The tail end of last year wasn’t among the highlights of Slipknot’s seven-year career.
Although the band’s third album, Iowa, dropped in late August, prompting maggots everywhere to rejoice, tragedy struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon a couple of weeks later, temporarily curbing fans’ elation and fostering an environment in which songs such as “Everything Ends” and “I Am Hated” weren’t among the most welcome.
Factor in the bad news that percussionist Clown’s wife had taken ill, and that the band was touring in the midst of a slumping economy, and the bulb-nosed performer wasn’t the happiest of harlequins.
Clown, therefore, thought it essential to create “Disasterpieces,” Slipknot’s first official home video, to share what it’s like to be a member of one of the most animated and unruly mobs in rock. The home video was released Tuesday.
“We wanted to document this age in our career,” Clown said, “and show the world how far we’d come in such a short period of time.”
“Slipknot is some serious sh-,” he added. “People want to make fun of it, and talk their talk – then come live it. Come be this and understand. It’s been a hard year for us.”
As the one responsible for Slipknot’s visual presentation, Clown knew that simply slapping some concert clips together with a few music videos and snippets from an interview wouldn’t suffice. “Disasterpieces” had to be as multifaceted and involved as its subjects.
“The most important thing was that we put together a team that was creative for the art,” he said. “This was an opportunity for a band that has never been represented correctly because we’ve only had two cameras and there’s nine guys in the band. Slipknot’s such a multilayered world that you can’t capture it with one or two [cameras].”
More than 30 cameras, including tiny microphone cameras some members wore atop their heads, were used to capture the band’s performance at England’s London Arena in February, when more than 12,000 fans came out to see Slipknot tear through “People = Sh-,” “My Plague” and the rare “Purity,” among other tunes. The two-disc DVD set also includes all of their videos and an animated version of “Wait and Bleed.”
“I’m one of the artists in the world today, moving for tomorrow and constantly trying to push the envelope and reinvent one’s self,” Clown said rather immodestly. “And I feel I’ve done this with ‘Disasterpieces.’ ”
Although guitarist Jim Root and singer Corey Taylor will be overseas with Stone Sour until late February, and drummer Joey Jordison and his Murderdolls side project Down Under through early February, the remaining six Slipknot members will begin to put ideas together for an Iowa follow-up after the holidays.
Because each member, – the moonlighters included – has been individually forging ideas, Clown couldn’t predict what the next album, which he expects to drop before the end of next year, will sound like. He’d only venture to say that personally he’s changed, and he doesn’t just mean the new mask he’ll be sporting next time around.
“We haven’t decided what the next way is. People need to understand, when you’re a band like Slipknot… Look at all the music that’s out today. Look at what everyone’s doing. I can’t be any of it.”
Clown also said he and other members have spoken with Rick Rubin about producing the new Slipknot album, though the man behind albums by artists ranging from Slayer to the Beastie Boys to Johnny Cash has yet to make any commitments.
“Slipknot’s on an evolutional journey…. When Iowa got done, hopefully everyone looked at it and saw a growth. You could tell that, in their brains, Slipknot is growing. That’s what I want from Rick. I want to go to the next place.”