On the 29th of June 1999, it is officially started !!
The band, which is made up of a bunch of talented people with behavioral disorders and self-destruction but are full of motivation, has officially started.
Today, 23 years ago, the band Slipknot's debut album was released.
Let us tell you how it all started...
It all started in the mid-90s, in a remote town called Des Moines which is the capital of the state of Iowa. At night, when everyone had already gone to bed, three guys, Paul Gray, Shawn Crahan, and Joey Jordison, sat at the gas station where Joey worked and started writing history. The three members who formed the core of the band began working on materials to create a demo album with which they would be able to expose themselves to the audience through radio stations.
Since they did not have a recording contract or support from any record company, they did it all by themselves. They went into the "SR Audio" studio in their city to seek their fortune. Even then they were known for the insane energy and display they would hit the stage at shows, so they tried to express that talent on the album as well and recorded it all live with analog devices without digital intervention.
The cost of the demo is estimated at about $ 40,000 which they financed with their own money. After hard work, problems with mixes, and the production of the album, the first demo of the band called "Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat" was released in October 1996.
The demo album included Anders Colsefini on vocals, Donnie Steele, Mick Thomson, and Josh Brainard on guitars, Paul Gray on bass, Shawn Crahan on percussion, Joey Jordison on drums, and Craig Jones on electronics. After finishing most of the recordings, guitarist Donny left the band.
The band distributed the demo by themselves and tried to get air time on local radio stations but without success. No radio station played their songs seriously enough to create interest from any record company.
Following the failure of the demo album, the members decided to recalculate their route and enlisted singer Corey Taylor in place of Anders, in order to give the songs a more melodic sound. They went back to the studio and tried to develop the materials they had in order to create slightly more melodic and digestible songs. In early 1998 the band recorded their second demo (unfortunately, we do not have much information about it), a demo specifically designed for record companies and included five songs composed of only new material. One of the most notable songs on the album was "Spit It Out", with the help of the band's manager Sophia John managed to get the support of producer Ross Robinson (Korn, Limp Bizkit, The Blood Brothers). Ross listened to the album and signed the band to his independent label.
Recalculating their route was a successful move, the band received a lot of attention from the record companies, and with Ross' help, they finally signed a seven-album contract with the record company "Roadrunner Records". By the way, the band has released all of their albums to date with the same record label.
With a record contract in their pocket, happy and joyful, the members moved to Malibu, California, and began working at "Indigo Ranch Studios", on their debut album produced by Ross Robinson.
The recordings were aggressive and insane. Ross who very quickly recognized the advantage of the band in the madness they bring to the performances, wanted to recreate it in the studio. This time too, similar to the demo album, everything was done in an analog manner, in contrast to the proliferation of the use of Pro Tools, which was growing at the time. Although the part of the drums was recorded in only three days, the recordings of the other parts of the album took longer. During the Christmas break, the members returned to their hometown for a light rest but then they returned to the studio minus guitarist Josh Brainard, Josh was replaced by Jim Root and joined by DJ Sid Wilson.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are honored to present to you........ Slipknot!!
(Photo: Slipknot PR)
This album introduced the world to the hallucinatory and frightening composition of nine members, all dressed in industrial overalls and all wearing horrible masks, fear, and anxiety are the pair of words that come to mind in the face of the album cover image. This is how Slipknot was introduced to the world !!
They exploded when the Nu-Metal genre warmed its ground and was the object of admiration around the world. True, the bands around were rough, tough, and heavy but they were not "Slipknot" !!
They were the angry, mentally ill, twisted, and unexpected siblings of the same genre, it was and still will be Extreme Metal !!
With this album, they pushed the boundaries of metal to the limit and redefined the concept of "intensity" in the world of music.
And these are the band members who were part of the same album and started Slipknot's career:
(#8) Corey Taylor – vocals
(#7) Mick Thomson – guitars
(#6) Shawn "Clown" Crahan – percussion, backing vocals
(#5) Craig "133" Jones – samples, media
(#4) Jim Root – guitars
(#3) Chris Fehn – percussion, backing vocals
(#2) Paul Gray – bass, backing vocals
(#1) Joey Jordison – drums, mixing
(#0) Sid Wilson – turntables
This is how it looked in the same year the debut album came out:
We invite you now to look for an isolated place, turn up the volume, hold tight, and click on the link: Spotify, Apple Music