This story appears in Revolver's Summer 2024 Issue, which is available for order now complete with a limited-edition collector's slipcase.
Twenty-five years ago this summer, Slipknot's self-titled debut was released by Roadrunner Records. Actually, "unleashed" may be a better word for it — since the album exploded on the metal scene with all the pent-up, face-mauling fury of a caged panther.
Tough lumped in at the time with the then-burgeoning nu-metal genre, Slipknot churned up a bracing and highly original sonic hurricane of thrash metal, death metal, hardcore punk, hip-hop, cinematic soundtracks and even avant-garde noise. Produced by Ross Robinson (who would work again with the band on 2001's Iowa), the album immersed listeners in an aurally unsettling world of pummeling percussion, disorienting samples, vicious guitar riffs and throat-shredding vocals. The album only made it to number 51 on the Billboard 200 (largely on the strength of the MTV semi-hit "Wait and Bleed") but has since gone on to sell over two million copies in the U.S. alone. It is now widely, and rightfully, hailed as one of the great debut albums in metal history. And the making of it nearly killed them.
If you had asked at the time if the band responsible for such full-on sonic assaults as "(sic)," "Spit It Out" and "Diluted" would still be around a quarter-century later, it's doubtful that anyone — Slipknot members included — would have answered in the affirmative. The aggression, rage and brutally bad vibes that made their self-titled debut so thrilling often spilled over into the band's day-to-day life. And the additional stress of having to live and record together in claustrophobically close quarters (and exist on an extremely limited budget) at Ross Robinson's Indigo Ranch studios during the making of Slipknot often threatened to further inflame the highly combustible nine-headed collective — as did Robinson's deeply demanding presence behind the board.
"I've never screamed or sang like that in my life," frontman Corey Taylor recalled to Revolver in 2011. "Ross pushed me every day to the point where, by the end, I was literally broken completely in half and wide open and bawling and I couldn't stop crying."
Original drummer Joey Jordison set the Slipknot sessions ablaze, quite literally, when one of the pillows he was sleeping on fell onto a space heater; only quick thinking and some handy fire extinguishers kept Indigo Ranch from completely going up in flames. Original guitarist Josh Brainard bailed from the band before the album was even finished, forcing the band to reach out to guitarist Jim Root, who had previously played with Taylor in Stone Sour. With just a few songs left to track for Slipknot, Root hit the ground running. "I didn't have time to think about whether or not I felt comfortable or fit in," Root told Revolver in 2011. "And part of the thing with Slipknot was not feeling comfortable, anyways."
Yet, here they are, sporting new masks and throwback red jumpsuits and hammering away as hard as ever onstage. After a series of warm-up dates and festival appearances this spring and summer, Slipknot will kick off their massive "Here Comes the Pain" tour of North America in August, with Knocked Loose, Orbit Culture and Vended supporting. On September 21st, they'll headline their semi-annual Knotfest festival in their spiritual home of Des Moines, Iowa, with their appearance billed as a "One Night Only 25th Anniversary Event" celebrating their debut album. Also, hints have been coming via the band's social media account that new 'Knot songs — the first new music since 2022's The End, So Far, their final record for Roadrunner — will be released before the year's end. (In 2023, they also surprised fans with their first-ever EP, Adderall, which featured variations of The End, So Far's title track.)
Of course, it's not exactly the same Slipknot lineup that put the finishing touches on their 1999 debut. Only five remain of that "Original Nine" — Taylor, co-founder/percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan, guitarists Root and Mick Thomson, and turntablist Sid Wilson. The other four members that make up the current 'Knot lineup are bassist Alessandro "VMan" Venturella, who has been with the band since 2014; percussionist Michael "Tortilla Man" Pfaff, who joined in 2019 but whose identity wasn't revealed until three years later; former Sepultura drummer Eloy Casagrande, who replaced longtime drummer Jay Weinberg this spring; and the as-yet-unnamed replacement for former sampler/keyboardist Craig Jones. (Casagrande's identity was revealed to the world in April, when he played a secret show with the band in front of 350 or so fans at Pappy & Harriet's roadhouse in Pioneertown, California.)
Revolver recently connected with OGs Crahan, Root and Taylor to discuss the current state of the 'Knot, the rumored upcoming music, and the album that started it all.
Shawn "Clown" Crahan
"It's feeling very, very, very good to be in Slipknot these days," says Shawn "Clown" Crahan, a.k.a. #6. The only original member of the 'Knot, Crahan is in many ways the keeper of Slipknot's artistic, conceptual and cultural flame. He's never been one to pull punches or sugarcoat the state of the band in interviews, so his enthusiasm for the current situation feels extremely genuine — not to mention irresistibly infectious.
"We've all been through a lot, and I think we're just in a really good place as men," he explains. "There's been a lot of years of learning, a lot of sacrifice, a lot of listening, a lot of communicating. Communicating may not have been our strongest point, somewhere within all of this, but we're really communicating now more than ever, and it feels great. And when you keep communicating, you get things done, and you prove to yourselves that you can still experience anything you choose. And that's fascinating for us, these days.
"We're back in full-on Slipknot mode. We're getting ready to do a North America tour in two parts, and then a Europe tour with an all-new philosophy: two nights on, one night off, all buses, no planes, and taking a couple-week break and then finishing it instead of doing six weeks and everybody losing it. We're going to see if we can sustain more energy and move forward in a really positive way to get more done."
Slipknot have been dropping hints that there's new music on the way, and even confirmed the name of a new song, "Long May You Die." What can you tell us about that?
SHAWN "CLOWN" CRAHAN Well, one thing I can say is this: There's always going to be new Slipknot music. But we've also said that there is a filter, and we are the filter, and that filter must go through everyone. And when I was telling you that we're doing a lot better communicating, now apply that to communicating about music. I can say that there's gonna be music sooner than you can imagine, delivered to you in a way you can't imagine. And I'm excited because we're not on a label. And there's a lot of dismay with that, you know what I mean? But there's also a lot of middle fingers with that. I love it, you know? Come and get us, or we'll come to get you!
Will you be putting out the new music yourself? Or are you looking for a new label?
What I can tell you is that we've already been motivating around creating music, because of the love of doing it. So you're gonna get music really soon. And if I can have a loud voice in it, I will make sure that we have at least a good amount of music put out before we do anything with anybody. Now, I don't hate labels. In fact, I'm from the generation of record deals and producers and pre-producing your album and cutting to two-inch tape. So, I have a fantasy with all that; I like it when we can just book our plane tickets and go rock out in the studio. If we don't go with a label, we're gonna have to do all that ourselves, which might mean hiring some people to help pick up the loose ends, which makes it a business — and I'm not sure we're interested in opening up another business. But I am interested in understanding what it means to go directly from our brains to your brain with nobody in the way; I'm interested in that potential.
Will Look Outside Your Window — the album you, Jim, Corey and Sid made on the side during the recording of 2008's All Hope is Gone — be part of that "good amount of music" that's coming out soon?
I'm glad that you're asking me about Look Outside Your Window, because there's never been a conspiracy against that project. The album's been finished for a long time. But the world keeps changing, and so do my feelings on the art — like, what did we create a long time ago, and how does it relate to now? And what are we feeling now, and what is it? But the reason it hasn't come out is that every time we've agreed that it's coming out, something happens like COVID and we have to cancel it. Or then let's say somebody in the band — it could be anybody — goes and does something else, and then what happens is, the focus changes. Look Outside Your Window is never going to be something that barges in on anything else. If it barges in on Slipknot, or anything Corey's doing — or myself, Jim, Sid, anybody in the band — if it barges in and interrupts, then it's not doing what it's supposed to do.
So, that's the number one factor why it's never been released. Because the culture needs to take a deep breath … and go, "Ah, this is here!" And when it is here, everyone just needs to do what they're going to do with it. Because it's really that good, and it's really timeless: It's last year; it's 10 years ago; it's 10 years from now. You'll never hear Corey Taylor sing like this on his solo albums…
It was created during the whole All Hope Is Gone cycle, and there was a lot of stuff going on, brother. And that's all in the lyrics. And it hurts, for me; I don't know what people will take out or understand, but I know what it's about. Jim and I held it up. It was our thing, because there was too much anger and too much crap happening, and too much non-communicating. And Sid and Corey wanted to be part of it, and I said, "Of course!" [Late bassist] Paul Gray was consistently coming in, saying, "I'm going to be on this," and I would say, "There's no way in hell you're going to be on it, because a lot of it's about you."
It was a very emotional time, and all those emotions went into creating that album. And that album is timeless; I can actually listen to it now and feel what I was then, and it affects me more now than it would have then. So I would say there's still a real good chance it could come out this year; you bringing it up makes me remember that I need to bring it up to the team. But it's a beautiful thing, a serious thing, and I stand by saying that it will be worth the wait.
It's been 25 years since the self-titled album. How do you think it stands up today?
It's still insane. That album is still a car wreck. Even now, people put it on, and they're like, "What the fuck is this?" It's noise, but you absolutely know it's the best noise you could ever want. And when it's done, you're going to say, "This is some real shit." Because making that album is still one of the realest experiences in my 54 years. Things were levitating. Things were happening: Things were happening outside; things were happening inside. It was real, and it was needed, and it was a lot of fun. And I think everyone would agree that we were very blessed to have been part of that. It still stands up, and it will stand up forever.
Jim Root
If he didn't already have such a full itinerary planned for the rest of 2024, Slipknot guitarist Jim Root (a.k.a. #4) would be happily spending this year riding around his present home state of Florida and elsewhere on his new Harley-Davidson James Root Low Rider ST. A collaboration between the guitarist, Phoenix-based MotorWitch Industries and the iconic American motorcycle brand, the Low Rider ST is the culmination of Root's longtime Harley fixation.
"Harleys have been part of my life ever since I can remember," he explains. "I was introduced to them by my dad, and I caught the bug, and I'm just continuing to carry that flame. Harley is a culture brand, but it's counterculture; it's anti-establishment. Riding one is still kind of like throwing a big middle finger up to the world, like, 'Yeah, this bike's fucking loud and it's heavy and it handles like shit; but it makes me feel awesome, and it's therapeutic for me to ride it — so fuck you.'" He laughs.
For now, however, Root's mostly going to have to get his adrenaline fix from playing with Slipknot on tour. "Even now, my nerves are way up on edge before I go onstage, and I'm thinking about everything I shouldn't be thinking about," he says. "But then as soon as the first count-off happens, that muscle memory kicks in. Playing music onstage is very much like why I like riding motorcycles: Everything else just kind of shuts off, and you become hyper-focused on the task at hand."
How are you feeling about the 2024 edition of Slipknot?
JIM ROOT It's been awesome. That show we kicked it off with, playing at Pappy & Harriet's? Damn, dude; that was so fucking epic. I don't even remember the last time we actually got up and played a full set for 200 or 300 people. It helps you remember how it was when you first started; you know, when everybody was sharing hotel rooms, everybody was packed onto one bus, and there was just a whole level of camaraderie happening that you didn't even realize at the time. And I couldn't think of a better way to come back and present Eloy to the world.
So Eloy is fitting in well with the band?
Yeah, he's a super cool dude. He's really quiet, but he just lives, eats and breathes drums. If he's got an idle moment, he's got a practice pad in front of him or a practice kit. I recently bought a new place that has a little tiny demo studio attached to the garage. I've got a drum set in there and a big couch that you can turn into a bed. Eloy and VMan came to stay here for a week between the Rockville and Sonic Temple festivals, and Eloy was like, "Is it possible that I can stay in the room with the drums?" [Laughs] At literally seven the next morning, I could hear drums being played out in my studio. He's like some sort of Jedi drum master, which is inspiring to me. He makes me want to be a better guitar player to match his abilities, you know?
Have you guys started working on new music with him?
We have a bunch of holdover stuff that was written during COVID — but it was such a manic, depressing, chaotic time that I think a lot of the ideas that came out of that aren't necessarily the greatest, just because we couldn't work on anything with a hundred percent focus. We had Eloy play on a tune that kind of spilled over from some of that writing, and I think some of the guys like it more than some of the other guys like it; I don't love it. But when he and VMan were staying with me, we jammed a couple of different times in my home studio while running Pro Tools, and all these ideas were just flowing. I'm gonna go through it and do some riff mining, and see if I can start some arrangements to get us going on some new songs. I think we're going to try to get a time together where all of us can be in the same place, and get into a room and just jam as a band and write — like the way the Iowa record was written, or the way the self-titled album was written.
It's been 25 years since the self-titled album came out. What do you remember about the making of it?
Twenty-five years? Wow, it seems like 50! [Laughs] I came in late to the game on that one. I had known all the guys from different bands that they were in — Slipknot were kind of like the all-stars of the local scene — and they'd already been out in California working with Ross Robinson. Josh [Brainard] had decided to move on from the band, for whatever reason, and they asked me to join. The couple of times I'd watched Slipknot at, like, Hairy Mary's in Des Moines, I didn't really understand them. But then Corey came back from California with some stuff they'd been working on with Ross; he played me the song "Me Inside," and as soon as I heard that I was like, "Oh, fuck, I get it — this is something interesting and new that I've never heard before."
I quit my job the next day, rehearsed with them at Sid's house every day for a week, and then drove out to Malibu with Mick in his tiny, older BMW, with the rest of the guys in a truck with a trailer. They were mostly done recording the record, but the label wasn't happy with the tempo of "Spit It Out," so they needed to re-record it, and then they had three other demo songs that they still wanted to record. We re-recorded "Spit It Out" at all these different tempos, and the label never really liked any of them except for the demo, so the demo is what ended up on the record. My job was also to learn all the songs that they'd already recorded, to get ready for touring when that was happening, to hang around them to get to know everybody a little bit better, and really dig in and be as good of a guitar player as I could be for this band. I was like, "This is your chance, dude; don't fucking blow it!"
How do you think the album holds up today?
Once a record is done being mastered, I usually never listen to it again. I just listened to it last week for the first time in ages, because we're getting ready to kick off the 25th anniversary tour, and we're going to be doing the majority of that record, I think. And it's kind of weird, man; usually I focus on the guitar aspects of our records, but now I'm able to focus on it a lot more objectively as a listener, and it's kind of blowing my mind. There are some songs where there's just like two guitar riffs in the entire thing, but the way [late drummer] Joey [Jordison] was playing drums and the way Corey's vocals and Sid's stuff are weaving in and out of things makes it really interesting. And there's an element of danger to it, a little bit of anti-establishment, middle-finger-in-the-air spice that I'm not sure we would get away with if we were just starting out now.
There are rumors that Look Outside Your Window might finally see the light of day. Can you confirm?
I told Clown like five or six years ago, "Dude, I'm tired of waiting for it to come out — I'm just gonna put it up on YouTube for everyone to hear." [Laughs] I haven't, though; I know he's been working on it, and I don't even think I have a way to listen to that or hear what that's even like anymore. I just remember that I was going down some serious Björk and Portishead wormholes at the time. Clown was playing drums and stacking all these sounds, and I'd start playing guitar to it; and then Corey would come in and sing on it, and Sid would come in and play all these crazy instruments. It just turned into this, like, really intense art piece, and I would love for that to get out there someday. I just honestly don't know what's holding it up. I'm gonna have to get on Clown about that.
Corey Taylor
"Things are really positive in Slipknot again," exults frontman Corey Taylor, a.k.a. #8. "I've needed that, and I know the other guys in the band have needed that. We've all kind of been craving it for a long time. We've been talking more; we've been getting on the same page more, and it's amazing what happens when you start communicating — instead of assuming that you know what's going on, you know? I think we had forgotten that you can talk to each other without an explosion."
Slipknot's renewed camaraderie became especially apparent to Taylor earlier this year, when his bandmates gave him some much-needed emotional support following the unspecified mental and physical health crisis that forced the cancellation of his North American solo tour. "I won't go into too much detail," he says, "but if I described it as driving a drag car, I slammed into the wall doing 300 miles an hour. It was a time of realization and really seeing where I was in my life and who I was — and then not liking who I was, and spiritually kind of going back to the drawing board on a lot of stuff. I've been doing a lot of therapy, and I'm still doing a lot of self-searching and letting go of a lot of the toxicity that was in my life, stuff that I didn't see because I was so self-absorbed. It's been a good process, but it's also been very bittersweet, because you never want to admit to yourself that you're the problem, that you're the worst person in the room.
"Thankfully, I'm in a better place now," he continues. "I have the support of my wife, who helped me through one of the darkest times of my life. I have the support of my family and all the people who I make music with have been very supportive. And the guys in Slipknot, they had my back immediately. It's all made me take a look at how I wanna spend the next 25 years of my life. I'm doing what I should have done a long time ago for myself, for my family, for my band. And it's gonna be good."
Did this newly communicative phase of Slipknot have anything to do with how quickly Eloy was revealed as your new drummer?
COREY TAYLOR I think we just kinda went, "You know what? Let's just tell people." It was really as simple as that, you know? Eloy was the only one who was brave enough to get in the room with us. There were a handful of other people that we were looking at, and none of them wanted to jam with us. They just wanted to do their own thing and send it in — a very TikTok thing, you know? And we were like, "That's not the way this works, dude." Eloy rearranged his schedule to come see us. He was so hungry to jam and just see what would happen that we were immediately impressed just by that alone. He didn't get it right away — getting to know him was just as important as jamming with him — but by the time we made that decision, we were like, "Let's tell the world now. He's earned it." Our audience is so used to us kind of keeping our cards close to our chest, but to me it was more refreshing to just kind of come out and go, "Yeah, he's our dude."
That said, the identity of Craig's replacement still hasn't been revealed.
Oh, yeah. [Laughs] There's definitely people who have theories [about who he is], and none of them are correct, which is great. But at the same time, it's like, let's just see what happens, you know? And he's fine just sticking in the background. He doesn't give a fuck. Which I think is awesome, and very funny.
The self-titled album turns 25 this year. What memories do you have of making it?
I remember the drive out there to California, because it took us like three or four days to get out there from Des Moines. We were hauling all of the equipment with [former Slipknot percussionist] Chris Fehn's truck, and you could only go about 55 miles an hour with that thing before it started to fishtail. By the time we got there, we were like caged animals being let loose into a sanctuary. I remember the feel of the sun when we got to the top of the mountain at Indigo Ranch, and how the view of the bay from there was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I remember being so excited and yet so nervous, because you just don't get a second chance at this, you know?
I can remember all of us kind of bonding on that trip; we were just young, wet weirdos that were out of our minds, man. And I can remember being in the studio, and between me and Casey [Chaos] from Amen, who had also been recording there, we made the vocal booth smell so bad that nobody wanted to go in there. Casey had cut his hand and bled all over the place, so there was dead blood in there, and I was throwing up all over the place from screaming so hard. And there was a dead mouse in the wall of this thing, and we couldn't find it to get it out of there; like, it was just so gross — there was the smell of death just reeking from this thing.
How do you think the album holds up today?
Oh, I think it absolutely holds up, dude. It's still such a beautiful breath of fresh air when you listen to it; it was the perfect, crazy mix of thrash, quote-unquote nu-metal, punk, hardcore and hip-hop. There's no click track, and it was recorded to tape — this was before everyone was using Pro Tools — and there's just not a lot of bands that could do that today. We did it all in-house, and we created this insane thing of dark beauty. I still feel very connected with it. When we play "(sic)," it still feels like we're jumping out of an airplane, and you don't know if the chute's gonna open — you don't know what's gonna happen! I think it's just such a great testament to that album that so many of those songs are still in our set.
Slipknot was definitely a much-needed blast of fresh air in 1999. How do you see your place in the world 25 years later?
That's a good question, man. I don't know, to be honest. I guess I'm just thankful there is a spot for us, that we still have a place, and people are still clamoring to see us. There's a great new generation of bands rising through to the top, so the fact that we're still kind of in the mix is good, you know? And the fact that we're still able to take younger bands and put them in a position to win is good; it's a reflection of what our work ethic has always been. We know we're not the "end-all, be-all" — we're not trying to keep other bands out of the spotlight.
Is that why you're bringing Knocked Loose, Orbit Culture and Vended Out with you on this summer's Here Comes the Pain tour?
Yeah, it's passing the torch — it's handing the baton back. It's showing respect to the younger generation and not acting like it's something that they have to pry from our hands. There are way too many older bands that would rather keep younger bands out of that position, and not encourage them to take over so that this genre is in a healthier place. We've never been that way. If you look at our track record, we have always brought out bands that have been in a position to take over, whether it was Mudvayne or Hatebreed or Mastodon or Lamb of God. We have really tried to bring that next generation with us, and make sure that we leave the genre in a better place than when we found it. We need more bands to reach a hand back and help that next generation up, or you're gonna see our genre disappear. And I don't want that. I know there's way too much healthy music that could be made out there. I'm excited for what the future holds.
