Slipknot’s Clown opens up behind the mask ahead of this weekend’s Knotfest in Des Moines

Slipknot // Photo Courtesy of Jonathan Weiner

Since the release of their self-titled debut in 1999, metal band Slipknot has been  known as a live act with which to reckon. From their incendiary live sets to their iconic masks, the sprawling band has acquired a legion of fans, affectionately known as “Maggots,” who make the band as much of a lifestyle as they do a fandom.

This weekend sees Slipknot’s long-running Knotfest music festival taking place in Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday, Sept. 21. In addition to being a stop on Slipknot’s own Here Comes The Pain Tour, celebrating 25 years of that self-titled debut, the festival features Till Lindemann from Rammstein, Knocked Loose, “metalcore influencers” Hatebreed and Poison the Well, GWAR, Vended, Dying Wish, Zulu, Twin Temple, Holy Wars, Swollen Teeth, Dose, and Kansas City’s own Spine.

We spoke with Slipknot drummer Clown about the history of the band, Knotfest’s curation, and stepping out from behind the mask.

The Pitch: As the sole original member of Slipknot, does that have special significance to you or is that just trivia for nerds like me?

Clown: You deal with a lot of ego throughout your career, especially if you’re an artist and a performer. I never wanted to be involved in any of that, hence coming up with wearing a mask, and I’ve never wanted to share my private world, my private feelings with the entire world.

So, 25 years later, being the person who sort of turned the key on and has maintained a certain something, I do find a lot of pride in it. It ends up being my life, right, so why should I compromise? I’m an only child, so I think I’m kind of an unusual only child, and I’m always trying to make everyone happy, and I realize that most people don’t care, and they don’t want involvement. So, these days I’m taking a real good look at who I am, what I’ve done, and trying to acknowledge for myself what I actually did in this life.

It’s more of a life thing that I’m talking to you about more than as a band leader or a culturalist, Slipknot being a culture. I’m talking about me as an individual born into this planet. I’m going to die on this planet. What did I do? Who did I touch? Did I do right? Did I do wrong? These sort of things we all deal with it.

I like that question because these days I’m dealing a lot with that: What did I contribute? What am I responsible for? What can I take credit for? What shouldn’t I take credit for? I do a lot of work on that. I really am. I just, I can’t go out like that. It’s disturbing when you really key into it. It can be disturbing.

Well, it seems like you’re willing to share a little bit more of yourself, these days. At Knotfest, you’re going to be sitting down and telling stories of your time with this band. I feel like sitting down in front of the Maggots and sharing glimpses behind the mask, as it were, that’s kind of a big deal.

It is. It’s a big deal on both parts. I could be broke down. I could be brought up, filled up, I can bring them down. Hopefully we just hold each other. These days, for me, there’s no right or wrong. I’m not talking about laws and things like that, obviously. I’m talking about when I’m put into a situation like that, there is no right or wrong. There’s just what’s best for what we’re doing.

I don’t know the energy yet. They don’t know my energy. I haven’t woken up in that day yet. Things already in the world haven’t happened yet, things in the future. We hope there’s a future. We wake up every day. Things are still going to happen up to that day that are going to change the course of my life and others. So, it is a big deal. It’s a big deal for me to take time in my day and recognize I have this thing going on.

The majority of people that will break the seal, go in, and say hello, take the chance—nine out of ten will say, in some manner, how I and the organization I’m in, the band Slipknot, how we’ve helped. We’ve heard it all. It’s all in the same category: saved my life, helped me through my life, through the worst times. I understand that. That was the band we wanted to make. Those were the fans we wanted to have. The same sort of people, the same sort of humans as us.

I study that a lot. I look at that and it is a big deal to have your own festival. It’s a big deal to headline your own festival. It’s a big deal to do a bunch of things during the festival.

How involved are you all in picking the bands that play Knotfest? This upcoming one is this great mix of people who came up in heavy music around the same time as you did, like Poison the Well and Hatebreed. You’ve got legends, like Gwar, but also new folks like Zulu and Spine. Is this a truly curated festival?

It’s all curated in thought, process, concept, love, desire, art. All departments are trying to be maximized for the fans and what would I want to do at a festival? I grew up going to Lollapalooza, watching sideshow stuff, and side bands and just beautiful, wonderful things. And then, being lucky and going around the world. All the festivals we go on, they’re just out of hand. I mean, Hellfest? Crazy, crazy festival.

It’s a real, real labor of love because I could sit here, you could go, “Give me a list,” and I could tell you 50 bands off the top of my head that I want to see. And if I want to see them, you want to see them. Because they’re the same band. They’re the up-and-coming bands that you’re wondering about. They’re the bands you don’t know anything about that you want to be happily surprised. They’re the bands that you’ve been following forever, and you can’t believe they’re out and doing a show. And then there’s the bands that are just doing it today.

What I’m getting at is, it’s a real labor of love, and you really don’t want to let the fans down because the whole purpose of having a festival is to give an entire day of that feeling. That’s the reason why I’m in this, is that feeling—to have a whole day of it is the best. When you get to leave home and you get to partake in all this culture stuff that you belong to, the main thing for the whole day is for this community of all of us and all that we’ve been through for the last, let’s just call it five years.

Things like music gatherings are still the biggest vibrations to help us go on with our lives. That’s what I hear from my fans. I’m the same way—I go to a concert, I’m good for months. It just keeps me occupied.

When you’ve been off the road for a minute, and given that Slipknot shows are so physical and you are putting everything out there every night, how do you prepare for that hour-plus that you’re on stage when you haven’t been performing every night?

This one’s going to be a little hard for people to accept or understand. This last decade, I’ve really taken a good look at myself and I really started being honest that I’m a performer musician. I keep company with some of the greatest musicians and the things that I witness and hear and see, it’s like God, right? I have to be honest with myself. My performance is so physical and I’m throwing shapes. There’s no way to prepare for it. There’s no yoga or stretching or diet. There’s only a mindset. If I let everyone else talk to me about what it takes to be the Clown or to introduce the Clown, the Clown won’t show up. It’ll just be a failure. It’s like calling what we wear costumes. I never wanted to be a circus or all-star wrestling or a horror show. Those are all their own things. Slipknot’s it’s own thing.

My discipline of who I am is a real thing. It’s probably not going to be accepted because it probably just sounds flat out stupid, but I live it, and pain’s a real thing, and what is my pain? It’s just the pain that you receive around you every day. It could be the empathy of the homeless, which is how sad that is. It could be a festering pain in one’s soul. If you’re lucky like I am and get to perform, you could render that out and even come up with ideas.

Physical part’s a big deal. It’s really starting to take its toll now. I’m 54. I’m still very young, in some sense. I’m in the best shape of my life. I’ve never been able to perform like I am now, and it’s very focused.

I guess, to help solidify an answer is that I prepare with my mind. It’s an all-day exercise. There’s a lot of things that go in to it, like eating, sleeping, and all these other things, but most of it is just space that I keep and it’s a real place.

Knotfest Iowa takes place on Saturday, September 21. Details on that show here.