Slipknot

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SLIPKNOT

Formed: 1995, Des Moines, Iowa

Members: Paul Grey, bass (born Los Angeles, California, 2 October 1974); Craig Jones, keyboards (born Des Moines, Iowa, 5 July 1972); Corey Taylor, vocals (born Des Moines, Iowa, 8 December 1976); Joey Jordison, drums (born Des Moines, Iowa, 26 April 1977); Sid Wilson, turntables (born Des Moines, Iowa, 3 March 1978); Chris Fehn, percussions (born Des Moines, Iowa, 24 February 1973); Shawn Crahan, percussions (born Des Moines, Iowa, 24 September 1971); Mick Thompson, guitar (born Des Moines, Iowa, 3 November 1976); Jim Root, guitar (born Des Moines, Iowa, 2 October 1974).

Genre: Rock

Best-selling album since 1990: Slipknot (1999)

Hit songs since 1990: "Liberate," "Spit It Out"

Intense, loud, and visceral, Slipknot burst onto the nu-metal scene with a hard-edged fusion that used the vernacular of Staind, Incubus, Nickelback, and Limp Bizkit. But beyond the howling vocals, floor-rumbling bass, and machine-gun drums, the band's chief calling card was their disturbing look, consisting of ghoulish masks, makeup, and generic overalls. No one used names onstage—their outfits bore only the numbers one through nine. It was macabre, but it had the desired effect: young boys were thrilled, and parents were appropriately shocked and stupefied.

Slipknot came together when the founding members, percussionist Shawn Calvins and Joey Jordison, assembled the initial roster of musicians to play local gigs. After a few minor changes the lineup settled with nine members, an unusually high number for a rock band. "Everybody freaks out that there are nine guys in the band," Jordison told the Los Angeles Times. "I didn't want nine guys in the band; that's too many ******** people! But that's what it took to get the sound we want."

Initially, people scoffed at the idea that a metal band would launch in Des Moines, Iowa. But that very dismissiveness ignited the band's imagination and prompted the device of nameless stage visuals. But it was the band's intense firepower on their debut Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. (1996) that turned most adolescents' heads. Released on Halloween of 1996, the eight-song, fifty-minute CD demonstrated the budding group's penchant for distorted sound, extreme guitars, and complex song structures. The group's sonic signature came together on Slipknot (1999) as they spiced their sound with edgy turntable scratches and Korn's metallic burns. Slipknot's musical palette nonetheless leaned heavily towards death metal. Lyrically, songs like "Wait and Bleed," "Tattered and Torn," "Liberate," and "No Life" reflected metal's anger and rage—not that most of the songs' lyrics, recorded or performed live, were discernible.

Slipknot's metal fusion and comiclike outfits swiftly became popular. Their follow-up album, Iowa (2001), debuted at number one on the Billboard charts, which was ironic considering their antisocial look and angry lyrics. With the help of their producer, Ross Robinson, Slipknot cranked the thrash and death factor a notch higher on the album. On songs like "People = S***" and "New Abortion," guitars and drums are played at an industrial pace. All throughout the band convincingly evinces their darkness and mayhem credentials. Like other late-1990s numetalers, Slipknot's public visibility benefited from key spots on the Ozzfest tours. In their live shows Slipknot worked hard to make themselves the most aggressive, violent, and unrelentlessly brutal of the bunch. In lyrics like "I wanna slit your throat and f*** the wound," from "Disasterpiece," Slipknot provided an outlet for the expression of the contents of raging adolescent ids.

Harder than Korn or Nine Inch Nails and weirder than Marilyn Manson, Slipknot used excess in their music and message to provide a compelling experience for fans in the expanding nu-metal market of the late 1990s.