Slipknot

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From left to right: 6, 0, 2, 3, 1, 7, 8, 5, 4

Slipknot is a Nu-metal/Heavy Metal band from Des Moines, Iowa, known for their masks, nine-person membership, identical jumpsuits, and chaotic live performances. Each member is given a number from 0 to 8 (in the order that each member joined the band). They're sometimes referred to collectively as The Nine.

Members:

• #0: Sid "DJ Starscream" Wilson: Turntables
• #1: Joey Jordison: Drums
• #2: Paul "The Pig" Gray (April 8, 1972 - May 24, 2010)
• #3: Chris Fehn: Custom percussion
• #4: Jim "The Jester" Root: Guitar
• #5: Craig "133 mHz" Jones: Samples, media
• #6: Shawn "Clown" Crahan: Custom percussion
• #7: Mick Thomson: Guitar
• #8: Corey "The Great Big Mouth" Taylor: Lead vocals
• Donnie Steele: Bass guitar (temporary replacement for Gray; previously played guitar 1995-1996)
  • Nearly the entire band performs back-up vocals, making for a chorus of voices.

Influences:

• Slayer, KISS, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Led Zeppelin, White Zombie, Racer X, Korn, Nine Inch Nails, Def Leppard, Neurosis, The Beastie Boys, Fear Factory, Godflesh, Head of David, Skinny Puppy

Discography:

• 1996 - Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. (E.P)
• 1999 - Slipknot
  • "Wait and Bleed"
  • "Spit It Out"
• 2001 - Iowa
  • "My Plague"
  • "The Heretic Anthem"
  • "Left Behind"
• 2004 - Vol 3: (The Subliminal Verses)
  • "The Blister Exists"
  • "Duality"
  • "Vermilion" & "Vermilion, Pt. 2"
  • "Before I Forget"

Related Acts:

• Stone Sour (Taylor and Root)
• Dirty Little Rabbits (Crahan)
• Murderdolls (Jordison)
• DJ Starscream (Solo)
• To My Suprise (Crahan)
• Junk Beer Kidnap Band (Taylor's solo career back-up band)
• Will Haven (Fehn, as Bassist)
• Hail! (Supergroup involving Paul Gray; going on without him)

• 2005 - 9.0 Live
  • "The Nameless"
• 2008 - All Hope Is Gone
  • "Sulfur"
  • "Psychosocial"
  • "Dead Memories"
  • "Snuff"
  • "All Hope Is Gone"

Other popular songs:

• "Surfacing, (sic)"
• "People = Shit, Disasterpiece", "Everything Ends", "My Plague (uncensored)"
• "Opium of the People", "Pulse of the Maggots"
• "Gematria (The Killing Name)"

Taylor also performs guest vocals for the Apocalyptica song "I'm Not Jesus".

Slipknot provides examples of the following tropes:

• Arc Number:
  • 9.
  • 742617000027 (the UPC number for their EP Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.) and its accompanying barcode are a standard decoration on their jumpsuits; "742617000027" is also the title of the first track on Slipknot.
• The Big Guy:
  • Root and Thomson. Root is actually a little taller, but lanky; Thomson is bulkier.
  • Inverted with Jordison, who is by far the shortest member of the band.
• Bunny Ears Lawyer: Several:
  • Wilson is very skilled as a turntablist and is famous outside of Slipknot as DJ Starscream...but he's frequently gotten into fistfights with Crahan on stage, and broken Fehn's drum kit with his headbanging. He even broke both his feet by jumping from a piece of equipment, which Taylor later poked fun at by yelling "You broke your fucking feet, Sid!" while Wilson was on stage in a wheelchair.
  • Crahan hits everything, lights himself on fire, does backflips off equipment and has managed to bruise his pelvis and break his collarbones in the process, and more.
• A Day in the Limelight: Behind The Player: Paul Gray is one of the few outlets by the band focusing on a single member.
• The Faceless: Photographs of Jones without his mask on are exceptionally hard to come by. Crosses with The Voiceless and/or The Quiet One as you can see below.
• Garfunkel: Fehn originally wanted to be a drum tech; his early years were mainly spent as 'the oft-hazed new guy', even though Root was newer.
• Genre Shift: Slipknot started out as a Nu-metal band, but with their album All Hope Is Gone have moved into more of a Groove Metal direction.
• Gentle Giant: Thomson. Whilst he looks pants-pissingly terrifying, he is apparently really a tender, Poetry-writing, cat lover.
• Iconic Logo: The nine-pointed star, stylized S, and unique font for the band name.
• Juggalo: Some overlap; see Fan Community Nicknames.
• Limited Wardrobe: The jumpsuits, although when All Hope Is Gone came around each member came up with a unique costume design, as can be seen in the current page image. They now bounce back and forth between these getups and the jumpsuits.
• Loads and Loads of Characters: Not as badly as Trans-Siberian Orchestra, but still...nine people is an awful lot, especially for rock bands. It doesn't help when people still question if Jones actually does anything.
• Long Runner Lineup: Believe it or not, they fit. The band was Sid Wilson, Joey Jordison, Paul Gray, Chris Fehn, Jim Root, Craig Jones, Shawn Crahan, Mick Thomson, and Corey Taylor from 1999 (when Root replaced Josh Brainaird) to 2010, when Paul Gray died.
• Malevolent Masked Men
• Man On Fire
• Mascot: That goat from Iowa perhaps?
• The Merch: In perhaps one of the more ill-thought moves of their career, the band launched their own clothing line in 2008, titled Tattered and Torn after the song (a rather unfortunate name to be sure). Taking many cues from the Affliction brand, T&T doesn't explicitly specialize in Slipknot merch, but many designs. These are sold at HotTopic...
• Mondegreen: "I wonder how why you can't see/Inside I wait and bleed" from "Wait and Bleed".
  • Also, "Pikachu's a virgin" from "Psychosocial".
• Monster Clown: Crahan, especially his Iowa-era mask.
• Nintendo Hard: "Before I Forget" is one of the harder songs on Guitar Hero III. As of 12/4/09, a Slipknot pack has been announced for Rock Band. Drummers beware.
  • "Before I Forget" will be making a comeback... on Rock Band 3 with Pro-mode guitar playing and two added cymbals.
• Pig Man: Gray's mask during the Slipknot days was a pig head with a padlock in the nose.
• Public Medium Ignorance: They don't and have never played Death Metal. Yet they've somehow become the public face of extremity in metal.
• The Quiet One: Jones both uses and subverts this. While he can be chatty and usually talks to fans after concerts, he typically doesn't show up for group interviews or, if he does, usually only answers the question of what he would be doing if he weren't in a band: he would be out driving a forklift somewhere, or out killing people. It's been insinuated by the other band members that he is simply a very private person who is uncomfortable with fame and has cultivated a standoffish persona in an effort to get people to leave him alone.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Crahan showed up to the 48th Grammys to accept Slipknot's award for "Before I Forget" wearing the only thing he could call fancy clothes: a pink jumpsuit.
• The Rockumentary
• Shout-Out: Their masks in regards to old horror movies.
  • To be specific, Jones' mask is probably a reference to Pinhead of the Hellraiser series.
  • Taylor most likely took inspiration for his Volume 3 era mask from Leatherface of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
  • Gray's later mask was styled around The Man in the Iron Mask.
  • Fehn's might be a reference to Alex of A Clockwork Orange during the rape scene.
  • Thomson's is basically a stylized hockey mask a la Friday the 13 th.
• Someone to Remember Him By: Paul Gray's wife was a few months pregnant with his child. You can tear up now.
• Special Guest: They make an appearance in the 2002 remake of Rollerball and are playable characters in the PSP shooter, Infected. This is a game about mowing down hordes of zombies. As Slipknot.
• Spell My Name with an "S": While he doesn't seem to be bothered too much by it, Mick's last name is spelled "Thomson", not "Thompson" with a P or any variations thereof.
• Spikes of Villainy: ...sort of. All of Jones' masks have had long spikes as part of their theme.
• Stage Names: Each member has several.
• This Song Goes Out to Tv Tropes: Taylor loves this.
• Updated Rerelease: Slipknot has been released five times (six if you count the demo version).
  • The basic edition released in 1999
    • The Digipak special edition accompanying it (contains two bonus tracks and two demos). The hidden track "Eeyore" originally appeared after the final song "Scissors", while this version contains "Eeyore" after the final bonus track "Despise" (this version of "Scissors" is edited to include only the basic song).
  • The reissue months later after the copyright controversy concerning the song "Purity" (the lyrics were inspired by a copyrighted story which Taylor thought was true).
    • The Digipak special edition accompanying this version. Excludes "Purity" and the sample drama "Frail Limb Nursery" accompanying the removed track. This version includes "Get This", a faster version of "Spit It Out", and a version of "Wait and Bleed" mixed by producer Terry Date, along with a live performance of "Surfacing" as the final track. "Eeyore" is once again moved to a different track ("Surfacing" live) in order to appear at the very end of the album (appears after "Porn and Weed", which itself appears after "Surfacing" Live, making for three hidden tracks in a single track).
  • The 10th Anniversary Edition is effectively the definitive edition. It contains nearly every song mention above, including "Purity" ("Frail Limb Nursery" was not included, possibly because there literally wasn't enough room for it on the CD); "Eeyore" is finally made into a separate track (placed in the middle of the album). This edition contains "Snap" (a song only released on the demo version), three new remixes for "Wait and Bleed", "Surfacing" and "(sic)", and a live DVD.
    • To the point, a true 'Maggot' has bought this album three times: Original (contains "Frail Limb Nursery"), the reissue bonus edition (contains "Surfacing" live and "Porn and Weed") and the 10th Anniversary Edition (contains everything). Word to the wise, go download it instead.
• You Are Number Six: Subverted. While they do use the numbers as monikers, every fan knows the members' names and they're not really secretive about it.

Their music provides examples of:

• Album Title Drop: Twice in All Hope is Gone, both for the title track and during the opening track ".Execute."
  • Also note that the title track is the final song on the album.
• Angrish: Not a completely straight example, but the sheer rage present in some of the songs can cause Taylor to mumble or become incomprehensible. Can overlap with Careful with That Axe.
• Anti-Love Song: "Snuff" from All Hope Is Gone.
• Based on a True Story: "Purity", or so Taylor thought. (The story turned out to be a hoax.)
• Cluster F-Bomb: Slipknot and Iowa were rife with cursing. In contrast, All Hope is Gone had just enough to earn a Parental Advisory label, and The Subliminal Verses was almost curse-free due to Taylor getting tired of claims that he couldn't write lyrics without profanities.
• Everything Is an Instrument: Crahan + baseball bat + beer keg = instant percussion. Also, in one scene in the 10th anniversary DVD, Crahan is shown walking down a hallway dropping a metal pipe on the floor in a rhythmic pattern.
• Evil Laugh: ...near the end of "[sic]".
• Fandom Nod: "Pulse of the Maggots".
• Heavy Mithril: Occasionally.
• "I Am" Song: "Eeyore"

"I AM THE GREAT BIG MOUTH!!!"

• Last-Note Nightmare
• Loudness War: The Subliminal Verses.
• Metal Scream
• Mohs Scale of Rock and Metal Hardness: Softer songs a 6, softest songs a 5 and most songs a 7-8. On a bad day (in other words, good) they'll write something in the range of 9.
• Murder Ballad: "Iowa", a Serial Killer's ode to his first victim.
• Number of the Beast: "The Heretic Anthem" starts with an electronic voice counting "8, 7, 6, 6, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0...", then continues throughout the chorus.

If you're 555 then I'm 666!

• Obsession Song: Both versions of "Vermilion", although more so the first. Also: "The Nameless", "Iowa", "The Virus Of Life" as well, in a somewhat...rape-ier kind of way. Not to mention "Gehenna" on All Hope is Gone, as well as "Prothestics" on the self-titled album. Corey enjoys writing about obsession.
  • "Danger, Keep Away" although it's kind of hard to tell from the Indecipherable Lyrics.
• Psycho Strings
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Taylor likes to do this a lot.
• Pure Is Not Good: "Purity"
• Purple Prose/Meaningless Meaningful Words: Throughout the band's body of work, you'll sometimes find unusual lyrical choices placed awkwardly in the middle of a song otherwise made up of simpler language, almost as if Corey Taylor skimmed through a dictionary, found a word he liked and decided to incorporate it into the song somehow.
  • Taylor acknowledges and confronts this in the Stone Sour song, "Freeze Dry Seal", admitting that while he may not be a flowery poet, that doesn't make his lyrics (and his beliefs) any less real. Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped at its best.
• Soprano and Gravel: Taylor switches between clean singing and hardcore shouting à la Phil Anselmo in most songs.
• Spoken Word in Music
• Surprisingly Gentle Song: Obsession Song or not, "Vermillion Pt. 2" is a very slow and gentle track that those more familiar with the band's nu-metal side and aggressive reputation would not have expected. Also, "Circle" and "Snuff".

Their music videos provide examples of:

• Animated Music Video: One of the two versions of "Wait and Bleed".
• The Cameo: Malcolm McDowell as the desk clerk in "Snuff".
• Crossdresser: The Reveal in "Snuff" - Taylor's character is dressed like his former lover.
• Forced Perspective: The video for "Dead Memories" uses this to make the already-huge Thomson Hagrid-sized against Taylor.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: One possible interpretation of the video for "Dead Memories"; it could also be a Disney Acid Sequence, but with less Disney and more acid.
• Performance Video: "Wait and Bleed" (live version), "Spit It Out", "Left Behind", "Duality", "Before I Forget", "Psychosocial", "Sulfur"
• Shout-Out: "Spit It Out", to The Shining.
• The Un-Reveal: "Before I Forget"; the band is in street clothes and unmasked, but you never see their full faces.