Slipknot

Slipknot is an American nu metal band from Des Moines, Iowa. The group has gone through several line-up changes, but its membership has not changed since 1999: Sid Wilson, Joey Jordison, Paul Gray, Chris Fehn, Jim Root, Craig Jones, Shawn Crahan, Mick Thomson and Corey Taylor.

Slipknot uses a down-tuned guitar set-up (lead, rhythm, and bass guitars), two percussionists in addition to the primary drummer, and electronics (samplers and turntables). The band's sound has been described as "a threshing machine devouring a military drum corps." The band also incorporates diverse vocal styles, typically involving growled vocals, melodic singing and even rapping while the lyrics generally follow a very aggressive tone. The band's musical influences include death metal as well as thrash metal, blues and even hip hop.

Slipknot's roots lie back as far as 1992, and the band formed in November 1995. The band underwent many line-up changes before releasing their highly successful debut album Slipknot in 1999. They have released two other albums, Iowa and Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses). Slipknot is expected to release a fourth album in 2008.



Influences and style
Slipknot are known for their often chaotic and energetic live shows.

The band's primary influences include Black Sabbath, Slayer, Judas Priest, Korn, AC/DC, Kiss and Beastie Boys. Death metal has been mentioned multiple times as a key influence on the band's musical direction alongside nu metal which the band are generally listed as.[74][75] Slipknot has an extreme performance style provided by their large line-up featuring a typical heavily down-tuned guitar set-up (lead, rhythm, and bass guitars), two percussionists in addition to the primary drummer, and electronics (samplers and turntables). Robert Cherry of Rolling Stone compared the band's sound to "a threshing machine devouring a military drum corps."

Their early work hosted a large range of vocal styles, ranging from rapping to occasional singing to growled vocals. In more recent work, this vocal style remains present, but now includes more melodic singing. The lyrics generally follow a very aggressive tone and feature themes such as darkness, nihilism, anger, disaffection, love, misanthropy and psychosis. Rick Anderson of All Music Guide regards the group's lyrics as "not generally quotable on a family website". There has been controversy surrounding Slipknot's lyrics, including a case in which a pair of young killers blamed the lyrics from the song "Disasterpiece" for their vicious crime and a case in 2006 in which lyrics from the song "Surfacing" were found at the site of a grave robbing. However, the band has never faced any serious allegations that their lyrics may incite violent or criminal behaviour.


The band is known for its attention-grabbing image, the members wear matching uniform jumpsuits and homemade masks. In the past, their jumpsuits have featured large UPC barcodes printed on the back and sleeves, which are identical to the barcode on their demo, Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat. Aside from their real names, members of the band are referred to by numbers zero through eight.

With each new album, Slipknot has attained new masks and coveralls. The masks haven't changed dramatically with the release of their second and third albums, as the masks are more of an extension of what they previously were. Jordison addressed the issue in an interview in 2004, stating that the change in masks are to show growth and difference within age. During the music video and live performances of their single "Vermilion" the band change their respective masks to death masks made from casts of their own faces. Also in 2004, Gray claimed that the special effects company Screaming Mad George made their masks from their third album cycle, and pictures of the band's masks from their second album cycle can be found on the SMG website.

The masks have been subject of much criticism, generally thought of as a gimmick to try sell their product.The band however strongly object these claims, proclaiming that the masks are used to draw the attention away from themselves and to the music. Several members have said how the masks are a visual representation of how the music makes them feel and how they put the members in an animal-like mentality. The coveralls and numbers are an extension of their anti-image concept they created with the masks. The integrity of the masks is also a topic of criticism as band members have appeared outside of Slipknot without the masks. The issue has been addressed by most band members, percussionist Crahan specifically addressed the issue during an interview on The Sauce when discussing the release of their 2006 DVD Voliminal: Inside the Nine, proclaiming that the masks are always going to be part of the Slipknot show.

The band's image has sparked controversy over the years. Some of the controversy comes from the band Mushroomhead, who, along with their fans, claim that Slipknot stole their image. In 2005, another source of controversy was the band's lawsuit against Burger King, claiming that company created the advertising based band Coq Roq to capitalize on Slipknot's image. The band's lawyer claimed that Burger King had contacted the band's label to get Slipknot to take part in "advertising campaign designed to motivate young people to vote". Burger King responded to the suit with a countersuit, and in that suit pointed out that many other bands, such as Mudvayne, Kiss, and GWAR have used masks as part of their image, although after private discussions the advertising campaign was dropped.