Corey Taylor Reveals That Slipknot’s New Drummer and Bassist Will Wear Identical Masks

We still don’t know who the new drummer in Slipknot is, but we do know this: the poor dude’s importance to the band, such as it may be, is gonna be greatly downplayed.

Blabbermouth reports that during a new interview with Full Metal Jackie, vocalist Corey Taylor revealed plans for the masks of the new drummer and bassist (because apparently Donnie Steele is no longer with the band):

“We wanted to make something that still looked unified but still stayed with the spirit of what the band is all about. Instead of trying to find something that was individualistic, we designed — well, [percussionist] Clown designed a mask that the drummer and the bass player will both wear. On one hand, they get a mask, but at the same time, it’s not the individual mask that we in the band use. We knew that any attempt to do anything like that might be taken as disrespectful, but at the same time it’s part of the way of moving, getting past the hardest steps, which is just moving on. So, we decided that we would come up with a mask that works for both the bassist and the drummer and that’s what they’ll wear on stage.”

I understand Taylor’s/the band’s reasoning, but I still think this is a bad idea. In 2010, I wrote at length about why I thought it was such a mistake for Mushroomhead to wear identical masks:

“I don’t know which one of those dudes is the guitar player, or the bassist, or the drummer, or the whatever the fuck. So now you’re really depending on the unit to get famous — you won’t have a Mustaine or a Maynard or a Pick Your Huge Personality for kids to latch onto. No ‘Pig Benis’ posters hanging on any walls. Probably less likely to get singled out in music dork magazines, too. And kids like to have heroes, you fucking dirty socialists, so join the capitalist American system already and get some masks that don’t all look identical to each other.”

In fact, Mushroomhead have since added some more variance to the design of their masks.

Now, Slipknot are obviously in a different position than Mushroomhead were — for one thing, they’re already a massive success, and these line-up changes don’t look like they’re gonna change that. Still… why not give the new members their own personalities? Remember how many kids worship Joey Jordison? Wouldn’t it ultimately be beneficial to the band to let the maggots worship the new drummer? Wasn’t it kinda cool back in the day when KISS let Vinnie Vincent and Eric Carr have their own make-up designs?

Hm. Honestly never thought I’d spend this much time writing about the masks in Slipknot.

ANYWAY, chime in below. Do you think this decision is wise? Unwise? Neutral? Psychosocial? Sound off…