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Metal band Slipknot to play Madison
By Sean Moeller
Special to the Daily News
Not much forethought went into the masks when the nine members of Iowa's Slipknot first started bulging their neck veins by screaming bloody murder when they united furies six years ago.
They originally bought the rubber and plastic things from an Internet Web site, mangled them without remorse and have been wearing them gloriously in arenas and seedy clubs ever since.
With the great deal of worldwide success the band has seen over three records, it's been able to hire a full-time mask-euse, who repairs, tailors and orders replacements when necessary.
But percussionist (one of three in the group) Chris Fehn recalls the first one and how removing the mask, as KISS and Mudvayne removed the make-up, isn't the way these corn-bred livewires will ever go.
"It was just something cool to do," said Fehn, who wears a yellowish-black, skeleton mask outfitted with a pointy Pinocchio nose. "When I first got it, I cut it up and sewed the straps onto the back. It definitely doesn't look anything like it originally did.
"It's a blessing that we don't get recognized. I don't know what it's like to be sitting in a McDonald's with people staring at me. Sometimes it's confusing. I think, 'I'm that guy. Why don't people know me?' But it's nice because I don't have to worry about being at Best Buy, having somebody take a picture of me and, all of a sudden, it's all over the Internet."
Since its first release in 1999, a self-titled album with the smash single "Wait and Bleed," Slipknot has given its Maggots - the band's pet name for its fans - a steady and reliable dose of pummeling, breakneck music that vocalist Corey Taylor still finds a way to make nice with. Many rock critics have pointed to Taylor's mercilessly grim and ferocious words as the natural product from a baseball team of guys living in such an imaginably destitute place like Iowa. Fehn said none of the anger in the band's music is relatable to where they're from. Case in point: All nine members, other than Fehn, have bought houses in their hometown and are currently raising their families in the state's capital.
"People out west think we ride horses to school and that it's that primitive back here," he said from a recent tour stop in Los Angeles. "It's really a totally killer place to live. You can just take off, and five minutes later, you're on a dirt road hanging out in a cornfield, partying with your friends. It's a good place to be laid-back in."
It's where they tightened up a demented and thoughtful sound that is in full-bloom on last year's "Slipknot Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)" - recently released again in a special extended version - and in every live performance that would make misfits of anyone who tried to out-power them.
"We're into this more than a bunch of guys who all go to the beach all day. We've got nine different ideas forming all day long and we're never going to write a Sarah McLachlan record," Fehn said. The band does everything to avoid niceties when they have their audience's undivided attention, as they will at the Alliant Energy Center Coliseum Saturday. "You know they're going to go home with their heads ringing and their necks stiff. You can watch them get out the demons.
They originally bought the rubber and plastic things from an Internet Web site, mangled them without remorse and have been wearing them gloriously in arenas and seedy clubs ever since.
With the great deal of worldwide success the band has seen over three records, it's been able to hire a full-time mask-euse, who repairs, tailors and orders replacements when necessary.
But percussionist (one of three in the group) Chris Fehn recalls the first one and how removing the mask, as KISS and Mudvayne removed the make-up, isn't the way these corn-bred livewires will ever go.
"It was just something cool to do," said Fehn, who wears a yellowish-black, skeleton mask outfitted with a pointy Pinocchio nose. "When I first got it, I cut it up and sewed the straps onto the back. It definitely doesn't look anything like it originally did.
"It's a blessing that we don't get recognized. I don't know what it's like to be sitting in a McDonald's with people staring at me. Sometimes it's confusing. I think, 'I'm that guy. Why don't people know me?' But it's nice because I don't have to worry about being at Best Buy, having somebody take a picture of me and, all of a sudden, it's all over the Internet."
Since its first release in 1999, a self-titled album with the smash single "Wait and Bleed," Slipknot has given its Maggots - the band's pet name for its fans - a steady and reliable dose of pummeling, breakneck music that vocalist Corey Taylor still finds a way to make nice with. Many rock critics have pointed to Taylor's mercilessly grim and ferocious words as the natural product from a baseball team of guys living in such an imaginably destitute place like Iowa. Fehn said none of the anger in the band's music is relatable to where they're from. Case in point: All nine members, other than Fehn, have bought houses in their hometown and are currently raising their families in the state's capital.
"People out west think we ride horses to school and that it's that primitive back here," he said from a recent tour stop in Los Angeles. "It's really a totally killer place to live. You can just take off, and five minutes later, you're on a dirt road hanging out in a cornfield, partying with your friends. It's a good place to be laid-back in."
It's where they tightened up a demented and thoughtful sound that is in full-bloom on last year's "Slipknot Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)" - recently released again in a special extended version - and in every live performance that would make misfits of anyone who tried to out-power them.
"We're into this more than a bunch of guys who all go to the beach all day. We've got nine different ideas forming all day long and we're never going to write a Sarah McLachlan record," Fehn said. The band does everything to avoid niceties when they have their audience's undivided attention, as they will at the Alliant Energy Center Coliseum Saturday. "You know they're going to go home with their heads ringing and their necks stiff. You can watch them get out the demons.
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