Slipknot's craziest member? Meet Sid Wilson (Unmasked & Unhinged)

Get On The Bus

c.April 2026

SLIPKNOT

SID: So everyone else, I think...we weren't all born in Des Moines, but we grew up there. Paul went there as an adolescent. Um, but he was, you know, he went there when he...I think he was already in his teens, or close to it. So, he already had a good sense of who he was, and what kind of music he liked by the time he went to Iowa, and he had that LA influence. So, he already knew he was like 'the DJ is what's up'. We need a DJ. And he'd seen me scratching. So, he was just like 'this is amazing'. And then everyone, they started talking to and asking, like 'who...who do we get for a DJ?'. Everyone was like, 'Sid'.  

Q: Right

SID: 'Sid's the guy'. You know, so I don't know. I just...I..it just happened like that. You know what I mean? I went over there, and some of the guys, were like 'I don't know', cuz they were just like straight metal heads. But once I started jamming with them  

Q: Yeah...

SID: They were like 'Oh, wow, like he's different.' He's not just like a wick wick whack, you know, like. I was like really trying to mess with some sounds. I mean, I got to give a lot of credit...I got..,there's a guy here right now, off camera, Mix Master Mike. That dude, I was studying him like crazy, cuz he just had such a wild style. I would study him, and my man, DJ Lethal cuz he was doing stuff for Bizkit. These guys were both using guitar pedals with their DJ equipment. I was like, 'Oh, I got to get with that. I got to start hooking up guitar equipment to my stuff, and getting like real heavy metal rock shit, going on, you know. Mixed with the like...that changed my whole perspective on how to approach the turntables. 

Paul would tell me like, 'Oh man, you got to like check out...come check out my band sometime' you know? But not really kind of like almost sheepishly telling me, you know, like not being really vocal about it. So, I was always like 'Oh yeah, yeah, cool. I'm going to go stand next to the speaker for a while'. 

Everyone left, and my homies there, Frank, and he's like 'Did you go check out Paul's band yet?'. And I'm like 'What is going on? Everyone talkin' about this all the time?'. Like what? And he's like 'Dude, he wants you to come and scratch'. And I was like, 'Ohhh...like that? I didn't know he meant come and jam with him. He didn't say  'Come jam'. He said 'Come check out my band.' So, like I didn't know like, oh that meant bring your stuff and whatever. So. I'm like 'Word.' Like, all he had to do was say that, you know? He's like, 'Well, you should go talk to him.' 

So, I went to a practice and then I went and watched him play live, and like that was it. I was like, oh, I can...I was a punk rocker, you know, but mixed with hip hop and this other influence. England had a big ska movement. So, like there was this inspiration there that was like, 'Oh, I can fuck with this. You know what I mean? I can bring an element to this, that will help just shoot it through the roof. Cuz they're like, you know, we wear masks. We're crazy'. I'm like 'Yo...in my mind, you guys don't even know I'm the craziest mutherfucker in your band, you know. And I'm not even here yet.'      

INTRODUCTION

SID: Sid.DJ Starscream. Number zero from the world famous Slipknot. 

"EYELESS"

SID: Like with Eyeless, I was just like messing around with some jungle, I was just like (makes scratching sounds), and let it drop, and Mick was like (guitar sounds), and starin' at me like...you know and Joey was like (makes drumming sounds), and the way you hear on the album is pretty much exactly what happened the first time at practice with it. And we all looked at each other and where like, 'Whoa, that's tight'. You know.
But now we're older, its like, you know everyone's got families now. Everyone used to be like solo dolo, right? But now it's like, even I got a kid. So it used to be seven days a week practice, you know what I mean? Nothing but that. We ate, drank, slept...everything, Slipknot. Didn't matter. Everything else was secondary.
Um, now the schedules are different, so we send a lot of ideas to each other. On tour we have a room with a set up...pro tools set up in there, we get ideas down when we're on the road. That stuff continues. People add stuff to it whatever, and we try and get as many ideas together as possible. So we have enough demos that are ready for the studio to do an album, and we're like, 'Okay, now lets go to the studio.' Okay, we got a nice chunk of stuff to work with, and it's even more important now too, cuz we finished our contract, so now we're like a free agent right? So now we go to the studio, and it's not like, 'Call the label and be like 'Hey, we need you to float the bill for us'. It's like, we float the bill for that now. SO now, our..,our way of looking at it is like um...before we can come in a little more chaotic, now it's like 'Okay, lets get a little bit organized at least, before we decided to just jump in and throw down some loot on a big badass studio, right?"

   

JOEY (1975-2021)

SID: I mean...he wasn't in the band anymore at that time, you know, he had...

Q: Were you guys friends? 

SID: Yeah. I was still friends with Joey. I always maintained friendship with Joey, man. I love that guy. 

Q: Yeah

SID: Um. Yeah, you know, people just choose different lifestyles sometimes, you know. Sometimes that lifestyle is more important than hanging out with your buds. So, um, it sucks. Um, did it stop us from hanging out? No. Um...yeah...there's nothing easy about it, dude. There's...life's tough man, and you've either got nerves of steel...or you don't. You know. And sometimes even the guys that have got nerves of steel, that shit gets beat down after a while. I mean, you know, it's just...I mean, no one can understand it. You can't understand anything about anybody. You're not inside anyone else's skin, you know what I mean? You know, if we could get a skin ticket (that's a Slipknot song), to anybody's life, then maybe we would understand, but like...it's not for me to understand, or try to figure it out, or whatever. I just...I just have to accept it, and know that he was my buddy. I'll say this, Joey's the best that ever did it. Hands down. The greatest drummers would come to our shows to watch this guy play. Stewart Copeland came and saw us play, and said 'He is the one.' And he was. He was. That dude could hear anybody's music once, and could play it.
Lars didn't make it to a show once. We were playing with Metallica. Joey got up there and played the set for him. He could hear anyone's music once, and know how to play it without playing it. He was like that. He was amazing. The Super Bowl. And he was such a little dude. All that power. Like...it's because he was so little, he was like 'I'm going to fuckin' show you, man. Don't...don't think I ain't got it. Don't think I'm just some little dude, cos I'll fuckin' tear your face off'. He was like that. He had something to prove, man. Um. Yeah, he was the best. And then...I'll say Eloy is a fresh breath of air for us. It hasn't felt like the beginning until he came along. And I'll leave it at that.

(FADE TO BLACK/NO TITLE SCREEN)

SID: I put that mask on, it's a character, right? And each...each one of those masks has a different character, it's like saying it's a clone back there (indicates picture behind him). You know what I mean? So there is always different versions. Are all of them a piece of me? Yes, some are of course. I'm the dude up there doing it. Um. Can I turn the switch, and do any of those characters done on stage? Of course. But uh, I'm an entertainer. I want people to have a good time. There's uh...when people come to a show, they've come to escape their every day life. They want to...their there for therapy, they are there to let go, their there to...their somewhere else man, their not on earth when they are there. You know? And when that's happening, I want to...I...create this character, persona, to keep them there. So it's me, in control, I'm controlling that thing from inside, like a robot (makes robotic sounds) so it is me, but what people are seeing is to keep them in that zone of therapy. Like, I don't want to break character, I don't want to break that illusion. So, they need to stay in that illusion for the whole time they are at the show. I did...I broke my feet on stage. I finished the show on my feet. I finished those forty-five minutes, man. I...I finished the tour in a wheelchair.  

Q: How did you do that?

SID: The show...I came back round and finished the set, because I don't want them to go 'Where'd Sid go?', 'What happened to Sid?', 'Where is he?'. You know, I could have gone to the hospital, but I mean, was it going to make a difference if I went right then, or forty-five minutes? Probably not. You know...can I, can I cut through the pain, just for that amount of time, so that these people can have that experience? Therapy is important man, there's a lot of people out there that need it. And, and I want to make sure that they get it.  

MTV MASH UP

SID: So it's like...you weren't getting it on radio, it was TV, so um there was just this Mash UP of TV, media, cable, satellite and no way to access. The kids there, the creatives there, the people that were interested in music, they had to really make something for themself. There wasn't like...you know, you had to create your own style. You couldn't go to the store and buy the shit you saw someone wearing on TV, so you go to Goodwill, and other places, and you'd slap that shit together and make your own rockstar outfit. You know what I mean? So, you had to...just...create it out of nothing for who you were, so when you saw someone in Des Moines with some style, or something different, you knew they were for real. They didn't just go buy that shit in the store.  

NO SHITTING ON THE BUS

SID: Poopin' on the bus? 

Q: Poopin' on the bus.

SID: Who told you that? 

Q says something about "dump on the bus"

SID: Who did you talk to? Who did you talk to...in the like...last thirty six hours? 

Q says something about he can't reveal his sources.

SID: I know your fuckin' 'source' my man 

Q: A journalist never reveals his sources.

SID: I know your 'source'. Okay.... 

(Laughter from the interviewers)

SID: So...it's a rule everybody knows. You know this?

PEOPLE IN BACKGROUND: Absolutely...

SID: No shittin' on the bus

Q: Yeah.

SID: You don't do it. Why?

Q: Yeah, why?

SID: Because it smells, forever. You will not get the smell out of there. You have to pay people money to come and get that fixed. So, anyways, we're on tour, the first tour, the first bus, and our bus driver tells us the rules. You know, there are no rules, except for 'don't shit on the bus'. We're like, 'Okay'. I'm like, 'I'm not trying to test that'. You know what I mean, I'm not trying to be the guy that's like, 'Ah, everyone's gonna smell my poop'. You know like, so Corey thinks it's bullshit. He's like 'I'm callin' bullshit on that one'. It's a toilet. You know like...so he tries it. He takes a shit on the bus. We all...it was like instant...we were like, 'What the fuck? Who...what is that smell?', you know? And it doesn't smell like regular shit when you do it on a tour bus. There's something different that happens when it goes in there... 

Q: Water...

SID:...It's bad, dude. It's bad. Um, so, we're just like, 'Who shit on the...'...we know immediately. 'Someone shit on the bus, it's gotta be...' You know, you go in the toilet, you open the flap your like, 'Woaaaaahhhh', you can smell it comin' out of there. You're like 'Someone definitely shit on the bus'. Corey owns up to it. He doesn't even try and hide it. He's like, 'I did it. I thought it was bullshit'. We had to pay five hundred bucks, and this is back then '99, we had to pay someone five hundred bucks, to come and clean the toilet out. That was like our money for the food for like the whole fuckin' week or some shit. So we're all fuckin' pissed. We're like, 'Dude, we don't have any money.' Like we're all...the whole band's on the bus, the Tour Manager's on the bus, the roadies are on the bus with us, we're nine guys. Now the whole bus smells like shit.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE 

SID: Like growin' up, The Beastie Boys were my favorite hip-hop group of all time. And I always wanted to be like them, so any time they did something, I did it. And in their early years, they said some wild shit in their music, so I did some wild shit. If they said it, I was doin' it. You know, and then that shifted. And we were just talkin' about this the other day, Mike (turns to someone off screen), MCA was very conscious about what his influence was on people, and there was a period of his life were he changed that, and that made me want to change what I was influencing on people because I understood that better than most because I was doin' what they were doin' in their songs. And then there was a period when they changed it, and I was like 'Oh, wait...that old stuff's not cool?' I can't...I can't smoke dust, and act crazy? You know like (laughs), so it's like, 'Okay, I need to change'.