No band in history felt as confrontational, as dangerous, as downright frightening as Slipknot did when they first burst from the Iowan underground onto the world stage. Concluding 2024’s quarter-century celebrations for their incendiary debut, we join Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan to chart how the horror and beauty, pain and perseverance of that era shaped them…
Shawn Crahan struggles for a moment to imagine what the Clown of 1999 might say were he to find himself in conversation with the Clown of 2024. Much has changed over the last quarter-century, both within the realm of Slipknot and beyond it. Attitudes towards alternative and extreme music, and their compatibility with the ‘mainstream’, have shifted immeasurably, thanks in no small part to the band with which he and his fellow masked misfits rose to prominence. Tragedy and tribulation have seen membership of The Nine changed almost by half. But perhaps most pertinently, age, injury and the kind of arenas in which they now ply their trade have switched up the rules of engagement under which they wage war against the world.
“That younger Clown would probably tell me to get up off my ass,” Shawn smiles, wryly. “But that Clown has beaten himself into submission over the last 25 years, in pursuit of this vision. My brain still wants to go 24-hours-a-day, and I’d still love to be out there doing flips into the crowd, but my body hurts, so I’m limited nowadays. Like how I’m having problems with my left knee right now. It just dislocates on its own and I have no idea why. Back then, I wouldn’t care. So many people want to see that old Clown again. But he’s a hard Clown to talk to, a harder Clown to impress, an even harder Clown to find nowadays. That old Clown smirks a lot at the current Clown. And rightly so. If this ‘new’ Clown had to be that old Clown again, I don’t think there would be any Clown at all…”
Stripped-down, sold-out and unapologetic in their savagery, the first dates of the final leg of Slipknot’s 2024 Here Comes The Pain tour at Leeds’ 14,000-cap First Direct Arena and Glasgow’s similarly-sized OVO Hydro don’t feel compromised. Wear and tear are inevitabilities, but compared to the pit veterans old enough to remember the last time the ’Knot delivered a set entirely of pre-millennial material, the figures onstage look positively sprightly. Costume plays its part, masking the maturation of a line-up now mainly in their late-40s and 50s. Reconnection to the old electricity is crucial, too: the feral immediacy of a performance built around songs like (sic), Surfacing and Scissors contrasting sharply with the bells, whistles and radio hits of the statelier sets to which we’ve grown accustomed. Rather than just pulling on the old red boilersuits and stepping back in time, however, Clown insists that it’s about never relinquishing the defiance inside.
“Twenty-five years ago, getting into those red coveralls, I didn’t feel goofy,” he picks up with a frown. “But I feel goofy in them now. Seriously, how do you [revisit] something that changed your whole life? The world was different. The fans were different. Rock’n’roll was different. Even Kerrang! was different back then. At the same time, I think the old Clown would be proud to see how hard the new Clown works to still be the Clown, and how I don’t do what I do for anyone but myself. Clown doesn’t partake for money or fame, ego or popularity. It’s still about the inner turmoil; about trying to forgive yourself through performance; about getting out there day after day, year after year, to rejoice with people that you love and music that you’d die for; about cutting yourself open and letting all the filth and disgust bleed out. And there’s been a lot of blood lost. A lot of blood…”
Dreams and nightmares are separated, ultimately, by the courage of their beholder. Shawn doesn’t much believe in either these days, but back at the beginning they were all he really had.
“It was lightning,” he allows a moment of nostalgia. “It felt like we were going to change the world.”
The story of Slipknot’s genesis has been told and re-told endlessly with fascination and awe. How the murder of Shawn’s uncle in a gang initiation sent him down a musical rabbit hole, reckoning on the random brutality of the world around him. How conversations with good friend, bassist and Los Angeles native Paul Gray as far back as 1992 saw him lay out the vision for a band combining death metal, jazz, industrial rock, funk and thrash with cacophonous extra percussion and a ghoulish art-rock/S&M aesthetic. How he would shape that vision, sitting through the night-shift at the Sinclair gas station where eventual drummer Joey Jordison worked. Their first show as ‘Meld’ at Des Moines’ Crowbar on December 5, 1995. The $16,000 of savings they poured into recording and self-releasing notorious demo Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. on Halloween 1996. Strong-arming Stone Sour singer and local sex-shop employee Corey Taylor into being their vocalist in 1997 and discovering how his sublimated trauma would send them stratospheric.
“You have your whole life to make your first album,” Shawn says. “It was difficult back then. It was manic. There was a so much disbelief. A lot of doors would get shut in our faces. But we just kept kicking those doors down. We didn’t feel like we had anything to prove to anyone. Only to ourselves. And that’s what we were doing.”
Defiantly so. By 1998, the collective was already an unwieldy eight-strong. Local KKDM DJ Sophia John had come onboard as their manager, but where she saw potential others were put off by the OTT aesthetic, the swirl of real-world trauma and weaponised surrealism, the surfeit of creative voices begging to be heard. Even that they’d emerged from Des Moines, Iowa, one of the forgotten flyover cities in the United States Midwestern expanse, seemed to count against them: many in the music industry incredulous that such cutting-edge material was coming from an apparently backwater scene, while others – including legendary Roadrunner A&R Monte Conner, who eventually signed them – were just reluctant to make the trip to witness them first-hand.
“Monte actually told me that he finally came to see us [opening for Sister Soleil at the University Of Chicago] because it’s just one flight from New York,” Shawn laughs. “In Monte’s defence, he doesn’t like to fly. But that’s the kind of stuff we had to deal with: people not wanting to come to Des Moines because there a layover. They’d be like, ‘Why Des Moines?’ But why not? Why would you want to be a band from LA? We were never the guys who gave up everything from home to go somewhere the business is. We were brothers making god music in our basements to give it to the world. It’s like there’s this prerequisite for what [bands] should be. But that’s not Slipknot. We put ourselves together in our hometown. Nine guys ready to take on anything. Just think about that.”
“We didn’t feel like we had anything to prove to anyone. Only to ourselves”
Kerrang! were the first UK publication to travel to Slipknot. Thanks to outstanding – and, sadly, recently-departed – UK music PR Michelle Kerr, we witnessed the blood and thunder, fire and fury of their set at the opening date of Ozzfest ’99 in West Palm Beach, Florida. This week’s cover shot comes from that era, capturing the definitive line-up – Shawn, Paul, Joey, Corey, guitarists Jim Root and Mick Thomson, electronic specialists Sid Wilson and Craig Jones and percussionist Chris Fehn. Beneath the eerie ambiance of The Nine lurking around a children’s playground was the tireless drive and embrace of the unexpected that would make them stars.
“We were supposed to be off that day,” Shawn recalls. “We were burnt out, done with Ozzfest and back home, but then we got the call to shoot some more photos so that’s what we did. We didn’t always get along. We were always tired. We would often push people. It was complete chaos. But [opportunities like that were] so important to everything. Every day was a new journey and we lived them non-stop. On show days, we’d do in-store appearances for hours before we ever got onstage. That could feel like business, but we made it poetry, part of that ongoing love affair between us and the fans.
“And we had nothing. We’d turn up at shows and have to share six waters. There was one dressing room with wardrobe and hospitality where we all dressed. But there was still always resistance, too. I remember how promoters for shows we’d already played would call up the promoters for the next set of dates and just fill them full of lies, saying we’d killed a goat onstage or some shit like that. That was hilarious. But it was also testament to how hardcore Slipknot were that people would make up these insane stories to try to [express] what they felt!”
‘The whole thing, I think it’s sick. The whole thing, I think it’s sick. The whole thing, I think it’s sick…’
Unsettling opening hooks rarely work their way under the skin as insidiously as the looped, pitch-shifting sample of Corey Hurst, former cellmate of Charles Manson 'family' member Susan Atkins, from 1973 documentary Manson that comprises most of 742617000027 – the first track from Slipknot’s self-titled debut. A 36-second downward spiral from comfort into unhinged chaos, it perfectly brought about that spine-tingling essence of fear and loathing, adrenaline and adoration that made the band so compelling in the flesh. But even with the backing of Roadrunner and fast-rising producer Ross Robinson, capturing their unspeakable essence on tape would be a daunting task.
“Nothing was a certainty back then, nothing was a guarantee,” Shawn stresses. “There was no gold at the end of the rainbow. It was just us against everyone else. In our hearts, it still is…”
California was calling, and the 1,800-mile road trip from Des Moines to the Pacific Coast that would see the band cross open plains, craggy mountains and arid deserts emphasised how far they were from home. Shawn remembers their naïveté, opting to stay at the Roadrunner Motel on the way “because it had the same name as our label”. On arriving at Los Angeles’ Cole Rehearsal Studio for pre-production, they were stunned to find KISS’ original line-up preparing for the Psycho Circus tour in the same building.
But on leaving behind the crack addicts and gangsters of The City of Angels for the rattlesnakes and mountain lions of rural Malibu an hour west, shit got serious. The Indigo Ranch – a historic hunting lodge, converted to a recording studio, which has since been destroyed by a 2007 wildfire – was where Ross Robinson had already overseen definitive works by Korn, Limp Bizkit and Amen. It was there that Slipknot dug in for war.
“We brought this kind of cloud with us,” Shawn recalls. “Outside, the sun was shining, we were picking oranges and looking out at the ocean. Compared to Iowa, it was like heaven on earth. But as soon as we were inside, we wanted the darkness. We didn’t care about going down to Melrose or buying shoes. We only cared about making mayhem. So that’s exactly what we did.”
Those Indigo Ranch sessions would become infamous. From coaxing Corey to lay bare the displaced upbringing, suffering of sexual abuse, cocaine and speed addictions, overdoses and attempted suicides that formed the basis for Slipknot’s lyrics, to confronting the band with Harmony Korine’s disturbingly bizarre 1997 experimental drama Gummo, Ross understood that discomfort was key. Throwing kicks, punches and objects from around the studio at players as they laid down parts emphasised a visceral vitality. Corey’s vocals were recorded in a booth smeared with blood, vomit and faeces, ingraining the disgusting base realities of animal existence while simultaneously symbolising the inner turmoil that these songs were built to expunge.
“Ross might not be responsible for everything that we were, but he was responsible for capturing it and making sure that we didn’t lie to ourselves,” Shawn nods. “That’s the real trick. We’d left behind our homes and our families to achieve this. When you pluck people out to go somewhere as crazy as LA, there are lessons to be learned, like how you go from being up at 11 at a show to zero at the studio in a second. Ross maintained the intensity. He required us to be what we were.”
Nu-metal was booming at the time, and Slipknot were inevitably swept up in its wave, but anyone truly dialled in could see they’d already transcended that scene. Rather than blunt machismo, this was the sound of vulnerability. Instead of rap-rock contrivance, it was all lunatic invention. There was no Hollywood high-polish about tracks as concussive as Get This or as skin-crawling as Prosthetics, just rough edges and black holes that felt both nightmarish and sickeningly real. For the masses of burgeoning Maggots, it was like Mana from hell: a challenge to wrench themselves from their comfort zones as The Nine already had, repulsed by the unstemmed violence and vitriol but ultimately drawn by a primal understanding that these diabolic sounds represented the truth.
“The music and the lyrics and the physicality of the show – everything that that we were doing, everything that came out of it – was unplanned,” Shawn says, connecting back to the carnage that fascinated him in the first place. “Someone scheduled that we were playing somewhere or talking to someone, what time it would happen, and we would decide what we were going to wear, but when it was actually happening, there was no plan. Anything went at any time for any reason. We didn’t know any agenda but our own. And a lot of our drive came from playing on people’s misunderstandings about Slipknot – or seeing their expectations, and how we could ruin them. That’s what made people uncomfortable. They wanted to love this band, but they were still a little unsure, maybe even a little scared. [Stoking that unease] is what it was all about.”
Balancing the scales after all these years is an inescapably bittersweet process. There have been overwhelming triumphs, of course. Slipknot’s snarling debut has long since gone double-platinum in the U.S. alone, opening the floodgates for chart-terrorising success to the tune of 30 million records shifted worldwide. Stepping up to bona fide festival headliner status at Download 2009, they’ve founded their own continent-hopping Knotfest roadshow. And with 11 GRAMMY nominations and one win to date, they’ve cracked the musical establishment.
But fame and fortune do not afford immunity to pain, loss and existential turbulence. The passing of Paul Gray on May 24, 2010 and of Joey Jordison – who left in 2013 – on July 26, 2021 rocked them. The departures of Chris Fehn in 2019 and Craig Jones in 2023 retired two more of the most recognisable masks from The Nine. Stepping onto the biggest stages has naturally opened a space between band and fans that’s difficult to bridge, while Shawn laments how reaching the mountaintop has left many interviewers hesitant to truly pry under their skin.
“When you talk to the Clown it’s got to be about more than selling magazines and hitting the obvious points,” he tells us. “I don’t understand how I can speak about 25 years of that first album without bringing up Joey and Paul, or even Chris and Craig. The grief is big. I don’t really have any regrets other than not having spent more time with those guys. But you don’t start a band looking at your brother thinking, ‘Dude, you’re going to be the greatest drummer of all time!’ It’s more like, ‘Dude, wake up, we have an in-store today!’ You’re chasing a dream, then living the dream, then all of a sudden someone is gone and it’s like, ‘Damn.’ That’s life. Joey and Paul show up every night these days, in my energy at least, and I just go down a wormhole of thoughts. It’s a completely spiritual reminiscence and it’s wonderful. I spend a lot of time thinking, ‘Thank you!’”
“You’re living the dream, then all of a sudden someone is gone”
Circling back to the duality of the band Slipknot were and the one they are, he explains that perhaps the crux of their differences is how everything now is much more foregone. The road is long and winding still, but as each new day gives way to the next, overwhelmingly they find they’ve already been to this city; played this venue; spoken to this magazine countless times before.
“Instead of wondering where we’re going to wind up,” he half-smiles, “we’re already there.”
Depressing as that realisation can be, Shawn prefers to parry it into a new form of defiance. If the young Slipknot were bound by their collective potential, and their fire and fury fuelled by inexperienced hatred for the world, in 2024 they are tighter for having grown up together, and more energised than ever to prove wrong a world that’s convinced it’s got them figured out.
“I haven’t changed in this fight. I’m still an asshole, I guess. And the Slipknot you see today isn’t watered down. It’s not less than it was. Maybe we couldn’t relive how much of a punch in the face it was back then, but we’re still blood, sweat and tears. There has been a lot of grind, but that grinding has sharpened this weapon to the point where it’s lethal. We’re older and wiser, yes, but the wiser guy I am is more dangerous than the physical guy I was: less barbarian, more assassin.”
“Did I think I was going to spend 25 years in Slipknot? Not a chance…”
And as anniversary celebrations build to their climax, the Clown is already plotting the road ahead. This tour’s bare-faced nostalgia might not have been what many of the ’Knot’s multi-generational mass of Maggots (many not even a glint in their parents’ eyes in 1999) were crying out for, but its runaway success is license to be as bold as they please. Having split from Roadrunner after 2022’s The End, So Far they are currently without a label – or the associated meddling. Tellingly, when asked about Slipknot’s legacy as we take our leave, there is no name-checking of any of the countless bands they’ve influenced, rather a doubling down on their remaining unspent potential.
“Our legacy is that we’re still here,” Shawn says. “We’re not having an interview where it’s all done and we’re talking about a band from the past. Slipknot are playing again tomorrow night. I’m proudest that we’re still in it. We’re still doing this. We still write. We still perform. We still thrive. We’re still together. And we’re going to keep going until this is done. There has never been anything like Slipknot. Not before. Certainly not after. And as much as I see all the doors that we’ve opened up for other artists, and what an honour that is, I could care less. After all these years, it’s still my band against your band. That’s just the way it is. And we’re only getting more and more dangerous. This is to the death. This is to the end. At this point, this is just who we are…”
Slipknot are touring the UK now. They headline Rock For People in June – get your tickets now.
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