SLIPKNOT

New album? New masks? New sound? As usual, that's for them to know and you to find out

By Dan Epstein
Photo by Clay Patrick McBride

On a cold and windswept afternoon in early May, Joey Jordison is having difficulty waking up. Last night was another in a series of late ones for the Slipknot drummer, who for the past 10 weeks has been commuting 30 miles nearly every day from his comfortable home in the western outskirts of Des Moines, Iowa, to Sound Farm Studios, a high-end recording complex improbably situated in the tiny Hawkeye State hamlet of Jamaica. “I’m usually the last to leave the studio,” he says, rubbing his tired eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever worked this fucking hard in my life, dude.”

After nearly three years in suspended animation, the nine-headed beast known as Slipknot is beginning to stir. Since February, all nine members of the ’Knot have been working diligently at Sound Farm with producer Dave Fortman (Superjoint Ritual, Mudvayne, Evanescence) on their fourth studio album for Roadrunner Records. The record, as yet untitled, is tentatively due for a September release, but the band is under the gun to have everything finished by early July, when they’ll hit the road for their first live performances since 2005, co-headlining the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival main stage with hard-rocking compatriots Disturbed, and DragonForce and Mastodon in support.

Recording deadlines can be a tricky thing, especially when you’re dealing with, as Jordison diplomatically puts it, “Nine creative people with nine different personalities.” In the past, when woken from one of its long hibernations, the Slipknot behemoth has been slow to move and quick to get angry—qualities not generally conducive to getting an album “in the can” by a certain date. But the ’08 model of Slipknot seems to be working with a surprising (even to the band members themselves) amount of efficiency, industry, and—dare we say it?—harmony.

“Usually, it’s like with [2001’s] Iowa: ‘OK, 12 songs, we hate each other, we’re done,’” says Jordison of the typical Slipknot recording experience. “With [2004’s] Vol. 3, we didn’t talk to each other for three months; we just sat there wasting money in the fucking Houdini mansion. This one, we got to work right away; we’ve all been on time every day and we’ve written over 30 songs. I have to say that the band is at its peak; everyone—I mean everyone—is now completely involved in the writing process, and it’s a beautiful thing. Everybody’s bringing stuff to the table that hasn’t been there before.”

Since the release of 1999’s self-titled Roadrunner debut (generally considered the band’s first “real” album, since 1996’s self-released Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat. was recorded with a vastly different lineup), Slipknot have sold over five million records in the U.S. alone—and generated nearly as many rumors in the process. While many of these idle chat-forum conjectures typically revolve around the masked band’s mysterious personae, its use of arcane and controversial symbols (such as the goat’s head on the cover of Iowa or the band’s nine-pointed “pentagram” logo), and singer Corey Taylor’s scabrous lyrics, the sheer number of extracurricular activities by various ’Knot members continues to serve as fertile fodder for endless “Slipknot are breaking up” gossip.

Sampler-keyboardist Craig Jones, percussionist Chris Fehn, and guitarist Mick Thomson have all kept relatively low profiles since the ’Knot last appeared on stage, but the other six have been busier than ever. Between late 2005 and the present, Jordison has toured the world with Ministry and Korn, and produced Fire Up the Blades for Canadian power-metallers 3 Inches of Blood. Bassist Paul Gray has toured and recorded with Kansas City indie rockers Reggie and the Full Effect; DJ-keyboardist Sid Wilson has carved a niche for himself in the electronic/dance-music world under the moniker DJ Starscream; and percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan has occupied himself playing drums with two psychedelically tinged bands, To My Surprise and Dirty Little Rabbits, as well as directing Slipknot’s art-damaged 2006 DVD release, Voliminal: Inside the Nine. (Full disclosure: This writer served as the interviewer on Voliminal’s bonus disc.)

But the most visible ’Knot members during the band’s recent hiatus have been Taylor and guitarist Jim Root, whose melodic-rock band Stone Sour released their second album, Come What(ever) May, in August 2006. The record’s impressive success—it sold over 500,000 copies in the U.S. and went all the way to No. 4 on the Billboard album charts—firmly established the band as far more than just a Slipknot side project, and caused many to wonder if Root and Taylor would be fully committed to future ’Knot endeavors. Jordison admits to Revolver that he had some concerns about that, but also says that, in retrospect, he needn’t have worried.

“Jim blows me away right now,” says the drummer. “He just got back from this successful Stone Sour tour, and I figured he’d be the one that’s like, ‘OK, I’ll play the parts that other people wrote, whatever.’ But this was the first time on a record that I’ve ever written with Jim; I went over to his house and we wrote two of the fucking most insane, fast, technical, driving songs. It was so fucking satisfying!

“Wait till you hear Jim and Mick step it up on this record,” Jordison continues. “They’re really comin’ out, and people are gonna be blown away. And Corey Taylor, man…Corey Taylor is the best fucking singer in the world. Hands fucking down. When you hear his vocals on this record, it’ll literally make you want to throw your fist through a window, or make you wanna fucking cry.”

Always something of a musical adventurer, Taylor has kept a fairly full dance card over the past three years. In addition to recording and touring with Stone Sour, he’s been involved with so many outside projects that it’s been difficult to keep accurate score. Those are Taylor’s vocals on “I’m Not Jesus,” the breakthrough hit by Finnish metal cellists Apocalyptica; he also contributed a spoken-word piece to “Repentance,” a track on Dream Theater’s 2007 album, Systematic Chaos; he produced (and sang backing vocals on) the Redemption EP for Michigan metalcore band Walls of Jericho; and he was even slated to handle the lead vocals for the next Anthrax album before Roadrunner nixed the idea, worrying that his involvement with Anthrax would delay the recording of a new Slipknot album by six months or more. Clearly, nothing makes Taylor happier than being involved with music 24/7; when Revolver arrives at Taylor’s cluttered West Des Moines abode, he’s camped out at his kitchen table with a black Les Paul, figuring out songs by Led Zeppelin, Dio, and Stiff Little Fingers for an upcoming performance with Dum Fux, his local cover band.

“Well, you know me, dude, I’m a whore,” he laughs. “I love to create, I love to write; I love trying different shit. I’ve got all these gigs that I’m being offered now, like production shit, some songwriting things, voice-over shit; I’m working on a radio show that I might have for Sirius, called ‘WAYFN’—which is an anagram for ‘What Are You, Fuckin’ Nuts?’”

But any worries that Taylor may have stretched himself too thin (or, as some fans have ludicrously suggested, “ruined” his vocal cords by singing more melodic material) will be summarily obliterated by one listen to “Gematria,” the epic seven-minute track that may or may not open the new Slipknot record. (“We’re still figuring out the sequencing, but it will probably be the first or second cut,” says Taylor.) The song begins with a martial barrage of drums and just builds in speed and intensity from there, with Taylor’s scorching vocals leading the way. “America—what if God doesn’t care?” he taunts, railing against the religious-imperialist mindset of the Bush administration and its supporters, who blithely justify the wanton destruction of entire countries (“We will burn your cities down!”) and the theft of their natural resources by continuously telling us that God is on our side.

“Yeah, I’m gonna piss a lot of people off with ‘Gematria,’” Taylor chuckles. “It’s the song that will get me arrested; put it that way. There’s enough nuggets of lethal anarchy and antiestablishment [in there] that people are gonna come for me. I’m saying some fuckin’ serious things on this album, and it’s not gonna win me any friends. But you know, I’m 34 now; I’ve done a lot of work, I’ve done a lot of time, and I think I’ve earned the right to be fuckin’ blunt with my audience.”

As incendiary as Taylor’s “Gematria” lyrics may be, it’s especially exciting to hear the degree of renewed commitment evident in his voice. This isn’t the soulful, melancholic, John Lennon–esque singer from Stone Sour, but rather a one-man font of volcanic rage that sounds ready to go to the mat with all comers. “That song is me rediscovering my Slipknot passion,” he says. “It was me rediscovering my need to be heard—not just about the shit from the past but about everything.” Listening to the demonic flames he belches forth on pummeling new tracks like “Vendetta,” “Sulphur,” “Gehenna,” and “Psycho Social,” it’s obvious that Taylor’s personal reserve of bile and torment is still as bountiful as ever.

“I haven’t been this excited since the first album,” he admits. “I just want to rip the fucking world’s face off right now and see what it looks like underneath.”

Revolver arrives at Sound Farm to find the main studio building humming like a beehive. Jones, silent and self-contained as ever, is locked away in an upstairs room creating new samples; downstairs, Crahan is busily typing away on a computer, while the band’s onsite crew is cooking up a feast of grilled pork chops, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and corn on the cob. “This is why I’ve probably gained 10 pounds since we started working here,” laughs Root, as he digs into the main course. Upon finishing his repast, the affable guitarist heads to the control room, where he joins Gray and Fortman to work on “Dead Memories,” a track whose soaring chorus rivals Vol. 3’s “Duality” for sheer anthemic brilliance. Gray, who’s apparently written the bulk of the song’s music, wants Root to add a guitar filigree to a passage before the final chorus, though he’s not entirely sure what exactly he wants Root to play. The bassist and guitarist trade ideas for over an hour, while Fortman looks on patiently.

“You can’t rush genius,” the producer laughs, as Gray and Root finally head to the isolation booth to mess around with some amp settings. “If it was anyone else telling Jim what to play, I would have shut this down awhile ago. But this one is kind of Paul’s baby, and it’s the first time they’ve ever come up with a song with one of those classic four-chord choruses. That’s what it takes, man—someone to write things that you can grab on to. The history of music is built on simple things that people can understand, stuff that’s straight, easy to remember, and then will bash you in the face. And these dudes are just incredible at doing that.”

As Gray and Root try out several different guitar pedals, Crahan suddenly appears at Revolver’s side and motions for us to come with him. Crahan, in his inimitable fashion, has refused to be interviewed about the new album (“It’s not time yet for the Clown to talk,” is all he’ll say into our tape recorder), but there’s still something he wants us to know about. After leading the way along the muddy path from the main studio building to the home of Sound Farm proprietor Matt Sepanic, Crahan sits us down in front of a ProTools rig and proceeds to play us a number of jaw-dropping tracks. Some, like “Dirge” and the tentatively titled “Moth,” are beautifully rendered, deeply disturbing works that fall somewhere in the cosmic canon between Radiohead, early-’70s Pink Floyd, and The Silence of the Lambs; others, like “Chapter One, The Eleventh March,” are more fragmentary but equally creepy—basically, it’s the stuff of cough syrup nightmares.

As it turns out, the entire time the band has been recording brutal, state-of-the-art Slipknot music in the main studio with Fortman, a satellite group—comprising Taylor, Root, Wilson on keyboards, and Crahan on full drum kit—has been working with Sepanic to create these arty, more oblique pieces. One sonic experiment even involved sticking Taylor halfway down an old well on the Sound Farm property. (“There was this gnarly fucking natural reverb to it that was just intense,” Taylor enthuses.) “I’ve been in here almost every day,” says Root of Sepanic’s home studio. “I’ve always wanted to make music like this.”

Will any of these tracks end up on the new album, or will they become something else entirely? So far, no one seems to know for sure. “Some of that stuff, I’m not necessarily sure it’s Slipknot,” says Taylor, “But from my point of view, I hear at least four songs that would definitely fit right in.” Jordison, who hasn’t been involved with this side project, seems mildly annoyed when the subject is broached. “It remains to be seen if any of it actually turns up on the record,” he declares. “To say that we’re moving in an artier direction is a definite misconception. There’s always gonna be that arty element in Slipknot, but that’s not the way for our fans to look at [the new album] before it comes out.”

Indeed, there’s already enough confusion among Slipknot fans about where the band is at right now—some of it intentionally stoked by the band itself. This April Fool’s Day, Slipknot added new band photos to their official MySpace page, in which their usual masks were replaced by giant papier-mâché heads; fan reaction was instantaneous and intense, with arguments breaking out like Internet wildfires over whether or not this was the band’s “new look.” (“How are they gonna headbang with those things on?” was a common refrain.)

“That was a Shawn Crahan idea,” laughs Jordison. “Those are Mardi Gras heads of our faces from the death masks we wore in the ‘Vermillion’ video. It’s just a teaser, but it’s totally genius. When I first heard about it, I was like, ‘Are you fuckin’ kidding me?’ But then I saw the results, and I was like, ‘I totally get it!’ He’s got a good vision, man; he’s a great artist.”

And so it goes with Slipknot. Speculate all you want about their new masks, their new songs, and their new album, but all will ultimately be revealed (or not) when they’re damn good and ready—and nothing is ever completely set in stone until it finally hits the retail shelves. All that’s certain right now is that the ’Knot are currently sounding better, more focused, and more lethal than ever before, which will no doubt please their fans and further infuriate their detractors. “Hell-oooo, we’re fucking back,” Taylor grins. “And there’s nothing you can fucking do about it.”