slipknot

Their albums and home videos have achieved Platinum-sales status, with Grammy award nominations in the "Best Heavy Metal" and "Best Hard Rock" categories for songs from three of their four albums. They recently won the 2006 Grammy for Best Metal Performance for "Before I Forget".

The band is also known for its peculiar image: the members wear matching uniform jumpsuits, and custom-made masks inspired by facets of their respective personalities. In the past, their jumpsuits have featured large UPC barcodes printed on the back and sleeves, which is the same barcode as on their first album, Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat. The members' masks are typically altered or presented in a new form with the advent of each new studio album.

Initially, the group's members desired to preserve their secret identities, refusing to be photographed maskless, even to the point of conducting interviews or posing with fans while wearing their masks (or at least obscuring their faces in some other way). Aside from their real names, members of the band are also referred to by numbers 0 through 8.

Today most members of the band have now been openly photographed without their masks, largely as the result of their work outside of Slipknot:

• vocalist Corey Taylor and guitarist James Root appear unmasked when working with their band Stone Sour[1], and Corey Taylor was unmasked in an appearance on the Killswitch Engage DVD. He has also appeared unmasked in the Des Moines Register.
• drummer Joey Jordison appears unmasked with his side-project the Murderdolls and Ministry.
• percussionist Shawn Crahan appears unmasked with his band To My Surprise [2]
• DJ Sid Wilson works unmasked when performing as DJ Starscream [3]
• guitarist Mick Thompson appeared unmasked in a Total Guitar magazine shoot
• bassist Paul Gray's face was revealed in a police mugshot leaked through The Smoking Gun.[4]
• Gray and Jordison have also appeared unmasked during various photo shoots and sessions with Roadrunner United.

In the video for "Before I Forget" they performed without their masks; however, the band members' faces are shown only as brief glimpses (mainly close-up shots on their eyes and mouths), with the camera mostly focused on their hands and instruments.

Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine did a Lounge style version of "People = Shit" on the 2005 album "Aperitif for Destruction".

History

Slipknot's first songs were composed in 1990, during what is referred to by the band members as the "Basement Sessions", while in this "Basement Session", Slipknot went under the name as Meld before they became Slipknot. Conducted in the basement of Anders Colsefini, co-founder of the band. Many of the songs on Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat and some that were added to later albums were written during these sessions. Crahan, being one of the founders, came up with the idea on having three drummers; first to keep the group together, and second to give a wall of sound. Before Joey Jordison joined, Crahan was the lead drummer.

They achieved a stable line-up in 1995, and released a demo entitled Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat on Halloween in 1996. The demo was well-received, and after they won a local battle of the bands in Des Moines, beating soon-to-be-vocalist Corey Taylor's group Stone Sour. A few major record labels became interested in the group. At that time, the band contained five members, but Roadrunner Records didn't want to sign them at first, feeling that the songwriting needed some work. John Kuliak, Midwest Promotion representative for Roadrunner, worked tirelessly to get them signed to the reluctant label. In due course, Slipknot went out to find a new lead singer, and pushed Anders to percussion. They then hired Taylor as the lead vocalist.

Roadrunner Records eventually signed the band, and released their self-titled debut album, Slipknot, in June of 1999, produced by Ross Robinson. Despite receiving little airplay, the album sold very well, due mainly to word-of-mouth. Indeed, it became Roadrunner Records' very first Platinum certified album (1 million units shipped.). Regarding the album, one reviewer wrote "You thought Limp Bizkit was heavy? They're the Osmonds. Slipknot is something else entirely." [5] Touring on the 1999 Ozzfest also increased the group's fanbase.

2001's Iowa, the follow-up to their debut album, was much anticipated by fans and debuted at number three on the Billboard Magazine album charts and at number one on the UK album chart. They again toured extensively to promote the release. The band also appeared as themselves in the concert scene of the 2002 movie Rollerball, where they played the song "I Am Hated" from Iowa. Also in 2002 Corey Taylor did vocal work for Slitheryn's song "Lost".

After a hiatus of close to two years, the band regrouped in late 2003 and began writing and recording with renowned producer Rick Rubin, who had previously worked with artists such as Johnny Cash, Red Hot Chili Peppers,Britney Spears, System of a Down, Pennywise, Jessica Simpson and Slayer. The band released their fourth album, Vol. 3 (The Subliminal Verses) in May 2004. It debuted at #2 on the Billboard albums chart.

A live album recorded from shows in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Osaka, Singapore & Tokyo was released in November 2005 titled 9.0: Live. Several members of the band also collaborated with other artists on the Roadrunner United: The All-Star Sessions CD released in October 2005. They also appeared in cartoon form in the adult comic Viz (issue 152, Feb 2006), where they appear singing "People = Shit" at the end of the "Mrs Brady, Old Lady" strip. The band is currently on hiatus until 2007 as they work on their side projects; Corey Taylor and James Root are both with Stone Sour[6], Joey Jordison is with Ministry[7], and Chris Fehn is working on his golf[8]. It was announced on Slipknot1.com that the new Voliminal: Inside the Nine DVD is done and will be released on December 5th, 2006.

Categorization

There is much disagreement on the issue of how to classify Slipknot's music. Those who consider Slipknot to be nu metal argue that the lyrical themes and instrumental styles of Slipknot, most notably the rarity of guitar solos, the use of three drummers, turntables, sampling, and rap-reminiscent vocals place the group squarely in the nu metal camp. On the other hand, those who do not consider Slipknot's music to be nu-metal note that much of their music does not have the rap-based lyrical influence common in nu metal.

With the release of Slipknot's latest album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), fans felt that the presence of solos on their albums would end the debate on the band's genre and label them heavy metal. However, it can be argued that this is simply another financially conscious move given the mid-2000s "retro-metal" renaissance, that the style of vocals still have more in common with nu metal than heavy metal and solos alone do not specify a genre. Some others think that the presence of solos in their latest album is only due to the change of the producer, pointing to the presence of solos in songs released before they signed with Roadrunner. In a Guitar World interview, Root reported that Ross Robinson, who produced the self-titled and Iowa albums, had denied Slipknot the use of guitar solos at all, in order to align them with the then-prevailing trend in metal.^{citation needed]}

Bassist Paul Gray stated in an interview "We're not 'rap metal' or 'new metal,' We're metal metal. We want to be lumped in with bands like Pantera and Slayer". More recently, they have been placed in a category called "Death Metal." [9]

Some of the genres commonly applied to Slipknot include:

• Alternative Metal [10][11][12]
• Heavy Metal [13][14]
• Nu Metal [15][16][17]
• Rap Metal [18] [19]

Members

Current members

• #0 Sid Wilson - Turntables
• #1 Joey Jordison - Drums
• #2 Paul Gray - Bass Guitar (Backing vocals in some songs)
• #3 Chris Fehn - Custom Percussion / Backing vocals
• #4 James "Jim" Root - Rhythm Guitar
• #5 Craig "133" Jones - Samples, Media, and Keyboards (He joined Slipknot in live shows after Slipknot's first album Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat)
• #6 Shawn "Clown" Crahan - Custom Percussion / Backing vocals
• #7 Mick Thompson - Lead Guitar (He joined Slipknot in live shows after Slipknot's first album Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat)
• #8 Corey Taylor - Lead vocals

Former members

• Anders Colsefini - Vocals/Percussion
• Greg "Cuddles" Welts - Percussion
• Josh "Gnar" Brainard - Guitar/ Backing Vocals
• Brandon Darner - Percussion
• Donnie Steele - Guitar
• Quan "Meld" Nong - Guitar
• Patrick M. Neuwirth - Guitar

Discography

• See Slipknot discography.

External links

• Official Site
• Official Fan Club