1995-1 (Joey Jordison)Drums1995-2013
2 (Paul Gray)Bass1995-2010
3 (Chris Fehn)Percussion1998-2019
4 (Jim Root)Guitar1999-
5 (Craig Jones)Samples1996-2023
6 (Shawn Crahan)Percussion1995-
7 (Mick Thompson)Guitar1996-
8 (Corey Taylor)Vocals1997-
9 (Sid Wilson)DJ1998-
10 (Alessandro Venturella)Bass2014-
11 (Jay Weinberg)Drums2014-2023
12 (Michael Pfaff)Percussion2019-
13 (Eloy Casagrande)Drums2024-
On stage, they wear bizarre masks and orange jumpsuits. As they changed lineups over the years, there were times when unidentified "mystery members" were on stage.
The band members are known by number, or by the type of mask they wear. For instance, percussionist Shawn Crahan is #6 and known as "Clown."
Their stage shows are extremely violent. It is common for them to break ribs from throwing their bodies around on stage.
Slipknot fans are known as "maggots," which is meant as a term of endearment. Crahan came up with the name decades ago. "I used to take photos of dead deers. Their stomachs were full of maggots," he told
The Independent. "Slipknot as a band, we deal with a lot of stuff, and I figured maggots deal with the worst stuff of all. They deal with all the death and s--t and then, at the end of it, they grow wings and turn into flies, then that fly will come back and lay an egg."
"I call fans maggots because they grow wings and they come back," Crahan added. "If we're lucky, they come back with their offspring. I've got two, three generations of maggots. It's cool."
Slipknot formed in Des Moines, Iowa in 1995 and several years later became by far the biggest band ever to emerge from that state. They're a very popular live act and have sold millions of albums.
Corey Taylor, who goes by the nickname "Faith," used to work the overnight shift at a sex shop. He was at this shop when he was asked to join Slipknot.
Their first album,
Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat, released in 1996, features original lead singer Anders Colsefni. The album was released independently and is very hard to find because not many copies were made - it doesn't even show up on streaming services. Some of the songs on that album were reworked for later album; for instance, the song "Killers are Quiet" resurfaced as "
Iowa" in 2001.
Not a lot happens in Des Moines, so it was big news in 1982 when Ozzy Osbourne
bit the head off a bat at a concert there. Joey Jordison, one of Slipknot's founding members, was 6 at the time and not at the show, but he immediately idolized Ozzy when he heard the story.
Their original lead singer was Anders Colsefni, who was with the group until 1997. There was a brief period when he and Corey Taylor were both members, but it quickly became clear that Taylor was their guy.
Shawn Crahan used to have a "dead crow" fetish. He says, "I'd bring one in a bottle to shows. I'd open the jar, and the smell would make me puke all over myself inside my mask. Then I'd offer it to the kids and they'd dip their hands into it and wipe it on their faces and they'd be puking too. It was rad."
Corey Taylor's first band was Stone Sour, which he formed in 1992 with Jim Root, who later joined Slipknot. For many years, Taylor kept both bands going; Stone Sour was most popular in 2006 when they released their album
Come What(ever) May. Their most popular song is "
Through Glass," which is from that album.
Sid is also known as DJ Starscream, and has made some of his own techno music.
In the years between Mate Feed Kill Repeat and their 1999 self-titled album, Slipknot started making an album called Crowz, which was never released or even finished. Nearly all of the tracks were never used or performed, but one of them, "Prosthetics," appears on that self-titled album.
Their 2004 album
Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses was produced by Rick Rubin, whose many other clients include System Of A Down, AC/DC and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The album is a classic but the process was difficult. Corey Taylor
put Rubin on blast, calling him "overrated" and "overpayed."
The dreads on Taylor's old dreadlock mask were real. He use to have dreadlocks and wore them through the mask, but it was too much trouble each time so he shaved his head and glued them to his mask.
Slipknot played their first gigs at Safari's, a club in Des Moines that was next to a church.
Taylor has the Japanese character for "death" tattooed on one side of his neck, and the character for "father" on the other side. This was because he never knew his father.
Chris Fehn was known as the comedian of the group, often using the 7-inch nose on his mask as a prop. Fehn, who was formerly in a band called Shed, sing backup vocals on many Slipknot songs. He left the group in 2019 after filing a lawsuit alleging he was not properly compensated.
Longtime member Craig Jones was Slipknot's samples and media guy. He was known as the "quiet" one, which is represented by the closed zipper mouth on his mask. He originally joined the band as a guitarist, and his previous mask was an old racing helmet with nails stuck through it to resemble Pinhead, a character from the horror film Hellraiser.
On May 24, 2010, Paul Gray died from an accidental overdose. After his death, the remaining members of the band spoke at a press conference, unmasked for the first time.
Slipknot drummer Jay Weinberg told
Rock Sound that he didn't know he was auditioning for the band when he first met them in 2014. "I got a call to come out and audition for something, I wasn't told what it was going to be, but just like 'can you please come out to LA and audition for this thing?'" he revealed.
"With no other information other than that, and it was like 'well yeah, why wouldn't I go check that out? What's the worst thing that could happen? I get a free flight to LA y'know?' I'm never gonna say no to some rabbit hole that's gonna present itself, unless there's like, some true conflict."
"It was basically like, 'go in that room, there's a drum set, you're gonna audition for Slipknot right now'. I feel like we did '
Before I Forget' and then '
Duality'... it was those two that we started with, and then we just went into everything else."
"They were basically like, 'alright well, it's yours if you want it. Let's get to work, let's go home for the holidays but then in the new year let's start working on a new Slipknot album.'"
Corey Taylor is a big fan of Les Misérables. He explained to Kid Cadet during an interview at the April 2018 Fort Rock festival in Fort Lauderdale, Florida'.
"It's my favorite musical. That's why I have [the] '24601' [tattoo] on my back. It's my favorite book as well. It's 'cause I always identified with that character, Jean Valjean. He came from nothing and decided that he was going to try to redefine himself and then instead kind of found himself defining himself through certain adversity, and then, at the end, really kind of coming full circle. This thing that has dogged him his whole life, trying to escape it, that definition, while also trying to find the definition of a good man. And I just thought it was incredible."
In 1999, Slipknot was booked to do an in-store signing at Rolling Stone Records in Chicago. Before the event, the band changed into their jumpsuits and masks behind a jewelry store. Someone called the cops thinking they were going to rob the joint and the police pulled out of vans at gunpoint. Once they realized what was up, they gave the band members a police escort across the street and served as security for the signing.
