Slipknot Official Videos
Slipknot is an American heavy metal band from Des Moines, Iowa, formed in 1995. Slipknot consists of nine members, the current band members are Sid Wilson, Joey Jordison, Paul Gray, Chris Fehn, Jim Root, Craig Jones, Shawn Crahan, Mick Thomson, and Corey Taylor.
Each member of the band wears a unique mask.
Slipknot formed in 1995 and underwent several line-up changes following the independent release of their first demo Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. in 1996. That album featured original lead vocalist, Anders Colsefini. Their self-titled, major label debut, Slipknot, was released in 1999, featuring permanent new lead vocalist, Corey Taylor, and was followed by Iowa in 2001 and Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) in 2004. On August 25, 2008, the band returned to release their fourth studio album, All Hope Is Gone, which debuted at the top spot on the Billboard 200 charts. The band has released three DVDs, including Disasterpieces, which was certified quadruple-platinum in the United States.a
The band have stated that their primary influences include Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Judas Priest, Korn, AC/DC, Kiss and Beastie Boys.Death metal, black metal and heavy metal have been mentioned as a key influence on the band’s musical direction alongside nu metal, the category the band is generally listed as. They have also stated that they are influenced by industrial bands like Head of David, Godflesh and Skinny Puppy as well as Neurosis and jungle music like Roni Size.
Slipknot are seen as pioneers of the New Wave of American Heavy Metal developing a lean and aggressive brand of metal formed from thrash, metalcore and death metal. In this they can be compared with groups such as Pantera, Machine Head, Biohazard, Life of Agony, and Prong and are known for often chaotic and energetic live shows. The 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 diverse 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 andpsychosis. Rick Anderson of Allmusic 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.
Beginning on April 1, 2008, Slipknot’s official website began to display splash teasers to promote All Hope Is Gone. During the process there had been around 18 splash teasers, the first nine displayed the band in their new large masks, however the last seemingly showed dark figures with what seemed like ordinary size heads. During the recording of the video shoot for Psychosocial, the purgatory masks could be seen being burned in the background. In a interview with Jim Root, he said “they represent the ego of that is Slipknot”.
The band’s image has started controversy over the years. A portion 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 an “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.