(SLIPKNOT) New mettle behind the masks
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| (Apologies for the picture - the original was extremely low quality, and this is the best I can clean it up) |
The Scotsman - Friday 23 August 2002
Slipknot are back - revealing their caring, sharing side. Fiona Shepherd stands amazed.
While some desperate people chase celebrity like a thirsty man in a desert, the real coup is to achieve international distinction but still be able to enjoy some privacy. Slipknot, the nine masked metal marauders from Des Moines, Iowa, who have taken the nu-metal genre by the scruff of the neck in the past three years, enjoy the best of both worlds. There's a child wearing a Slipknot T-shirt on every corner of every small town, but most of them have no idea of what their heroes look like without their trademark Halloween masks and customised boiler suits.
But recently some band members have broken cover with a couple of side projects. Singer Corey Taylor and guitarist Jim Root have resurrected their previous band Stone Sour for some death metal light relief. It was a curious and almost disappointing experience to discover the banal reality of the men behind the masks.
Drummer Joey Jordison has also left his blank-faced ice hockey mask* on the bench to play in cornball punk metal band Murderdolls - but a glimpse at their album sleeve reveals that he doesn't look that different without his camouflage.
But chief 'Knot spokesperson Shawn Crahan, or Clown as he prefers to be known when on Slipknot business, still cleaves to the anonymity his sinister persona brings.
"For me, it's more exotic to have someone wearing a Slipknot shirt walk by you, and not know who you are," he says. "I don't need to stop and pat my ego, that's what's wrong with the world anyway. It's healthier to know that I'm making a change rather than indulging in the power that brings".
From Kiss to the Residents, rock music has always enjoyed an element of playful disguise. It's nothing new or radical. But try telling that to Clown: "Slipknot is the most punk band in the world right now. We're so against that others can only look and follow."
Tellingly, he doesn't say what Slipknot are against, but then, very little of what they say could stand up to close scrutiny. But what they do offer their fans, apart from one of the greatest, goofiest live shows around, is an outlet for frustration and an opportunity to gather with like-minded kids, of whom there are legions.
"I honestly believe we give the kids with nothing something," says Crahan, himself a father of three.
Slipknot are the cult that went mainstream. Where before, they would automatically be banned and demonized because of such heinous acts as wearing masks, playing noisy music and trading gross imagery (dead pets in jars, that sort of caper), authorities are now prepared to acknowledge their influence.
"We have mayors coming to our shows because they want to see what they should do with their youth," says Crahan. "And most times, the 'Knot wins. They come, they see, they talk. Culturally, people need music to come together, to have a break, a beer, whatever that person wishes to do to be free from the pressures of life."
For all his protestations that Slipknot are as punk as anything, Crahan and his bandmates care deeply about their young fan base.
"I'm spending time listening to kids and they're not asking, 'what am I going to be when I grow up?'. They're asking, 'what is being alive?' I've got ten year olds contemplating life and death and some of it is so profound that I have to listen and apply it to what I already know," he says. "I walk out on stage in front of 20,000 kids and I think of the potential. I don't get excited by the power we have; I think of the potential".
~ Slipknot play the main stage of Gig on the Green tomorrow.
Notes
Hockey mask: It was a Noh mask.
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