Artist Interview

Fresh off the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, Southern metal act Texas Hippie Coalition will release their new album, 'Ride On,' on October 7 via Carved Records—see the cover art and track list below. In anticipation, the band has teamed up with Revolver to premiere a new song and lyric video for "Monster in Me." Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments!

To pre-order 'Ride On,' visit iTunes, Amazon or the band's webstore. For more on Texas Hippie Coalition, visit the their website or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Tracklisting:
1) El Diablo Rojo
2) Splinter
3) Monster In Me
4) Go Pro
5) Rock Ain't Dead
6) Bottom Of The Bottle
7) Rubbins Racin
8) Ride On
9) Fire In The Hole
10) I Am The End

San Diego's Wovenwar—featuring current and former members of As I Lay Dying and Oh, Sleeper—recently visited with SiriusXM host Jose Mangin for an hour-long interview and "Takeover" special to discuss their new beginning, Tim Lambesis, owning a club, and more. Guitarist Phil Sgrosso called the conversation "probably the most interesting band interview we've done."

For those of you who missed it, or for fans who want to revisit their chat, we've posted highlights below. Check it out below and let us know what you think in the comments.

MANGIN The new album came out recently. How do you guys feel—it is a new beginning and new chapter for the band?
NICK HIPA I think, for us, having the album out has been one of the most gratifying feelings for us. The way that we spent the past year of our lives was putting every emotion, feeling and thought into the actual music of this band and this first record. So it is us sharing the things we didn't say, didn't talk about or know how to deal with, with everyone else in the world finally. So to me, it is amazing.

MANGIN Maybe some people don't know who you guys are. Does anyone want to briefly tell the story?
JORDAN MANCINO The four of us used to be in a band called As I Lay Dying. I guess a couple things happened and we decided to start a new band, more or less, sparing the details. Shane [Blay, vocals] came into the picture, shortly after we began writing, and that was really our main focus. Once he was in the picture, we started writing the whole record and actually came up with a band name and started putting things together from there. I guess it is a new book for all of us.

MANGIN Now this is a different sound because, for As I Lay Dying, you guys had the melody and you guys had the brutality. Fans listening to Wovenwar are going to find that it's more melodic. Is this a direction you wanted to go in before all the drama with your former singer? Is that something you thought about or did that cause things and you said "now we can do this"?
JOSH GILBERT I think we sort of got together and jammed before we got anyone on vocals. Once we did the first demo, "All Rise," with Shane, it sort of opened our minds to what we can do with the band and it was really liberating to be able to work with more dynamics when we were writing. That's the biggest difference in what the two bands are. It is that we are able to experiment with the dynamics and the loud and soft, as opposed to 100-percent balls out, 200 bpm for the entire song.
HIPA We didn't want to do As I Lay Dying No. 2. Once we decided to start the new band, we decided to preserve the legacy of the old band, out of respect for the fans and the past. So with Wovenwar it definitely made sense to expand the sound the way we write together. When Shane came into the picture, it increased our limits substantially.

MANGIN When I first heard the news, I was mad for you guys, I was pissed. These dudes fucking worked hard, it is not their fault. Then I went to take a dump and said, "This is for you, Tim!" I'm just kidding—but I'm glad that you guys have this new beginning and a chance to start over. Some dudes die, some dudes get arrested—shit happens. Was there any resentment and for how long? And are you guys passed that?
HIPA I think for all of us, there was a very wide array for emotions. There was anger, there was sadness, it was a very personal thing. More so than a band disbanding, it was something that affected people's lives on both on both ends that were a part of our lives for so long. Because of that, we were more concerned with things as they related to people that we're involved with. And we were frustrated, to a certain degree, that we spent so much of our lives working on a band that got to a certain point, but have it fall apart as immediately as it did. When you put it in perspective to people's lives that got scarred and ruined by it—I think it helped us deal with things a little but more appropriately. I don't think we went through a long phase of being resentful or hating anyone or being depressed and apathetic—we just kind of accepted the world that was created around us and started writing music. It is natural for us to be at home and to pick up our guitars and start writing music.

MANGIN It's therapeutic.
HIPA Totally. You just channel everything that is going on inside, through this vessel of music. I think that's one of the most beautiful things you can share with someone is that place and time, and have it exist there forever.

MANGIN Do you forgive Tim?
You know, it's a hard topic to talk about because there are so many unfinished things and things that haven't been said yet. And really for us this band is a new book—we're focusing on this, we're focusing on the future of this band and at this point leaving that stuff behind. Who knows that's going to happen in the future and what we will or will not have to deal with as far as it related to our past. Our focus now is Wovenwar and moving forward and focusing on the brotherhood that exists with this band, on the fans that we have, the industry we have, and being able to spend time with all the people that supported us.

MANGIN Yeah, because your fans stuck by you this whole time—especially when "All Rise" was debuted on SiriusXM. There was a lot of great reaction and feedback and I know the fans have your back because they love you dudes and your music. They know it's not you and I think you guys will have a great support system all around the world. Like a wise Indian once said, "All things shall pass." So right now it's this, and you guys don't have to take Viagra yet, so you have a lot of things working for you. But Shane, lyrically, what did you bring to the new album, were they yours, or was it a combo of these dudes writing short stories?
SHANE BLAY I wrote 70 percent of the lyrics, and Nick took over on some songs, but most of the lyrics just came from what I've gone through. "All Rise" was about how I was kind of like a vampire, just sucking the life out of me for a buck. Other songs are about picking yourself up after everything, because I just feel lucky to be here singing for these guys.

MANGIN I remember years ago I think I offended you guys when I asked you guys what music you listened to for the first time you did it. Years later, do you want to answer that question?
PHIL SGROSSO 'Game of Thrones' intro.

MANGIN Recently de-virginized. [Laughs]
MANCINO  The secret song on the Green Day 'Dookie' album.
GILBERT You were like 5 years old.

MANGIN It was his babysitter, dude! San Diego has some hot nannies!
BLAY I don't think there was music, but I did like doing it to Team Sleep.

MANGIN That was kind of recent, dude.
BLAY No, old Team Sleep, the demos!
HIPA I have to say the "Sound of Silence."
BLAY Simon and Garfunkel?
HIPA Not Simon and Garfunkel—that would have been tight. I'll let that be an artistic response, so either nothing or Simon and Garfunkel.

MANGIN Mine was Pantera—'Cowboys From Hell'... I didn't know you guys owned a club, is that true? Who owns the club?
GILBERT Jordan, Nick, and I recently purchased the Brick By Brick in San Diego.

MANGIN I've heard of that place and I've promoted shows there. Hasn't it been around for a little bit?
GILBERT 20 years, almost.

MANGIN When did you do this?
GILBERT We got ownership two months ago. We've been in the process for three-and-a-half months. It was just one of those things that happened. We know the previous owner and we thought it would be pretty cool to be a part of the music community in San Diego and help it grow, like it helped us grow. To preserve the history of such a legendary venue, we thought that was important for San Diego and the community in general.

During the takeover, the band picked tracks to play and here's what they chose:

Nick:
Black Breath – The Flame
Demon Hunter – Life War
Cannibal Corpse – Make Them Suffer
In Flames – Fear Is The Weakness

Shane:
Meshuggah – Rational Gaze
Dillinger Escape Plan – When Good Dogs Do Bad Things
Embodyment – Halo Of Winter
Oh, Sleeper – The Pitch

Jordan:
Testament – Down For Life
Dio – Stand Up And Shout
Volbeat – The Mirror and The Ripper
Killswitch Engage – The New Awakening

Phil:
At The Gates – Slaughter Of The Soul
Mastodon – March Of The Fire Ants
Motorhead  - Born To Raise Hell
Karnivool – Simple Boy

Josh:
Slayer  - Disciple
Mastodon – The Wolf Is Loose
Slipknot  - The Negative One
Deftones – Change (In The House Of Flies)

This Saturday, July 19, marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Marilyn Manson's debut album, 'Portrait of an American Family.' We're counting down to that date this week and celebrating the Antichrist Superstar's two decades of rock and shock. This story originally ran in Revolver's May 2003 issue and was written by Dan Epstein.

Revived by his appearance in 'Bowling for Columbine' and by a triumphant showing at the 2001 Ozzfest, Marilyn Manson makes his return from the valley of death with 'The Golden Age of Grotesque.'

It's late evening at Marilyn Manson's Hollywood abode, and the scene in his dimly-lit living room is disarmingly serene. Dressed from an earlier photo shoot in black slacks, white shirt, wide black tie, and German schoolboy cap, the master of the house slouches low on a soft couch, sipping languorously from a large tumbler of milky green liquid; in his lap, a small white cat named Lily purrs contentedly. Though the flickering candles and lifelike taxidermy specimens that fill the room would distract even the most blasé feline, Lily only has eyes for Manson—at least until he doffs his schoolboy cap and replaces it with a cartoonishly large pair of Mickey Mouse ears. "Lily doesn't like it when the mouse is bigger than her," Manson chuckles, as Lily squirms with obvious displeasure.

Gazing down from the mantelpiece upon this cozy domestic tableau is a vintage headshot of Mary Astor, a beautiful, raven-haired film actress who was enormously popular in the Twenties and Thirties. "This was her house," says Manson. "Her picture just kind of came with the place."

That Marilyn Manson should reside in Mary Astor's former digs is oddly poetic. Not only has Manson long been fascinated with the "Golden Age" of Hollywood, but Astor, like Manson, was also no stranger to controversy. Though it's all but forgotten today, the actress' lurid divorce trial was the celebrity scandal of 1936. Details of her affair with screenwriter George S. Kaufman greatly titillated the American public, and she was denounced and defamed by various politicians and other self-appointed arbiters of morality, people who should probably have been more concerned with solving the problems of the country than taking potshots at a popular entertainer. Sound familiar?

Ostracized to the point where her career was in jeopardy, Astor rehabilitated her image with standout performances in 1937's 'The Prisoner of Zenda' and 1941's 'The Maltese Falcon.' Again, the parallels are almost eerie; after continued harassment from pandering politicos and the Religious Right nearly destroyed Marilyn Manson's career, it took a film appearance—Manson's eloquent interview segment in Michael Moore's 'Bowling for Columbine'—to make the world view him in a more sympathetic light.

"If I had a dime for every person who's come up to me in the past couple months and said, 'I really liked you in that movie,' I could pay for all my lawsuits right now," Manson laughs. "I have to thank it, because it's been very responsible for changing the climate of everything, particularly the music industry, towards Marilyn Manson as a musical entity. People are not looking at me in the same way they did before, and it's not from some cheap, sellout bullshit of me saying, 'Hey, guys! It's all just an act! I don't really mean it...' It's not that at all. It's them realizing, 'This guy is an artist. He's saying and doing what he wants, and he's saying the same things we want to say.'"

If anything, 'The Golden Age of Grotesque'—which hits stores on April Fool's Day—should further capitalize on this new level of appreciation for all things Manson. For not only is 'Golden Age' Manson's best record to date, it's also his most accessible; sure, tracks like "Slut Garden," "(S)Ain't" and "Para-Noir" positively drip with the pungent aroma of sex and decadence so familiar to Manson fans, but they're also front-loaded with the sort of visceral, impossible-to-miss hooks that should make everyone from your grandma to your mullet-headed cousin want to punch the air in pure rock ecstasy. Listening to "mObScene"'s naked cheerleader chant of "Be Obscene! Be-Be Obscene, Baby!", the head-on glam rock/jump blues collision of "Dolldagga Buzz Buzz Ziggety-Zag," or the woozy cabaret dementia of the title cut, you just have to laugh—it's all so absurd, so gloriously over-the-top, so totally fucking entertaining. Which, according to Manson, is exactly the point.

"I'm not afraid to say I'm an entertainer," he says, speaking in a relaxed and thoughtful manner. "I think I've struggled with that over the years, because in some ways I thought that that meant I wasn't an artist. But making people entertained is the greatest art that there is, and I wanted to create a record that is the most accessible, commercial, easy-to-like album, without doing anything that I found compromising to my tastes. I have no doubt that this will reach a lot of people that my other records haven't. And that doesn't mean it's being better or worse than any of those records; it just means that I was lucky enough to benefit from a lot of possibly terrible experiences, and use them to make something I think the world needs."

"Possibly terrible experiences"? Well, let's just say that, since 1999, Manson has endured enough shit to make any self-respecting individual want to assume a new identity and high-tail it to Brazil. In addition to being wrongly blamed for inspiring the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado, there's also been various lawsuits, a very public breakup with actress Rose McGowan, and the disappointing sales of 2000's 'Holy Wood'—the latter of which led many to write off Manson for good.

Then came Ozzfest 2001. Performing alongside such radio-friendly acts as Linkin Park, Disturbed, and Papa Roach, Marilyn Manson stuck out like an erection in a convent. This wasn't a band that had come to play its 'TRL'-approved hits and maybe move a few more units; this was a band that was channeling years of built-up stress, frustration, and anger into one of the most incendiary live spectacles in recent memory. "People recognized the fact that Marilyn Manson as a band—and me as someone who was making a comeback from an almost career-destroying witch-hunt of Columbine—did not take any shit from anybody, and kicked the living Christ out of everyone on that tour," Manson proudly recalls.

"We showed everybody what it was about, and I felt great about that; that made me feel like, 'You know what? If people didn't understand what I did on 'Holy Wood,' it's okay; because I tried to make something that was dark and complicated, and it's not really important to me if everyone understood it.' That record was about exorcising demons for me; it was about survival, it was about not blowing my brains out, it was about not quitting and hiding in a closet. It was about being a survivor. It was something I had to do.

"Ozzfest gave me the courage and the confidence to go forward with something new. I knew that I had closed the door and finished what I was trying to say with [1996's] 'Anti-Christ Superstar,' [1998's] 'Mechanical Animals,' and 'Holy Wood.' So there was a bit of freedom there, a clean slate. But there was a catch—I had a best friend and longtime collaborator who wasn't feeling the same way."

The friend and collaborator he refers to is Twiggy Ramirez, Manson's bassist and running buddy since the band's early days. Ramirez left the Manson family in early 2002; Manson remains publicly vague about the specifics of Twiggy's departure, but it seems pretty clear that it amounted to the usual "artistic differences."

"It's very unfortunate that I couldn't keep my original band together the way it was," says Manson. "But at the same time, it's never been a band in that sense; it's always been about keeping people together with me that believe in what I want to do. And I didn't want anything that was going to be created to suffer from any sort of doubt, fear, lack of inspiration or lack of courage. So I moved forward, made a big change. It was like getting a blood transfusion for the band, and I think people will hear that on the record."

The band (which includes drummer Ginger Fish, keyboardist M.W. Gacy, and guitarist John 5) didn't need to look far for Twiggy's replacement. Tim Skold, formerly of industrial rockers KMFDM, was already slated to produce 'The Golden Age of Grotesque,' and he slipped easily into the bass slot. Working with Skold (who had previously collaborated with Manson on a cover of Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" for the 'Not Another Teen Movie' soundtrack), material for 'The Golden Age of Grotesque' came quickly and plentifully, beginning with the thunderous and self-explanatory "This Is the New Shit." But while the album's sound is totally contemporary, its essence is rooted in a variety of radical artistic movements from the late 19th of Weimar-era cabaret, Parisian burlesque, and American vaudeville; the flamboyant wit of Dandyism; the provocative imagery of Surrealism; and, most of all, the child-like absurdity of Dada.

"A lot of the album was inspired by the idea of Dada, which was the complete anti-art aesthetic of not conforming to what people expected," Manson explains. "It's very juvenile—sometimes that's what's bad about it, and sometimes that's what's good about it. But during the process of the record, we did things purely for our own amusement, and purely to fuck with people." For 'The Golden Age of Grotesque,' Manson's Dadaist approach included arming a blindfolded John 5 with unfamiliar, out-of-tune guitars to create the unhinged solo on "Para-Noir," and presenting a record company A&R man with the record's "new single," which turned out to be a thirty-minute, digitally-jumbled monologue.

Like a lot of artists from the turn of the last century, Manson has fallen under the spell of Absinthe, a particularly potent alcoholic beverage made with the mildly poisonous plant wormwood, which has been illegal in America for decades. "Everyone knows my history with decadence and all forms of drugs and alcohol, and every illegal practice that exists," he says, wryly. "But part of it was, I guess, embracing the spirit of some of the writers and painters I really admire. And part of it was just stumbling across an outside force that you don't need to rely on, but will sometimes make you see things in a way that you wouldn't have looked at before, because you were afraid to, or because you were too uptight or thinking too hard. So Absinthe was really just something that broke down that wall; it was about taking away the border between the stage and the audience, and not knowing which part of it was the show.

"I don't ever want people to think that I rely on drugs or alcohol, or any sort of depressant or stimulant to be inspired as an artist. I just find that sometimes it's a lubricant, to make the coitus not be interruptus," he laughs. "And just as much as I was in 10th grade, I'm the kid that likes to do the thing that they're not allowed to do; and so of course Absinthe is going to appeal to me. It's not to be cool, or be shocking; it's just a thrill. And that kind of ties in with the record; this record, to me, is kind of like shoplifting, or like fucking some dirty whore that you just met without a rubber. It's the exhilaration and fear of, 'Shit, I might have just ruined my whole life!' or 'I'm gonna be in jail!' or whatever it is, put into an artistic context."

But though the "Green Faerie" of Absinthe perches gaily upon Manson's shoulder, she's not the main woman in his life. That distinction belongs to gorgeous fetish model and burlesque performer Dita Von Teese, who Manson describes as "a really positive influence on me." The first time he saw Dita, he says, he was awestruck by her appearance. "I thought, 'She looks like she stepped out of a cartoon, or a pinup, or the 'Playboy' that I snuck out of my grandpa's house when I was a child. Ironically enough, she recently was in 'Playboy,' and it was like everything had come full-circle," he laughs. "You know, I can't go into the bathroom and masturbate to the 'Playboy,' when my girlfriend's on the cover and she's waiting in the bedroom. So that's very odd...

"We're so alike in the way that we believe in what we do. I mean, she is so independent, and so dedicated to what she does; she makes all of her own things, and is so particular about her performance. She has the same sense of humor as me. And then, at the same time, we're completely different. It's a once-in-a-lifetime-type relationship. I guess, for once, I'm happy in that part of my life; there's always going to be something that tortures you, no matter what kind success you obtain, but I feel like I have someone there that I can count on to stick by me, and that's important for anybody."

Perhaps it's a cheesy thing to say, but Marilyn Manson actually seems in a very good place right now. Creatively, he's certainly firing on all cylinders: He plays the part of a pre-op transsexual club singer in the upcoming film 'Party Monster,' he's scoring the remake of 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,' and he's been collaborating with the controversial Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein on a variety of visual projects, including the cover art for 'The Golden Age of Grotesque.' And then there was his first art show, which took place in Hollywood in October 2002, where his evocative watercolor paintings pleasantly surprised fans and critics alike.

"It was really cool for me to be able to do an art show," he says. "I never expected, or wanted, people to see my paintings; I did it purely as something to relax, or maybe therapeutic, maybe out of boredom. It was something that, if I couldn't be creative in music, I would do it some other way.

"I've discovered that being an artist, and having art as your way of life—you know, the Dandy aesthetic—is the only way I can live," he says, stirring some more water into his Absinthe glass. "It's what makes me exist. I always have to be doing something, whether it's taking pictures, or being photographed, or painting pictures, or painting a room. I don't care what it is; I can't be lazy. And I'd love to—I'd love to sleep more, I'd love to take a day off, I'd love to be sitting back and watching a movie right now. But even the interview is an important part of art, because you're speaking to people about what you do."

Ultimately, though, it all comes back to the music. "This will be the thing I'm remembered for most," he says of his new album and upcoming tour. "People often ask me, 'What do you want to be remembered for most?' And I usually say, 'I don't care, because as long as they remember you, it doesn't matter.' But I know that 'The Golden Age of Grotesque' is more than a record; it is what it says it is— it's the dawn of a new era of entertainment.

"This is where I begin. It's my prime; I haven't started yet. I just now figured out how to unzip my zipper," he smiles, "so get ready to suck my dick. It's on!"

Wilmington, North Carolina, rockers He Is Legend will release their new album, 'Heavy Fruit,' on August 19 via Tragic Hero Records. In anticipation, the band has teamed with Revolver to stream the entire album right here, right now. Check it out below and let us know what you think in the comments!

To get 'Heavy Fruit,' visit Tragic Hero's webstore. For more on He Is Legend, follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

MORE HE IS LEGEND: Review: He Is Legend — Heavy Fruit

On August 13, DevilDriver and Coal Chamber frontman Dez Fafara called into SiriusXM Liquid Metal (channel 40) and spoke with host Jose Mangin. For those of you who missed the interview, or for fans who want to revisit their chat, we've posted highlights below. Fafara discussed the just-announced Coal Chamber reunion, his plans for the next DevilDriver album, Knotfest, his project with Mark Morton of Lamb of God, and more. Check it out below and let us know what you think in the comments.

JOSE MANGIN Coal Chamber is getting back to do a new album in 2015, man—that is a pretty cool thing, Dez.
DEZ FAFARA Really cool. You know, over the years we just started talking and hanging out, and from there we decided to take it around the world and on a tour, and it went really well. Everywhere we would go crowds were coming out in force, and from there it would come to guys slipping me demoes silently, without anyone really knowing and I loved the stuff. It was evolved, we have evolved, and the music has evolved. And when I heard a couple of the songs I said, "Man, this could be legitimately really cool." So we signed with Napalm Records, they'll be our partner in this. The guys have been writing solid, they've been writing for a month now, I got two more songs last night so we have nine, looking to write 25 and then narrow it down a little with Mark Lewis producing. They're looking to track in October and I'm tracking vocals in November and we're hoping to be done, mixed, and mastered in January and get it out to people next year.

MANGIN Good news because I remember how excited fans were when Coal Chamber did come back recently on that big tour. It's a good thing all you guys are coming back and DevilDriver is obviously still your No. 1 band, right?
FAFARA Oh, absolutely, that's my baby. The record is still performing well on the charts. Thanks to everybody for coming out to our last shows—the shows that we did were killer. The Whitechapel run was incredible, and we're getting ready to go to Australia with Whitechapel in September and the we're going to come back and play the Knotfest in California, with DevilDriver, and we're going to end the 'Winter Kills' cycle there and regroup and hope for a record in 2016.

MANGIN That's perfect. I was stoked for all the bands on that fest—this is the biggest metal fest that has been in the U.S. There has been nothing bigger and more concentrated for metal music before.
FAFARA Congrats to the Knot for putting all of this together. It is a perfect place to start it, out here in Cali because they know it is going to come out with camping. I'm going to try to go to all the days with my kids and hang out. When they hit me, they wanted Coal Chamber to do one day and DevilDriver to do the next, but Coal Chamber was going to be in recording so I couldn't say anything. It's going to be incredible. I hope they end up taking this thing around the U.S., for a summer—it'd be great to go somewhere for three days, camp, and go somewhere else, you know how it is overseas? It's genius. You go to Download and these other festivals and everyone is camping out. It is a really cool vibe.

MANGIN The camping part of the fest sold out already!
FAFARA Well, it's a smart idea—all the European festivals do it. When you get tired, you get to go to your trailer and hang out and then watch some more bands. I think it's just real smart and I'm glad to be part of it"

MANGIN Dez, what about the project with Mark Morton from Lamb of God?
FAFARA This is something that happened years ago, and I let Mark be in charge of it over the course of time. It's kind of nice to just sing for a project. I may not talk to him for weeks, and he'll call me and say, "Hey, let's release this." And about a month ago, he released a track called "Secrets," which is the first track we recorded for the Born of the Storm stuff. It was just really fun to do it, and the time we did it in, it was much needed for us to do something different. I love all the guys from Lamb of God so I loved doing that with him.

MANGIN So what else are you planning?
FAFARA What I'm really trying to do the most is to be a family man right now. I'm trying to be normal at this point, but that being said, I got hit by Brock from 36 Crazyfists, my Alaska brother, and he is getting something together for a Fuck Cancer thing, getting a ton of musicians together, and he wants to do a record with all the benefits going to cancer victims. For people who know me, I did a song called "Dark Meadowlark" for my sister who survived cancer, my mom went through it, so if I'm home, I can lay a track at my studio in a few days, so hopefully that comes through when I'm home.

As Slipknot prepare to unleash their highly anticipated new album, '.5: The Gray Chapter' (check out the new tracks "The Negative One" and "The Devil in I"), Revolver is looking back on the making of each of the masked maniacs' previous records.

MORE SLIPKNOT: A look back at the making of 'Iowa.'

Here, band members who played on 1999's 'Slipknot'—including deceased bassist Paul Gray and ex-drummer Joey Jordison—look back on the now-classic record, which includes songs like "Spit It Out," "Wait and Bleed," and "(sic)." The piece originally ran in our 2011 'Book of Slipknot' special issue.

By Jon Wiederhorn

With big-name producer Ross Robinson (Korn, Limp Bizkit, Sepultura), Slipknot set about creating their self-titled Roadrunner Records debut. They barely had money for food, and the stress and strain of band life wore on them (guitarist Josh Brainard would quit in the middle of the recording process), but driven by their passion for their music and by Robinson's almost abusive motivational techniques, Slipknot created a classic: an album that fuses nu-metal catchiness and extreme-metal cacophony on mosh-pit anthems like "(Sic)," "Eyeless," "Spit It Out," "Wait and Bleed," and "Surfacing."

MONTE CONNER, THEN-ROADRUNNER A&R Slipknot had sent me several demos, but I hadn't yet heard that magical song. Then that moment came when I got "Spit It Out," which was the first thing I heard with Corey. And that exact demo version is on the record.

CORY BRENNAN, SLIPKNOT MANAGER Before I managed Slipknot, I worked at Roadrunner. Monte pulled me into their first meeting with the band, and Clown shook my hand and said, "How does it feel to meet your first platinum artist?" And he did that to everybody, including the president and owner of the company. Then the three of them sat there and told us how they were gonna, one day, have hydraulic drums that that they would weld themselves, which would go 15 feet in the air and turn upside-down, and how they were gonna be the biggest band in the world. Everything he said they'd do came true.

COREY TAYLOR We started to get into band concepts like the coveralls. The night we talked about doing it, we were on Clown's back porch. He would wear coveralls covered with paint. And him and Joey were like, "We should all start wearing those just as a uniform and put the bar code on them." We owned the bar code because we had actually bought it for 'Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.' That's when the numbers started coming up. We were like, "Fuck our names, fuck the bullshit. Let's go by numbers." I immediately shot my hand up and said, "I'm No. 8." It was perfect because there were eight people in the band—this was before Sid joined—and eight has always been my lucky number. I was born on the eighth of December. I used to count everything by eights. I had OCD when I was a kid and when I walked, I was obsessed with even numbers but eight most of all. Because I was right-handed, all of my even steps would have to fall on my right foot and all of my odd steps would have to fall on my left foot. And I would count them in my head, and if I fucked up and shuffled my feet, I would freeze until I reset my mind. Even now, if I'm ever sitting somewhere and just hanging out, you can always see me tapping my thumb from one finger to another, counting the segments on my fingers, one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight. I do that constantly.

SID WILSON They had seen my DJ crew, the Soundproof Coalition, at a festival in Des Moines. I didn't even know who Slipknot was. They asked me to come to practice a year later. At first, not everyone was totally feeling it 100 percent. They liked what I was doing but they were worried what metal fans were gonna think of Slipknot having a DJ. But I quickly sold them on the idea. I went to their next show as a fan. I knew that during "Tattered & Torn," Clown would go into the pit and wrap kids up with the microphone cord and drag them across the floor. People would usually run when they saw him coming, but at that show, I saw him and instinctively went for it. He was thinking, I'm gonna show this motherfucking new Jack what's up with our band. So he came after me, but before he could get to me, I was on his ass like a fucking Jedi Knight. I grabbed him by the head while he was still on the stage. I counted to five and headbutted him on six, which is his number. He fell down on his fucking ass. It almost knocked him out. He went back to Joey and said, "I don't care what anybody in the fucking band says, that dude's in." From the moment I joined, there was chaos. Once at practice, Clown and Joey had been arguing, and Clown literally plowed through Joey's whole drumset and threw it clear across the practice room. I started unplugging my turntables because I was like, These are the only decks I got. Don't fuckin' break them!

TAYLOR We had this bootleg videotape that we had named "Sex, Death, and Mayhem," which had crazy animation, porn scenes, and real-life death on film. We decided to use it to add some visuals to our Halloween shows. We put up two gigantic old-school televisions and we ran a VCR to it from the front of the house. We spliced together an hour of footage that culminated with the suicide of Bud Dwyer, [the Pennsylvania state treasurer who was convicted of accepting a bribe and shot himself in the head during a televised press conference]. We looped the footage, and at the end of "Scissors," there's Bud Dwyer popping himself over and over. Not only did we loop the suicide, we slowed it down. We lost half of our fans after that show. I had a friend who, still to this day, will not talk to me. She looked at me straight in the face and said, "This is disgusting, this is not gonna go anywhere. You are wasting your fucking life. And quite frankly, because you backed that decision, you are not the person I thought you were."

PAUL GRAY [Slipknot's then-manager] Sophia John asked us, "If you could have anybody hear you, who would it be?" and we said, "Ross Robinson." So she sent him our demo, and Ross agreed to come out and see us. And once you get one label guy to come in, everybody says, "I don't want to miss the train." So, every week we had somebody checking us out. We were going out to dinner with these fucking A&R people, and it fuckin' sucked. The only person who was actually honest and real was Ross. He was doing an imprint with Roadrunner so we signed this deal with them.

TAYLOR We were stoked, but nervous as shit. We looked up to Ross. At the time, there was nobody hotter. And Ross wasn't afraid to twist the limits. He came to a practice and then to one of our shows, and he really understood us. But we had no idea how we were going to get to his studio in California. We didn't have a deal at the time. We had no money. It took us three days to get there because we drove everything ourselves. Fehn hadn't been in the band too long, so we made him lease a truck just to haul our shit in a trailer. But the trailer was so heavy it would fishtail violently if you got up over 50 miles an hour.

JOEY JORDISON Ross is the most intense person I've ever met in my life besides the nine of us. We were out for blood and Ross saw that in us. I would track my drums and we would all be headbanging, throwing our headphones off, punching the fucking walls. He would take potted plants and throw them at me while I was playing and I'd have to duck them. He made Chris Fehn drink two gallons of water to where he was totally bloated and on the verge of throwing up just to get a mic'd mallet sound out of his stomach that he liked.

GRAY Ross wanted it to come across like how we played live, so, as we were standing there playing riffs, he would push us and knock the guitars out of our hands and yell, "You can play that shit harder!" Next thing you know, we're moving around and playing our asses off and that's how we got the aggression on that first album.

TAYLOR I've never screamed or sang like that in my life. Ross pushed me every day to the point where, by the end, I was literally broken completely in half and wide open and bawling and I couldn't stop crying. I was throwing up all over the fucking place. At one point, the vocal booth smelled so bad. We did all the basic tracks in two days.

MICK THOMSON It was a nightmarish hell to do that fucking record. You have all these people scattered in the same fucking place, and we didn't have enough beds so we were all stacked on top of each other. We had no money, no real food. A frozen pizza and whatever grocery-store macaroni and cheese was about the extent of our dining back then. Unless everyone tried being respectful of other people—keeping the noise down, cleaning up after themselves—you're gonna have problems. And we've got people who don't do that. Well, of course, we're gonna freak out. You can't be stuck in that small of a space 24 hours a day, on the side of the mountain for months without wanting to start stabbing people.

SHAWN "CLOWN" CRAHAN I wound up being the guy who would take people on drives. Ross would say, "Hey, there's too many people in here, we can't get anything done. Clown, why don't you take people down to Melrose?" So, for me, [turns thumbs down and makes raspberry noise]. I'm all over the record, but I didn't have a say in anything. See, I'm an art guy. I'd go, "Lemme throw this mic on the drums." And Ross'd go, "Well, Clown, you can't put a mic that's used for guitar frequencies on a bass drum." "Well, why not, you dumbass? Put it on there and shut up. Let's see." But that didn't happen. They don't take time for me. So I loved it all, but I got nothing out of it.

JORDISON While we were there, Josh [Brainard] got lonely and didn't know if he wanted to deal with what lay ahead, so he quit. So we called Jim and we were like, "Hey, man, would you like to join?"

GRAY Back in the day, we had a problem with this band from Cleveland called Mushroomhead. They had masks, too. And when we came to Cleveland, we were ready for some shit. And there were about 20 kids in the crowd that were Mushroomhead fans that were whipping batteries at us. Me and Jim jumped offstage and took our masks off and started swinging at people at the end of one song. When we were done with that set, everything came off and we went straight through the crowd to try to find those people and we ended up finding those dudes and we threw down. One of the guys in our crew got maced by the cops and arrested.

WILSON I never got hurt fighting, but I broke two ribs on my left side jumping off a balcony in Germany. It was our first time playing there so they didn't know what we do. I don't think they actually expected me to jump off a balcony seat. And when I jumped, the crowd kind of parted and watched me go down. My ribs hit the floor first and my left arm was behind my head. I didn't know they were broken. I just knew they were hurt. So I kept doing the shows every night. [Eventually] it was hurting real bad so they made me go to the hospital. And they said, "Oh, your ribs are broken. You have to lay down in bed for weeks and heal." And I said, "I can't. I've got shows to play. So give me a rib brace." And I had a brace and a back support underneath it. I wrapped that up and they gave me some inhalers to help me breathe better.

JORDISON Even though Ross had done our first record, we thought we were just going to be a cult band. As extreme and odd as our music was and the way we looked and performed, we thought we'd just have a limited following. We didn't know it was going to blow up. Halfway through the tour, we're at 200,000 records and we're dumbfounded. Then in February the next year we were presented a gold record. We're like, What the fuck?! Next thing you know, end of the tour, we got a platinum record.

GRAY We were so focused that, when we were first out on the road, we were pretty straight-laced. Some of us drank a little bit and there were some girls we slept with. I think the craziest groupie I ever met was this girl who wound up on our bus. We went into the back lounge and started messing around. Everybody else was in their bunks sleeping. So we're going at it and then all of a sudden she tells me to hit her. And I said, "What? No." So she fuckin' punches me in the face. Then she says again, "Hit me." And I'm like, "No, I ain't gonna hit you." And she kept fucking punching me if I wouldn't hit her. Finally, after getting hit in the fucking face 10 times, I said, "Seriously, I will fucking hit you if you do it again." So she hit me again and I fucking slapped her, which is totally what she wanted me to do. She was screaming, and it turned into this full-on WrestleMania back there with us fighting and getting it on. When it was all done, it was, like, 4 in the morning, and I'm trying to get her off the bus, and everyone's sitting there in the front lounge clapping. It was definitely a walk of shame.

WILSON I got into a lot of crazy drugs in high school. When I was 15, I could have opened up my backpack and sold you any type of drug you could think of. If you've seen 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,' their briefcase full of stuff was child's play compared to what I was doing. When I was 17, doctors said I would have heart failure within a week if I kept it up. I was eventually able to quit, so when the first album was blowing up, I'd go out and have some drinks with the guys, but I left all that heavy shit behind. It's bad news for anybody.

CHRIS FEHN We had a no-drugs policy for years, and then when we got to Europe and went to Amsterdam we said, "OK, you can do a little something if you want to." And that opened the door for a little here, a little there. And then we all had to go through, "OK, everything's fine. The doors are open. Do whatever you want." And that kind of fucked us up for a while.

JIM ROOT All of a sudden when you're in this lifestyle, you can show up to work fucked up. Nobody's gonna tell you any different because everybody's working for you and it's handed to you and sometimes people expect it. So the indulgences are there, and I partook. I was in a really bad spot for the first four or five years of us touring. I was really depraved and did some fucked-up shit and hurt people and I could be a horrible person. It starts out as fun partying: "Woo hoo! This is all great." And then, all of a sudden, it turns into medication. You have to do it to deal with this lifestyle because you're constantly away from your family and your friends—if you even have any left after being away from them for so long.

GRAY One night we were in Cincinnati and Chris had been drinking all day. Chris didn't really drink [so he was wasted]. He's out of his bunk in the middle of the night to take a piss and he thinks his bunk is the bathroom. He whips out his dick, lifts his mattress like it was the toilet seat, and just started pissing, and it all starts dripping down on Sid, who's below him. Sid starts screaming, "What the fuck. What the fuck! What the fuck!" He smelled it and tasted it, and he's like, "It's fuckin' piss!"

FEHN We had been drinking full glasses of rum, so I had no idea what was happening. I woke up with Sid yelling, "You pissed in my bunk!" And I said, "I did not. Shut the fuck up." But I totally did. Before I die, I have to let Sid piss on me.

TAYLOR We were together every day for two-and-a-half years on that first album cycle—from recording to touring. I think we had a month off in total. When you're with eight other people that long, you start to hate each other. And there was a lot of pressure going from opening to headlining, which we were forced into doing because no one wanted to take us on the road, so what else were we gonna do? All we wanted to do was destroy, and we got to the end of [the cycle] and we were so smoked, but we had to basically turn around and go straight in and do 'Iowa.'

We Came as Romans will release their new live DVD, 'Present, Future, and Past'—which was filmed at the House of Blues in Chicago—on September 2. In anticipation, the band has teamed up with Revolver to premiere a clip taken from the DVD of the group performing its song "Ghosts." Check it out below and let us know what you think in the comments!

To pre-order 'Present, Future, and Past,' visit the band's webstore. For more on We Came as Romans, follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Michael Orlando, better known as Michael Vampire from Vampires Everywhere!, has a new project called The Killing Lights. In anticipation, the band has teamed up with Revolver to premiere their music video for "Lies Spread Like Fire." Check it out below and let us know what you think in the comments!

The vocalist said, "I am beyond excited to finally release the 'Lies Spread Like Fire' music video. We all fight our own demons from time to time, and this video is about standing up after the fight. We shot the video in Hollywood, California. We wanted to keep the video raw as possible, which I feel we achieved using the L.A. street culture as the main storyline aesthetic. We had a great director in Will Da Rosa, who went above and beyond to bring my concept to life. We also had a great cast Jared Simms and Harper Leigh did an amazing job giving the two main characters a life of their own. This video is for the fans and people that have stuck with me this past year. Together we will change everything..."

For more on The Killing Lights, follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Godsmack have premiered their new music video for "1000hp." Check it out below and let us know what you think in the comments!

"This was one of those songs that kind of wrote itself," frontman Sully Erna says of the song. "One day in the studio we were breaking for dinner and a friend of ours went out to get some food for everybody. Kind of kidding around, I said, 'I'm going to write a song before he gets back.' And Tony [Rombola, guitar] goes, 'Well, you better make it a really fast riff because he'll be back in 15 minutes!' And I'm telling you, this song was done, front to back, in maybe an hour and a half. As far as the lyrics, when I came up with the chorus and the 'Turn that shit up louder' line, I started thinking, What if this was a song about us? Next year will be 20 years since we became a band, and there's a real history there. I guess it takes a lot to see that sometimes, because you still see yourself as a fan growing up and listening to the Aerosmiths and the Rushs and all the bands you loved. But, wow, man, 20 years. It felt like enough time had passed that it was okay to have a song like this."

The band's new album, '1000hp,' is out now.

Sweden's hard-rock queens Crucified Barbara will release their new album, 'In the Red,' on September 10 via Despotz Records. In anticipation, the band is teaming up with Revolver to premiere a new song, "Electric Sky." Check it out below and let us know what you think in the comments!

The band says, "We started writing the song before recording the last album, 'The Midnight Chase.' It wasn't perfect at the time, but we felt it had a lot of potential so we decided to take the time to make it perfect.

"Writing and playing music is sometimes like a force of nature. The creativity and energy feel almost supernatural. It's like the northern lights, it feels magical—but it is actually happening. That beautiful feeling is our 'Electric Sky.'"

To pre-order 'In the Red,' visit the band's webstore. For more on Crucified Barbara, visit their Facebook and Twitter.