Clown & Joey Interview - Much Music Canada
SOOK-YIN LEE (who is wearing a giant HELLO KITTY type head which covers her eyes): Yeah!! Woo! Woo! Woo! All right! I am with a couple (two members) of Slipknot, Joey and the Clown. Hello boys.
JOEY: Hey.
SHAWN: Hello.
SOOK-YIN LEE: So, Slipknot hails from Des Moines, Ottowa..or Ohio..or IO.WA...Iowa
SHAWN: Iowa...
SOOK-YIN LEE: And it's a conservative, middle class town is it not? Or what's it like there?
JOEY: It's a graveyard with a bunch of buildings shooting out of it.
SOOK-YIN LEE: So what happened? What the heck happened to you guys from this place? Is it like I imagine it to be? Are there strip malls there?*
SHAWN: No. Nothing really happened...
JOEY: You're shaking...
SHAWN: We were just born
JOEY (reaching forward to touch SOOK-YIN's hand): She's shaking...
SOOK-YIN LEE: Am I shaking?
JOEY: Yeah...
SOOK-YIN LEE: My ears are shaking...I'm like very excited to see you. Or not see you, as it were.
SHAWN *Wheezy laugh*
JOEY (nudges Shawn): She's nervous...
SOOK YIN-LEE: So when you are all together...um, you were all in different metal bands beforehand, what was your musical vision for Slipknot? What did you want to create?
(SHAWN starts rocking)
JOEY: Basically, all we wanted to do was get away from the preconceived notions of what a band should be, and create something that basically is a void in music today. Like, our fan base, is the sickest fan base I've ever seen out of any band. I could put myself out of the band, and look at it like I'm just looking at it like I was a fan, and I cannot believe the fans that we have, they are...
SOOK YIN-LEE: Is it insane?
JOEY (CONT):...they are the most amazing. They are the most amazing people I've ever seen...
(STUDIO AUDIENCE cheers)
SOOK YIN-LEE: Okay, we've gotta close-up on the fans, right now, right?
PRODUCER: We gotta make noise!
(CROWD cheers, claps, whistles, throws devil signs, the finger etc)
SOOK YIN-LEE: So also, it's like a total performance experience?
JOEY: When we were getting together, we were like, 'I don't want to push the envelope anymore. We are going to be the envelope'.
SOOK YIN-LEE: Yeah, you are the envelope.
SOOK YIN-LEE: Yeah.
JOEY: There's not many bands like that
SOOK YIN-LEE: And total, total...um...total...a thing that happens on stage where everybody just goes ballistic.
SHAWN: It's a...it's a very magical experience you know, of the nine of us coming together. It can't be duplicated. Copied poorly at that, and it's either positive or negative energy. It's just up to everybody to decide which.
SOOK YIN-LEE: And the masks? How do the masks come into the whole situation?
JOEY: When it came time to play shows...which was...I mean we had already like recorded like an album worth of demos, and the music had meant so much to us up to that point that all the ridiculing and finger pointing, and like disregarding of the music that we had done before in the place that we come from in Des Moines. Basically, we wanted to shield all the rock and roll clichés, and the bad influence that can come in and ruin bands, you know, like the pants hanging off the ass, which is fine, and all the Adidas endorsements and the PUMA stuff, that has nothing to do with why you start playing music in the first place.
SOOK YIN-LEE: Right...
JOEY (CONT): People start modelling Calvin Klein's jeans as they lose touch with who they are...
SOOK YIN-LEE: Yeah, you were saying that...so what happens, is that like the state of rock and roll right now...
JOEY: Yeah, it is...
SOOK YIN-LEE (CONT): Like bands can get sucked into like advertising?
JOEY: Yeah, absolutely.
SHAWN: It's a scary thing, and you have to look at it the right way, and the right way is that there is nothing wrong with being part of stuff that you actually believe in. But being coached into something that you are just doing it for money, and you know you're put on a billboard wearing something that you would never wear your whole life, and in the beginning of your career when you're hungriest, you would like look at that and go 'there's no way I would ever do that' and then all of a sudden, you know, it's these people that put you in power, and then you're like, 'You know what, now that I'm in power, I just want it all, so you know, I'll put those jeans on, and I'll do something that normally I wouldn't do, but you know, I'm gettin' paid', and that's the downfall of the art, and we don't...
JOEY: Yeah, we don't want...
SOOK YIN-LEE: So like if somebody said 'Hey, I'll give you a million bucks to put these uncomfortable jeans on', would you do it?
JOEY: No.
SOOK YIN-LEE: You wouldn't do it?
JOEY: Never.
SHAWN: Absolutely not. I um, you know, every one of these guys and girls you know, sometimes they have their favorite members, and you know like, when I'm up on stage, I'll have people that'll stand in front of the clown, and they'll mimic...I used to think it was just like mimicking things that I do, but I realized that the reason why they're in front of me is cuz they have a little clown in them, and I'll see the pain, I'll see them releasing the pain, and that's worth more to me because who cares about the rest of it, when I'm old and grey and I'm looking back on my life and realizing that I got to live out my dream, I'm going to see the other people that we shared, you know, cuz you can be black, you can be white, you can be Chinese, you can be an alien, it doesn't matter, you can..
SOOK YIN-LEE: You can be a bunny rabbit...
SHAWN: You can be anything you want, but when..,when people come to a Slipknot show, it's all about the music, and it, you know, you find out first hand that music is the universal language, cuz we've been all around the world now, and everybody just expressed themselves and it's the best thing in the world.
SOOK YIN-LEE: Do you find that like there's a sort of anonymous aspect of having a mask on, or is it that you can be more of yourself, like unedited?
JOEY: We don't have identity crisis, you know? We don't want to have, you know, we don't want...we have nothing in common with bands that have identity crisis. Basically like shielding ourselves, and making sure all that bad influence is completely removed. The music will only get heavier, it will only get sicker, get more nihilistic and apocalyptic with each album we do.
SOOK YIN-LEE: Is it really crusty inside your masks?
SHAWN: Uh huh. It's uh...you know, and about the masks you know, I'll kick your ass with or without a mask. I don't care. I don't hide behind nothin'. You know...
JOEY: If like these kids recognize who we are without 'em, it's not like we're trying to run away and pretend we're not who we are. I know who I am.
SHAWN: Just on stage, together, we serve the purpose of killing the rock and roll cliché, we...
SOOK YIN-LEE: 'Kill the rock and roll cliché'...
SHAWN: Absolutely. To Death.
SOOK YIN-LEE: Cuz it's boring, it's overused...needs new life...
SHAWN: It's why the last ten years, music has had no soul. You know, we're trying to bring back the soul of things to where when...you know...I always tell Joey, you know, I was a fat ugly kid, who had to work two weeks to buy his ticket to who I thought were Gods...you know, the bands that I grew up on. And I got the nose bleed seats, and I never got to touch the band. I never got to talk to the band, but yet, my room was filled with their posters, filled their albums, I knew every lyrical aspect of it. I knew how to play the drums to it, and we're trying to get back you know, and now we have like a whole slogan of like we like to go give backstage passes to the kids, who would normally never have an opportunity you know, to have anything to do with it. And we spend hours outside our bus before the show, after the show just talking you know, because people are so creative and like...
SOOK YIN-LEE: With your masks on or without your masks on?
JOEY: Without
SHAWN: Without...when we take pictures we'll put, you know, we'll hide our faces because you know if we're getting all these people to understand what we're about, they shouldn't need a picture of my face...
SOOK YIN-LEE: Right
SHAWN (CONT): You know, they should just, you know, I say I'm going to cover my face, and that way when they take it home they tell their friend, "Hey look, I took a picture with the Clown, and and Joey, and people are like "that isn't them", they should go, "Well, whatever, that doesn't matter"
JOEY (tapping his head): No matter what, the best photo album is right here.
SHAWN: Yep, absolutely.
JOEY: You don't need materialistic things to like show off, it's not about name dropping, it's about memory.
SOOK YIN-LEE: Well, I have the luxury of taking off my mask, or going like this, "Hey..hi...". So, um, on Surfacing, you've got this kind of like really, anthemic chorus that says..and I have to substitute...
JOEY: I'll go ahead and say it
SOOK YIN-LEE (a little insistently): I'll have to substitute the word cuz this is family viewing, but I'll substitute the word 'freak' for the other word, that everybody all knows, but it says, 'freak it all, freak this world, freak everything that you stand for. Don't belong. Don't exist. Don't give a shhhh...crap'...(audience laughs)...'Don't ever judge me'. Why is it...why do you need to break it all down? Why do you have to break...like, what's the purpose?
JOEY: Why don't you break it all down?
SOOK YIN-LEE: Yeah...
JOEY (CONT): Say it the way it is. Why hide behind it? It's like trying to make things seem like what their not, when like if you touch into that, if you tap into that realm, and you're completely honest with yourself, and you're completely honest with the people that you're playing for (pause) all the pain and all the suffering you have within the soul like disappears (makes a sweeping motion) and you liberate yourself, and you become one with being an individual and you then do not...
SOOK YIN-LEE: You have to do that...
JOEY: Do not care...
SHAWN: That's why I do (hits his forehead) that kind of stuff all the time
(JOEY smacks him in the head)
SHAWN: Come on, come on, hit me....cone on, one more time
(JOEY straight up, closed fist, punches him in the face)
SHAWN: Yeah, that's...we love that, see
SOOK YIN-LEE: Does it feel good? How...why...
JOEY (a little worked up): You don't even feel it. I mean, I challenge any band to try and play a song like Surfacing. I challenge any band to go up and play what we do live. (Pause) Any band.
SHAWN: We're in it. We're in it. We are actually in it, and you don't understand, every decision whether it's how I walk into the venue, what I eat today, where I'm going to take a shower, what songs we're going to play...everything we're concerned about, you know, because we're not going to make any decisions that are going to hurt the art, or hurt our people...
SOOK YIN-LEE: Right
JOEY: Because, like the first...
SHAWN: We're tired of it...
SOOK YIN-LEE: So you like to bash your head like that, and to like go ballistic?
JOEY: That's nothing...
SOOK YIN-LEE: What's the purpose of it? Is it just like to wipe the slate clean?
JOEY: It's not really any sort of purpose, it's just being caught up in the moment. What I mean, like he says, or I said in interviews before, or whenever, we make peace with ourselves before we go out and play for these kids and like literally kill ourselves on stage. I mean, I'm dying right now.
SOOK YIN-LEE: Like, how far will it go though, like in terms of like, would you die for your art?
JOEY: Yeah
(SHAWN chuckles)
SOOK YIN-LEE: Wow. So like how do you create...like you create a really intense situation, do you evet feel like you got to create like an even bigger intense situation, like once you've sort of made one thing...
SHAWN: It comes naturally...
SOOK YIN-LEE:...Do you have to feel like you got to take it up to the next level?
SHAWN: Yeah, we evolve naturally. You know, and that's the beautiful thing, we have always said that um, the day that we, as members of Slipknot, the movement...um...the day that there's nothing to do and we have no interest, that's the day we quit. And the quote always goes that we're like three years behind. Our ideas can't come out fast. I mean we're constantly doing it...
JOEY: We've barely even touched on what we can do.
SOOK YIN-LEE: Yeah well, the thing is, um, the music is really innovative too...
JOEY: Thank you
SOOK YIN-LEE: Besides like Black Sabbath, and the people that everybody mentions, you also mentioned influences like George Carlin...comedian, George Carlin...Lenny Bruce...um, uh, The Melvins...incredible innovative creators, do you find that the form of heavy music has to go somewhere else?
JOEY: Well, why would it want to keep repeating? So I mean you don't want to let it get stale, and you don't want it to get too repetitive. The fact is, there's always going to be people coming up with something new. It's up to the fans to decide whether it's worth anything.
SOOK YIN-LEE: Right. And uh finally, what would be a really big message that you want to impart to your fans?
JOEY: Um, the fact that they go out and they wear the attitude on their sleeve, which we represent is the most humbling, and like liberating thing we could ever have. I love every one of them so much. I mean, I'll do anything for them anytime.
SOOK YIN-LEE: Okay well, you take care of yourselves, okay
(CROWD WHISTLES AND CLAPS)
SOOK YIN-LEE: Got to keep playing music...all right, so um, you're playing tonight at The Warehouse in Toronto, and tomorrow night in Montreal, and um...
SHAWN: Are you going to the show?
SOOK YIN-LEE: If you put me on the guest list, can I get on the guest list?
SHAWN: You have to be there...
SOOK YIN-LEE: Okay...
SHAWN: You can't do an interview, and not come to the show.
SOOK YIN-LEE: I know, well I've seen the footage...
SHAWN: So you're going break...
SHAWN: We're going to make you break the mould okay, because it was your job to interview us, tonight we're going to put you on the list, we're going to bring you in. You're going to see the band first-hand, and then tomorrow, or whenever when you think you have to do all these other things for this company...
SOOK YIN-LEE: Yeah.
SHAWN (CONT): You will from your heart, say something about the 'Knot, because you will realize...
SOOK YIN-LEE: Cos I will have seen it...
SHAWN (CONT): You will realize that truth is the most important thing in this world, and you will understand.
SOOK YIN-LEE: Right on. Okay. Well I'll be there, and I'll be seeing the spectacle for sure. Okay, Slipknot, thank you so much for coming in.
SHAWN: Thank you
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE FROM THE CROWD)
Notes
"Are there strip malls there?": See interview with Corey Taylor re walking fives miles and back to buy a record.
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