Press

Slipknot: Music industry is failing quickly, and that's good!

By Nikola Baras
06.21.2009
Monitor.hr


Right before the show in Zagreb we caught up with Slipknot's percussionist Shawn Crahan also known as Clown. He talked about their current tour, Slipknot and many more interesting things.

Congratulations on your two new metal-hammer awards. I heard that you went out around the city to celebrate?

Yes, we sneaked out to Mcdonald's, we went to see the cathedral and had a walk around the city center to get a sense of what Croatia is like. It was fun last night, you have a beautiful city.

Is it still exciting to play in countries that you have never visited before, considering the amount of experience that you guys have?

Honestly, sometimes it's hard to gear up. We headlined Download festival, and after that we stepped down to open up a new market. Even though it's a step down, it's a step in right direction. I'm not playing shows because of catering, dressing rooms, I'm playing shows because of music that I wanna share with other people.

Looking back in the last ten years with Slipknot, if you had the chance would you change anything?

I probably wouldn't have done it (laughs). I'm the oldest in the band, I have four kids and a wife and I missed all those years. I definately wouldn't change anything because that would have affected where we are now, we are exactly where we want to be. We wanted it to be hard because then we know we're working. We worked hard and we've never given up, It's all original members, all original concept with the same show and intensity.

Your latest album All Hope Is Gone reached No.1 in USA and other countries worldwide. Do you think that Slipknot pushed the limits and showed to other metal bands that these things are acheivable?

There is a deeper secret involved in it. I was number one 10 years ago when I left my wife and my kids in pursuit of my dream and happiness, I risked it all so I was number one ever since. We are in extreme band with extreme vision and we do it the way we want it. It's great to be No.1 because people in the music industry need to give you a hardwork credit.

A lot of fans are wondering how come you don't play more songs of AHIG?

I think it's cliche when you come out with your new record and try to pump it to sell more records. Now we have four records and we can do whatever we want with the songs, so now we wanna play more songs off the first record. We can't really agree what to play, everybody fights about it. We tried All Hope Is Gone for a while but it didn't work out. Our shows are science and unless everything fits perfectly, we move away from it.

I've seen some of your photos on your Twitter account. What got you into photography? How long have you been doing it?

I really got into photography when all these famous photographers who were hired by magazines started coming and taking pictures of our band. On those photos they made us look like ghosts and that intrigued me, so I would always ask can I have one of those cameras. I can just see what I wanna see and get a picture of it and move on. Most people don't wanna admit to themselves that they see something in my art, if you think you see it is because you do. Photography opens you up to the world around you and you take from places you don't normally take, otherwise you end up living in shit like this (tourbus).

What do you think about todays music industry?

I hate it! It's failing quickly, which is good because back in the old days, seventies, around the time of Woodstock you couldn't name fifty bands that were signed, touring and making a living out of it. That's because you had to be a great artist first, there wasnt equipment to make you better. You had to know your stuff and have a concept and vision. Death to the industry, let it fall, let the real people float to the surface and it's gonna be like that because things are changing. You gotta believe in changes, I totally believe in Itunes. It's great that you can listen to a sample and then buy just one song that you like.

Do you have some message for the maggots in Croatia?

Thanks for having us and supporting us, I'm sorry it's taken four records to get here. I hate to admit it, but it's always money. It takes a lot of money to take 35 people and a stage, before we couldn't afford it, now we can because we headline a lot of festivals. Thanks for being a maggot as far as Croatia. Stay (sic)!

As I was leaving the tourbus, I started to talk with Shawn about the unreleased songs from the AHIG recording sessions and Shawn hinted that those songs are going to be released under a new name/band, and that they are currently in mixing phase.