Slipknot’s Clown Says New Album is Like ‘Iowa’

Slipknot claiming their next album is “like Iowa” is akin to all other bands saying their new material is “heavier,” or its close cousin, “heavier but also more melodic.” I’m pretty sure that if you go back through the press quotes as far back as All Hope is Gone (2008) you’ll find Slipknot members comparing their new stuff to Iowa… not that I have the time or motivation to actually check.

Part of that, of course, is that journalists consistently ask the question, and that’s how it went down in a recent feature with Metal Hammer. Interviewer Dannii Leivers asked percussionist M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan, “So does that mean are you making an album similar to Iowa?” And his answer was a very clear “Yes. Yes.” after which he proceeded to babble on with some of his usual gobbledygook:

“Yes. Yes. This one is a cobra in a basket. You can either know how to play the instrument, or you can take the circumstance. This is real. But you’re gonna open the basket. You’re going to play, you’re going to charm and be charmed.

The best is knowing that all of that makes 100% sense in Clown’s brain. He continued:

“What are you going to do when you’re the Clown and you’re stuck at home? I got busy writing. We got busy thinking and feeling. We got busy loving and taking it in. I had the leisure to do it in my own sanctuary and have beautiful people show up and just eat peppers from my garden after writing music.”

At least that mostly makes sense. It’s almost as if it made too much sense to start, so he had to thrown in the complete non-sequitur about peppers at the end. I’d love to eat some of Clown’s peppers, how about you?

Slipknot are currently in the studio in Los Angeles recording the follow-up to We Are Not Your Kind, released in 2019. They are also working on new masks. Slipknot will bring their own Knotfest festival to their native Iowa in September, then embark on a tour with Killswitch Engage, Fever 333 and Code Orange opening immediately thereafter.