Iowa
is probably best known as "the middle of nowhere." Most non-residents consider
the corn-and-pig-state a geographical black hole. Since rock'n'roll's dawning
in the early '50's, Iowa has had no singular voice to put on the musical
map. Naming a significant musical identity from the state is inarguably
a fruitless task; it simply can't be done. However, nine freaks from Des
Moines--draped in industrial coveralls, surrealistic self-made masks, and
an attack that combines violently regurgitated "L.A. neo-metal," death
metal, hip-hop, and downtuned screeching horror--are about to leap upon
the unsuspecting world like a musical of Clockwork Orange. Have you ever
thought about what a messed-up hardcore metal band from "the middle of
nowhere" would sound like? "Ultra-violence" only begins to descibe it...
Meet
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. (In human terms that's DJ Sid Wilson, drummer
Joey Jordison, bassist Paul Gray, percussionist Chris Fehn, guitarist James
Root, sampler Craig Jones, percussionist Shawn Crahan, guitarist Mic Thompson,
and vocalist Corey Taylor, respectively.) Each comes equipped with not
only a frightening visual persona and number assignment, but a talent on
his particular instrument that combines and collides to form the nine-headed
savior/destructor of modern heavy music dubbed Slipknot. Now, with the
tools and talents (not to mention complex-yet-infectiously-catchy songs)
that this band holds in its grasp, the world has no choice: Slipknot has
arrived, and you must now decide how to deal with it.
Formed
during the latter half of 1995, the band went through necessary lineup
changes to arrive at what they now descibe as "a family unit." All native
Iowans, their rather unassuming, un-happening locale gave the members plenty
of space and time to perfect their unusual take on heaviosity. The band
recorded and distributed the self-released debut Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.
in 1996, and the ball hasn't stopped rolling since. Attracting the attention
of a number of labels, Slipknot finally signed to Roadrunner through noted
producer Ross Robinson's I AM RECORDS imprint in 1997 and entered Indigo
Ranch Studios in L.A. with Robinson to record Slipknot. From the pummeling
Sic and the unforgiving bludgeon of
Surfacing to the sublime melodies within
Wait And Bleed and the hypnotizing rhythmic drive of
Prosthetics, Slipknot's
vast array of influences comes seamlessly wrapped up in a 13-song love/hate
letter to the outside world. The touring that will follow is promised to
be "unlike anything else that's going on out there. Seeing is believing."
So says Shawn Crahan. And it's a gross understatement of what actually
transpires when it all comes together on stage.
Until
you hear the sound they create, having nine members in the band might seem
ludicrous. Shawn claims it couldn't work any other way: "We've maintained
an excellent practice schedule for the last three years. Everybody's on
time, everybody's always there, and we always practice as a unit. Our music
is so reliant on each other that if one guy, even the DJ, is gone, it just
wouldn't be our songs without him. Without one person, something is really,
really missing. Everybody has to be present. Even the littlest things make
the songs magical."
Just
as striking visually as they are musically, Slipknot stresses that the
visuals do not take precedence over the music. "We never put on the shit
we wear to try and get people into us," says Joey Jordison. "We did it
because, after being degraded constantly for trying to play music or do
something in Des Moines, it just came to be like we were an anonymous entity.
No one gave a fuck, no one cared, so we were never about our names or our
faces; we're just about music. So we just put it on and it started gettin'
people, and it just started to turn into this big thing. The music's the
most important, though. The coveralls and masks happened, and for some
reason it worked, therefore we had to kind of continue with it. We got
stuck with it."
Now
that they're stuck with it, they hardly feel like themselves without it.
Shawn feels that "...the masks are extensions of our personalities. Everybody's
got sort of a tweaked, demented way about themselves, and we just alter
the masks over time. It feels really, really good when we wear our masks
for an hour, and then afterwards we take it off, and the first thing we
do is go, 'God, what a relief!', but we always seem to put 'em back on
after a show and walk around the place." And the visual presentation will
change over time, just as the music certainly will. "I think things will
always be changing with Slipknot. Everybody grows older every year, and
with that you change, and that's somethin' Slipknot is always going to
do."
As
for the number assignments they wear on their coverall sleeves, they're
lucky numbers, significant and vitally important to each member. When choosing
them, "Everybody fell into a number," says Shawn. "There was not one person
in the band arguing over a number. It was really weird."
Thanks
to a hefty Ross Robinson production job on Slipknot, Slipknot's vision,
part one, has been successfully realized. Shawn feels that Robinson was
as highly motivated to work on the record as the band were to work with
him. "We're a highly, highly aggressive band, and very seldom do we meet
people who are in the realm of our aggressiveness when we play as a unit,
and Ross took us into the recording room and was throwing punches at us.
He was into it. Ross got up every day and went and worked out so he could
be in shape to do our album."
When
label reps and Robinson himself came to Des Moines to check out Slipknot
at their best (on stage), the members were left with little to do for after-show
entertainment than go to local strip clubs. After hosting guest after guest,
the band were completely burnt out. Now, nobody in Slipknot ever wants
to step inside a strip club again (it's Des Moines's leading form of entertainment,
incidentally). Shawn grunts in disgust: "Fuck the strip bars. Fuck taking
anybody to strip joints. We got shit to do."
The
"shit" is wrapped up in a pretty little package called Slipknot. It's the
discordant sound of the middle of nowhere, a terrain where Slipknot is
jester and king...
