessed. The first day we were tracking drums, we did seven songs. Ross literally made us stop because we would've done the whole album in one night, and we wouldn't be able to enjoy ourselves in LA. We did all the songs in three days, for the drums. It was amazing. Ross would get in there with us, and he would slam so hard with us, that sometimes his pants would fall off. It was so amazing. He would punch my guitar player in the face, in the arm. He'd grab the guitar. He was throwing shit at the camera, at the cameraman. He threw a plant at my drummer while he was tracking. My drummer ducked, all this during tracking, and it blew up on the wall and dirt got in my drummer's mouth and almost made him gag. But he fucking loved it! He just kept slamming harder and harder and we kept the whole session. From the beginning, Ross was just an amazing producer and he's part of us. He grabbed something, and knew it was there. He was like, 'I am here to unleash it!'

Corey: You have to understand that the last couple of years have been crazy for us. Everybody saw an opportunity, everyone saw they could make money on this. They were like, 'Let's try and go a little commercial on something' or 'Let's try and radio this up. Can we put a melody on that somewhere?' We've never written anything for a specific anything. We were so stressed out and screwed up in the head that we forgot we could write really killer fucking songs for a while. We got together with Ross and he brought back out of us the music we've been trying to fucking write for the longest time. He's like, 'Dude, make it sick! Bring it back, go fucking old school and do it!' He brought some of the sickest shit out of us that I've ever heard us do.

Shawn: When we were trying to get signed, there was kind of a bidding war, and we were having a hard time because of the way we are live. Ross has an imprint now with Roadrunner, I AM Records. Ross was going to take us, fund our album himself, and make sure it got where it was supposed to go. That's how much he believed in us. He didn't have to do that because of the Roadrunner thing, but that's how much he dug us. He's such a friend now; he's an incredible human being. The really cool thing about Ross is that he lets the band have the final say. All you have to do is say, 'Man, you added this effect on guitar and we're not really digging it.' Ross just said, 'Done.' No arguing. We didn't lose sleep over anything. He's behind you as an artist, which is an incredible feeling, being able to create what you're born with. We'll definitely be working with Ross again.

You have three different percussionists. Do you each do different things?

Shawn: What goes on is this. The main drummer, Joey, is an amazing drummer. He's got all that double bass shit going on. What we learned was that, in the early days when we were recording, Joey and I learned that we can step on each other. I can muddy up his parts. Really, he's the drummer, I'm only extra. We have to be very careful what the two extra drummers play because it will sound muddy and the average listener will think there are mistakes being played. There won't be mistakes, but they're so many layers of some of the same things being done. It's been a lot of work. Here's the steps we did. We decided to cut it, down to bare bones. Chris and I, who are the other percussionists, we play straight on power. No lap percussion, and nothing too technical. Just boom, boom, boom. We got that beat in there, we keep it real. That's just us hitting the fucking drums as hard as we can. That's one step.

Corey: Just a lot of flavor and emphasis. It brings a lot of heaviness out on certain riffs. Joey will do a really good drum beat, and they'll add more percussion to add flavor to that. Where it's needed, it's put. It just adds a sweetness to it.

Shawn: We use kegs, cans, chopsaws, all kinds of shit. The other thing we learned was that whatever we used had to be a little bit different than Joey so we got different depths in drums. My drum, I'm the only guy in the world with an all Titanium drumset.

Did you build that?

Shawn: I'm a welder, and I'm really into steel and the theory behind metal and everything. I've made things that the band likes. Our old album cover had this cage on it called Patiently Awaiting The Jigsaw Flesh. It was a sculpture that three of us made. Every time we carry it, someone gets brutally cut. I had come up with this idea; I was getting bored with wood so I made this lift that picks me up in that air, it holds my drums and everything. It's all out of metal, and I made the other drummer this sculpture on gymnastic springs. And all his drums are on it. He bounces around the stage. The only thing missing was my drums. So I met this guy and he invented the first Titanium snare, and I was like 'That's my gig!' He let me custom build them, and they're designed all for me, they're all custom. They have the most unique sound. My bass drum that I use, it's 24X18, it is fucking bad. It has power that is so unreal, that if people listen they actually appreciate the power on some of the songs. It's a lot because I know how to hit the drums, but at the same time I have these wonderful drums that are helping to create a separate sound from Joey. We've been longing for that for years, to finally separate us. This is just a crazy band, and I destroy everything. We want something I can't destroy and Titanium is the strongest metal in the world.

Corey: You don't know how many times we've had to get this fucker drums because he's completely splintered the fuck out of them. He also has a bad habit of breaking microphones. He'll definitely be getting a Shure endorsement.

Shawn: That's what's up with the three drummers. The way our stage plot goes is we have three drummers, there's Cory, there's two guitar players, a bassist, DJ, and then the sampler. And the way the stage plot is set is myself and the other percussionists, we're all the way left and right on the stage. Cory is in the middle, guitar players are left and right of him, bass player usually sits back a little bit, sampler and DJ are back too, and the main drummer in the mid back. We have this power, we always believed in the triangle, two drummers up front and Joey in the back as this surround thing. When we started the band a long time ago, the one thing I wanted was the three drummers because drums are the most primitive instrument in the world, and people don't even know why they like them. It's in our heritage, it's in our DNA. When you start something with drums, you'll automatically like it. It's like sucking your thumb or something.

What's the difference between the sampler and the DJ?

Corey: The DJ runs the turntables and gives us some crazy cuts and shit. Our sampler, well, there's phrases cut from movies, like sound bytes, and he'll run them in certain places. We'll have an intro before a song called "Sick" that we created in the studio. He'll run it before we play the song. He'll do some sick sampling in between songs. Just basically crazy shit. It's like we have the best of both worlds. We have Sid, who's throwing down cool beats and scratches, and then we have Craig going over the top of him, or he's putting lines on top of that. We can do anything we want. We're not limiting ourselves in any shape or form.

Shawn: Plus the sampler guy does our webpage.

How did you get hooked up with the Ozzfest?

Corey: Ozzfest was kind of fate, we always knew we were going to play it. We just feel really blessed we're getting a chance to play it in the first place. Roadrunner people have always had a close connection with Ozzfest; in the past there was always Roadrunner bands there, along with some bigger acts. It seems lately a lot of bigger bands are keeping the torch with Roadrunner bands, plus we just knew we were going to be on Ozzfest and we just worked towards it. We fought to get on it.

It doesn't start until May 27th [1999]. Are you doing anything before that?

Corey: We're doing a couple of warm up shows. We haven't done anything in a while because we've been doing the album. We want to get the virus back for playing live.

You're a very extreme band, doing extreme things onstage. Have you gotten any negative criticism yet?

Corey: Not yet, we're kind of waiting until the CD is out, when our message hits, you know? I think people have a hard time accepting responsibility when it comes to bad things happening in their lives. They usually push it off on people in a higher view. I like to think we're doing something that's never been done before. We're trying to say something that's never been said before. Because we're doing that, we'll naturally be a target. We'll have red dots on our faces and floating around our masks. We know we're bringing that to us. If you really want to put your stamp on the world, you're going to have to take the punches right along with the kisses.

Shawn: Plus, we've always believed in being responsible, and we take every action and everything we do to approach it as adults. We approach it responsibly. And if we feel that in our souls we need to do something and it's right, we do it without asking anybody's permission.

Corey: We don't do anything for shock value. We do it because we think it's cool and because it'll make us puke after a show.

Thanks for your time guys, you've been really open with things. Do you have anything to add before we go?

Corey: Watch out! We're coming!

Shawn: Be prepared to be taken over!

Thanks again guys. See you in West Palm!

Shawn, Corey: Thanks. See ya!

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New Lead Singer Has These Guys Getting Together
R. H. Michaels

It was a hot night at Safari. Hot enough that even the fish tank developed a coat of steam.

The all ages crowd eagerly anticipated Slipknot's performance. Chants of SLIP-KNOT could be heard, but not for long.

Strobe lights kicked on and a sample loop of a maniacal laugh and ice cream man chimes added to the anticipation. The Clown dropped his power saw, sending sparks across the already charged crowd.

Why the anticipation? It wasn't just the summer heat and the good cause of the benefit concert. Most of the crowd wanted to see if former Stone Sour front man, Corey Taylor, could pull it off.

He did. By appearances you'd think Corey died and came back as a different man. He prefers the name, Faith, and he showed at least six very distinctive vocal styles.

"It's full on, that first song, second song, third song. It's full on and you just feel like there's this sound in your ear," said Faith. "You're on the verge of just skitzing and swinging this big mallet right into the crowd."

Full on is exactly what their performance was. The band was tight and often had three or more vocalist performing simultaneously. One of those was former lead vocalist, Anders.

"It was crazy. It was weird. I'm not singing as much, but I am moving more and beating on the drums more," said Anders. "I thought I was going to be a lot less tired than I normally am, but I was wrong."

There was some speculation that Faith's arrival would mean Ander's departure.

"If I didn't like it, I wouldn't be here anymore.... At first it was a little bit of a shock," said Anders. "My thing was, 'let's see how it sounds.' We practiced, and everything just clicked. A lot of bands do lots of vocal over-dubs in the studio to make everything fuller, but live they can't do it because they don't have enough people who can sing. We can get five going at once."

And they did. The old and the new meshed well. Vocals contained all of the passion and emotion that fans have come to expect from Slipknot, they also attained a crisper sound.

"I was really, really, really nervous at first, but I put all that into the aggression because I wanted this to go over and I wanted people to accept it," said Faith. "I've never pushed that hard in my life, there was times when I had to cut back, and I missed a few lines, but I came right back in. Luckily I had guys on stage to help me out."

Corey Taylor's departure from Stone Sour has left many rumors in it's wake. Faith stresses that he wanted his leaving Stone Sour to be on good terms. It was just time for a change.

"It was something I really wanted to do. Ever since I saw these guys there was this thing in my head going 'what would it be like to be in (Slipknot)? what would it be like to do that?' I loved Stone Sour, I love the guys in Stone Sour... I just feel like I can expand more here, like I can do more here."

"Stone Sour and Slipknot had a lot of crossover fans," said Anders. "You never know how things are going to work out, as far as what people think. We were planning on, if we liked it, going for it anyway."

It definitely appeared that the crowd liked it. The Safari was packed to the walls for the benefit show. Two concerts were held Saturday night to benefit Multiple Sclerosis, and the Sunday show was for Blank Children's Hospital. Many of the bands had personal ties to the causes.

"I'm doing this for Blank Children's Hospital because they saved my boy," said Clown. "They are a god send. I'm gonna take my little "clown" boy up there tomorrow and deliver the check in person."

The show turned into a circus of fiends. Boys, girls and stuffed animals joined in a great big sing-a-along. Fans can expect many more opportunities to join in the parade.

"I'm looking forward to playing more shows, getting out of town and writing new music," said Anders.

The only thing they aren't looking forward to is the bad feelings they seem to attract.

"I can see people trying to start controversy... it cause headlines, publicity, people start talking about it.... but when it gets down to a personal level, it's wrong," said Faith.

"There was always competition when you were younger," said Anders, "but if you have self confidence, you don't need to feel competition towards other bands."

"When we first started this band, we didn't expect anybody to like us. We're writing the shit because we like it. The fact that people like us bugs people," said Anders. "What we're doing isn't really original, it's just extensions of our personalities."

Slipknot has always been a cosmic blender of sorts. It's hard not to find elements of their music that you can appreciate for their craft. Most just like them for the pure intensity of sound. But if you don't like their music, that's okay with them.

"I got a wide variety of music that I listen to, but I don't like everything," said Anders. "If I like the people who are playing the music, but not the music, I still like the musicians and don't talk shit about everybody."

Faith agreed that's it's time for bands in Iowa to rise to a new level and support each other.

"Everybody's got to get out of the basement and get on stage," said Faith. "No one's going to hear you in the basement. We've all got to support each other."

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Slipknot One Step Closer to National Stardom
Kevin Hosbond

The rumors are false.

Supposedly, the Des Moines metal band SlipknoT has signed with Roadrunner Records, but manager Sophia John adamantly suggests otherwise.

"It is true that they are negotiating with two major labels, but Roadrunner is not one of them," John said.

John said signing with a major label is a long and involved process, which is why it is taking so long to find out SlipknoT's situation.

"The way it works is that they [the record company] send a 'meat and potatoes' contract to the band's lawyer, who goes over it with the band, and then they submit it back to them," John explained. "Then the next contract comes back. It's usually anywhere from 30 to 300 pages."

John said SlipknoT is currently in the process of going over the longer contract with its lawyer.

"SlipknoT is in good standing because its lawyer is also a consultant for bands like Pantera, Red Hot Chili Peppers and White Zombie," John said.

John hopes everything will be in place by KKDM's Dotfest 2 so the new label can be announced at the show.

She also commented that the band will be heading into the recording studio with producer Ross Robinson, who has worked with Korn, Limp Bizkit, the Deftones and Sepultura.

John's role as SlipknoT's manager started because she believed in the music and the band needed someone to help.

"I saw a lot of pieces to the puzzle that make a band a good band," John said. "They have good writing, solid shows, publicity in newspapers, and even now some airplay. What they're doing is so unique, and there are a lot of signs that they're 'in.'

"I'm gonna do what's best for the band," she continued. "Our first goal was to make one million copies of its new album; now it's three million. I want the whole thing for them; I want the dream.

"I want to see [SlipknoT] on the cover of Rolling Stone, playing at Ozzfest and have its own record label," John continued. "Then they can come back and grab the local bands that supported them."

As for now, John believes the hardest factor SlipknoT is up against is being a small band in Iowa.

"I think the local scene is going through what I hope is a phase," she explained. "Here, if there is anybody trying to make it, it's like someone else is holding them down. And that really prevents them from getting any better than they are."

When John is not working to promote SlipknoT, she has been on the promotional trail of other bands.

In her "spare time," she has helped Sister Soleil sign a $1 million contract and get a top priority spot at Universal Records. She helped Swedish singer Louise Hoffston on her road to success and is also currently working with the Atomic Fireballs, another band slated for Dotfest 2.

But despite the imposing success she has had with SlipknoT and these other bands, she doesn't plan on promoting again.

"There are some details that people don't realize. I'm learning along the way, and I never wanna do this again," John said. "It's really, really hard, and people don't appreciate anything. Nobody understands how hard it is."

One factor that makes John's job difficult is that she is forced to watch talented bands that aren't going anywhere. She is also disturbed by "piss poor" bands that think they are going to be signed easily.

Overall, John conveyed the music industry as hard to break into and make money in and offered advice to young bands.

"Getting signed is one thing, staying signed is the hard part," she said. "What a band should try to do is give 100 percent to publicity. Where they get the money is through merchandise and publicity."

Where new bands give the money is through paying back record deals.

"The only way they can pay back those labels is to tour on the road and sell those T-shirts," John said. "The record companies will hold it against you if you don't pay them back. Signing to a label is like owning a credit card. You have to pay it back."

John also explained why CDs aren't the moneymakers for a band.

"Let's say I went out and bought the new Urge CD. They probably spent about $150,000 to $200,000 on it. I spend $15 for it, and the band only gets anywhere from 35 to 65 cents for it, if they're lucky. It's just crazy," John said.

Currently, SlipknoT is preparing to play at Emerging Artists and Talent in Music festival (EAT'M fest) soon. The festival features 150 emerging bands, chosen from over 700, playing on 15 stages lining the Las Vegas Strip.

"That show is the best thing for SlipknoT because the producers for Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails will be there," John said.

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The Music Scene Soap Opera
Stevan Robinson, Jr.

What is a Band to do?

When someone is in a band, their goal is to make it. What "it" is, I don't know. What I do know is the time when you could create such a buzz about your band without one radio single, or a music video is gone. When the triple-A station KFMG was on the air things were different from the way they are now. For example the programmers had more freedom to add, to the station, whomever they wanted. House of Large Sizes was one Iowa band that was part of the regular rotation. Drasberry, Redwing, and Taz Band could be requested any time of the day.

What is happening now?

KFMG is no longer on the air and that is a well-known fact. What happened? KKDM blasted on to the scene and wowed us because it was new and played more harder edged alternative music. Saga Communications then bought up KFMG and unveiled its brainchild, KAZR (Lazer 103). This takeover gave us another new station that played even heavier alternative music. When these stations came on the air, every musician in a band pondered if local music would be played and that question was quickly answered. State of Independents, two songs per weeknight, became the local music show for KKDM, and KAZR reinstated Local Licks, one hour per Sunday at eleven p.m., as their own contribution. The latter; however, was what KFMG had started.

Things are going great! Look again at what the situation is before coming to that conclusion. Underneath all of the positive things that are going on with the local scene there is a gathering storm. Look at some events that have occurred.

Sophia John, Assistant Program Director for KKDM, made the decision to become the manager of Slipknot.

"The number one thing is I believe in the music . . . Their kind of music is going to be huge in a year. They are going to show the world that [Iowans] are more than just corn on the cob. The question I have is, are the spins for 35" Mudder getting reported to the industry? That is following through," said John.

Troy Hanson, Program Director for KAZR, decided to add Ames, Iowa band 35" Mudder to the rotation, netting the band spins reported to the trades.

"I wanted to adopt a local band that is listenable and help them for a year's time. They had a good sound and I liked their CD . . . It might have had something to do with it not being recorded anywhere around here..." said Hanson. "It was 35" Mudder this year. Whom will it be next year? I don't know."

This past Halloween sparked a chain of events that could bring legal consequences. Eric "Mancow" Muller put on an event at the United Center. The event had The Impotent Seasnakes and Anthrax on the bill, along with Des Moines' Slipknot. Troy Hanson gave a comment on the situation.

"When Mancow heard that Slipknot was managed by someone that worked for the competing station he decided to pull them, not me," said Hanson. "Was I the bearer of bad news? You Bet I was!"

Sophia John has another take on the situation.

"This was not my understanding of the situation. It was political," said John. "Whether it was Troy Hanson or a producer with Mancow's organization who pulled them it was not Mancow. He's a very busy man. He had Anthrax to think about. Not a band from Des Moines."

Slipknot's response to being pulled was not good. Can you blame them? A chance to be seen by a nationally syndicated radio show host, not to mention a sold out show attended by listeners of the Mancow show slipped through their fingers.

Troy Hanson went on to comment, "... Things had never been personal between Slipknot and me. I was taking things as strictly business. Then they turned things personal when they circled Sean Elliot one night. With me it was strictly business still, but it became personal. My life was threatened! I told that to many program directors around this country. I hope they get signed, more power to them. Good luck getting on many rock stations in this country when they find out you've threatened the life of the director in your town. I just want to move them to the side and get back to making good radio."

Sophia John isn't worried about the comments made by Troy Hanson.

"Has anyone told you of all the things that they've done?" asked John. "They wrote, ' fat fucking cunt' on my car and stickered it. People have a breaking point, but Slipknot didn't threaten anyone."

When I approached Slipknot directly about this, the band said Sophia John would comment for them. In any event, John's sights are set on future spoils.

"Any program director like Troy Hanson can be bought. What the record companies call Promotional Dollars, is the new term for Payola. I think you'll hear them on that station eventually."

John assured me that Slipknot will be associated with Mancow sometime in the future.

"When I say, something is going to happen it will happen. Don't take just my word for it, because it's the record company will that will see it's done," said John.

Things are said and done when people are passionate about something. That is just human nature. Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, Metallica and Megadeath, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix are all examples of that. All of the above had a rivalry of sorts because of passion for what they believe.

The common denominator in all of this is the fact that these stations, and the bands they have chosen to champion, are our friends and neighbors. They deserve our support and admiration for sticking to something. Even with the odds stacked against them they press on. The peripheral issues, and how they play themselves out should only be justified in coffee talks.

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