100 Fun Facts About Slipknot

Slipknot formed in 1995 in which Iowa city?

Des Moines hosted the band's first show in late 1995, a benefit gig billed under the name Meld before they had settled on Slipknot.

Under what name did Slipknot's founders start the band in September 1995?

The Pale Ones didn't last: the group played its first show months later billed as Meld, and by the end of 1995 it had taken the name Slipknot.

The name Slipknot was borrowed from what?

One of their own songs: Joey Jordison suggested borrowing the title in late 1995, and the track "Slipknot" was later rewritten as "(sic)" for their debut album.

Much of Slipknot's early planning happened at what kind of business where Jordison worked nights?

A gas station: Jordison worked the night shift at a Sinclair garage, and it was in late-night sessions there with Paul Gray and Shawn Crahan that he proposed the name Slipknot.

What was the title of Slipknot's self-released 1996 demo album?

Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. came out on Halloween 1996 and cost the band an estimated $40,000 of their own money, yet it drew no interest from record labels.

Slipknot recruited singer Corey Taylor in 1997 from which other Iowa band?

Stone Sour lost its frontman because Slipknot wanted more melodic vocals; Taylor says he wrote the debut album's lyrics in the bathroom of the adult shop where he worked.

What nickname does Slipknot give its fans?

Maggots, says Shawn Crahan, because maggots deal with the worst of life, then grow wings and come back, just as fans return years later with children of their own.

Which producer offered to record Slipknot's debut after watching them rehearse in Iowa in 1998?

Ross Robinson, who had produced Korn's debut, stayed on for Slipknot's second album and returned to the studio a day after fracturing his back in a dirt-bike crash.

Slipknot recorded their self-titled debut at Indigo Ranch Studios in which California town?

Malibu's Indigo Ranch saw a lineup change mid-album: guitarist Josh Brainard quit over the Christmas break, and Jim Root joined in time to record one final track.

Slipknot's first tour, in 1999, was as part of which touring festival?

Ozzfest hugely expanded their audience; the self-titled album followed on June 29, 1999.

Which Slipknot album was certified triple platinum in 2025, making it the band's best seller?

The 1999 debut peaked at only number 51 on the Billboard 200 but kept selling for decades, overtaking later Slipknot albums that entered the chart at number one.

Which Slipknot single lost the 2001 Best Metal Performance Grammy to Deftones' "Elite"?

Wait and Bleed also won Best Single at the 2000 Kerrang! Awards; in its claymation video, nine tiny doll versions of the band outwit and kill the man hunting them.

Which track was pulled from Slipknot's debut album, with "Frail Limb Nursery", after a copyright claim?

Purity took its name from a website's tale of a kidnapped girl, Purity Knight, that Corey Taylor took for real; when the site claimed copyright, the song was cut and stayed off the album for a decade.

Which animal appears on the cover of Slipknot's 2001 album Iowa?

A goat named Eeyore, like the hidden track on the band's debut; Shawn Crahan devised the image, and the goat became one of Slipknot's emblems.

Slipknot recorded Iowa at which Los Angeles studio?

Sound City in Van Nuys is where Nirvana made Nevermind; when it closed as a commercial studio in 2011, Dave Grohl bought its mixing console and made a documentary in tribute.

Which Slipknot single appeared on the soundtrack of the 2002 film Resident Evil?

My Plague was remixed for the soundtrack as the "New Abuse Mix", and its video cut scenes from the film into footage of the band on stage in London.

During Slipknot's 2002 hiatus, drummer Joey Jordison formed which horror-punk band with Wednesday 13?

Murderdolls put the drummer on guitar instead; Scar the Martyr, Vimic and Sinsaenum were projects Jordison started more than a decade later.

Under what name did Slipknot's turntablist, number 0, perform as a solo DJ?

DJ Starscream takes its name from a Transformers villain; under it he built a following in Japan's jungle scene between Slipknot tours.

Which producer made Slipknot's Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) at The Mansion in Los Angeles?

Rick Rubin made only this one album with them; Corey Taylor later complained that the producer was hardly ever in the studio while it was recorded.

Slipknot won their first Grammy, for Best Metal Performance in 2006, with which song?

Before I Forget came with a teasing video: the band performs without masks, but the camera never shows a whole face.

Which Slipknot video did the band's label call the best music video in its history?

Duality topped the label's list of its ten greatest videos; it was shot in a fan's house, which the crowd wrecked, and the family later sent the band a list of things to replace.

For "Vermilion" in 2004 and 2005, Slipknot's members wore special masks made from what?

Casts of their own faces became "death masks", which the band put on in place of its usual masks to play the song on the Vol. 3 tour.

Slipknot's first concert album, released in 2005, was titled what?

9.0: Live opens with a prank: a recorded announcement tells the crowd that the band will not be performing, staged to whip the audience into a fury.

Which Slipknot album was the first to debut at number one on the Billboard 200?

All Hope Is Gone won on a recount: Billboard first gave the week to The Game's LAX by 13 copies, then corrected the count to put Slipknot ahead by 1,134.

Slipknot's 2008 album was recorded at Sound Farm Studio in which Iowa town?

Jamaica, Iowa, was chosen because Los Angeles had too many distractions; it was the first album the band made at home, and Corey Taylor drove back to see his son every night.

Which acoustic-led 2008 track has been called Slipknot's attempt at a power ballad?

Snuff was written about the end of Corey Taylor's first marriage, a time he calls one of the heaviest of his life; he says he never expected the band to use the song.

How did Slipknot appear at a press conference the day after bassist Paul Gray died?

Unmasked, all eight surviving members sat beside Gray's brother and his pregnant widow in May 2010 and paid tribute to him, taking no questions.

Which original Slipknot guitarist returned in 2011 to play bass on tour, hidden from the audience?

Donnie Steele had quit within months of the band forming, with spiritual doubts about its lyrics; fifteen years later he stood in for his late friend from a spot behind the drum kit.

Slipknot's 2012 greatest-hits compilation was titled what?

Antennas to Hell was the band's first release after Paul Gray's death; Shawn Crahan called it less a greatest hits than a tribute to what Slipknot were when the songs were made.

Slipknot's first Knotfest, in August 2012, was held in Iowa and which other state?

Wisconsin hosted the second night, in Somerset, a day after the Iowa opener; both shows also unveiled a Slipknot museum.

How did drummer Joey Jordison respond when Slipknot announced his departure in December 2013?

He denied quitting: Jordison wrote that the news had shocked and blindsided him, and that he would never abandon the band that had been his life for 18 years.

Which neurological disease did Joey Jordison reveal in 2016 had cost him the ability to drum late in his Slipknot years?

Transverse myelitis is a rare inflammation of the spinal cord; Jordison said it took the use of his legs, and that he fought his way back through the gym and therapy.

What is the name of the star-shaped emblem that represents the bond between Slipknot's members?

Nonagram means a nine-pointed star, a match for the band's classic nine-man lineup; the members designed it in their earliest days as a symbol of unity.

How did fans work out in 2014 that Slipknot's new masked bassist was Alessandro Venturella?

A unique hand tattoo gave him away despite the hood and mask; Corey Taylor joked that the band had thought of everything except making its new bassist wear gloves.

Which drummer joined Slipknot in 2014 and was replaced by Eloy Casagrande a decade later?

Jay Weinberg, son of Bruce Springsteen's drummer Max Weinberg, had filled in for his father on an E Street Band tour at 18 before he ever put on a Slipknot mask.

Which Slipknot percussionist sued the band in March 2019 and was dismissed days later?

Chris Fehn claimed he had just discovered that bandmates had set up side companies collecting Slipknot's money, from which he said he had never received a dime.

What nickname did fans give the unidentified percussionist who joined Slipknot in 2019?

Tortilla Man stayed officially nameless for nearly three years, though fans had long since worked out that he was Michael Pfaff, a keyboardist from one of Shawn Crahan's side bands.

Slipknot's "Unsainted" was the lead single from which 2019 album?

We Are Not Your Kind takes its title from a lyric in "All Out Life", a 2018 single that was then left off the album everywhere but Japan.

Which 2019 Slipknot single's video used clips and audio from the Amazon series The Boys?

Solway Firth, named after the inlet between England and Scotland, got a video co-produced with Amazon that cut the band's festival shows with gory scenes from the series.

Which longtime Metallica producer also produced Slipknot's 2014 and 2019 albums?

Greg Fidelman had engineered and mixed Vol. 3 years earlier; in 2019 Corey Taylor called him that record's unsung hero, saying its credited producer was hardly ever there.

The End, So Far, released in September 2022, was Slipknot's last album for which label?

Roadrunner had been the band's only label for more than two decades; ahead of the album, Shawn Crahan said the coming split made him "feel free", and "Bone Church" followed as a farewell single.

Which Slipknot member joined in 1996 as a guitarist before moving to samples?

Craig Jones replaced a departing guitarist, but before the year was out he had moved to samples and keyboards, and Mick Thomson took over the guitar spot he left.

Eloy Casagrande, confirmed as Slipknot's drummer in 2024, was previously in which band?

Sepultura lost him in February 2024, on the eve of its farewell tour; soon after, fans spotted the name "Eloy" in the metadata of Slipknot's anniversary promo files.

Which longtime Slipknot member did the band announce it had parted ways with in August 2026?

Sid Wilson had been the band's DJ since 1998; TMZ reported his removal in late July, and the band's own post confirming the split was deleted soon after it went up.

Slipknot says its masks began with what object Shawn Crahan brought to early rehearsals?

A clown mask that Crahan wore to rehearsals gave him his stage name, Clown, and by late 1997 the band had decided every member would wear a mask of his own.

What number is Corey Taylor designated within Slipknot?

#8 was the singer's own pick: Shawn Crahan recalls him claiming it with the words "I want eight, infinity", the figure being an infinity sign stood upright.

Corey Taylor calls which singer, whose 1990 MTV awards performance inspired him to make music, his biggest influence?

Mike Patton fronted Faith No More that night, and Taylor says he wouldn't be here without it; Patton's other band, Mr. Bungle, wore masks on stage years before Slipknot.

Slipknot's Shawn Crahan made his directorial debut with which 2016 feature film?

Officer Downe stars Kim Coates as a cop who is resurrected each time he dies to keep fighting crime; Crahan, long the director of Slipknot's videos, gave Corey Taylor a cameo.

Corey Taylor's debut solo album, released in 2020, was titled what?

CMFT abbreviates his name around his favourite onstage profanity; the genre-hopping album mixes newly written songs with ones he started as a teenager.

Besides their masks, what matching outfit is Slipknot's trademark stage wear?

Jumpsuits came first: Shawn Crahan says he started wearing coveralls, the others followed, and the uniform led to the idea of giving every member a number.

Slipknot sued which fast-food chain in 2005 over Coq Roq, a masked band invented for its chicken adverts?

Burger King hit back with a countersuit arguing that plenty of bands wear masks, and the dispute ended with both the adverts and the lawsuits withdrawn.

Slipknot's 2008 album only claimed America's number one spot after a recount against which rapper's album LAX?

The Game looked to have won the week by 13 copies until a recount twelve hours later put Slipknot ahead by 1,134.

Slipknot's 2019 album debuted at number one in Britain, ending which pop star's four-week run at the top?

Ed Sheeran's No.6 Collaborations Project was denied a fifth straight week at the summit, and Slipknot had a British chart-topper for the first time in eighteen years.

Slipknot's video for Spit It Out, pulled from MTV for its violence, restages scenes from which 1980 horror film?

The Shining gave every member a part: Corey Taylor plays Jack Torrance and smashes through a door with an axe, while Joey Jordison plays young Danny.

Joey Jordison drummed most of which band's 2004 English festival set after its own drummer was hospitalised that day?

Metallica hailed him as the hero of the day: with Lars Ulrich in hospital, Jordison played eight of the set's thirteen songs.

What did Corey Taylor deliberately leave out of Slipknot's Vol. 3 lyrics after critics claimed he relied on it?

Profanity is almost absent from the 2004 album, so its standard edition carried no explicit-content warning label.

Which farm animal, reportedly named Eeyore, stares out from the cover of Slipknot's 2001 album Iowa?

A goat fills the sleeve, and the animal kept its starring role: Shawn Crahan later directed a film about the Iowa era and simply titled it Goat.

Corey Taylor supplied the roar of an alien warlord called the Fisher King in a 2015 episode of which BBC series?

Doctor Who had been a favourite of his since childhood, and the offer came after Slipknot were invited to tour the show's exhibition in Cardiff.

How did Slipknot's eight surviving members appear at a press conference the day after Paul Gray died in 2010?

Without their masks, the eight sat beside Gray's widow and brother at a live press conference held the day after their bassist died.

Joey Jordison said which band's 1975 live album, released the year he was born, blew his mind as a child?

Kiss shaped Slipknot's look as much as its sound: Jordison said the figures on the Alive! sleeve looked like demons to a child who had no idea they were men in make-up.

Which Iowa metal band was founded in 2018 by Corey Taylor's son Griffin and Shawn Crahan's son Simon?

Vended put Griffin Taylor on vocals, his father's job in Slipknot, and Simon Crahan behind the drum kit.

Besides masks, Slipknot's members wear which matching outfit, adopted as a jab at music-industry commercialism?

Jumpsuits led straight to the numbers: Corey Taylor said that once they all dressed alike, the members numbered themselves to say they were a product.

Alongside dives from high balconies, what did Slipknot's members notoriously do to bandmates at early shows?

They really did set each other on fire, until lawsuits and the risk of hurting people persuaded the band to tone its stunts down, as Paul Gray later explained.

In the video for which 2008 Slipknot single do the members burn the oversized purgatory masks from their photo shoots?

Psychosocial ends with the giant masks in flames because, Jim Root said, they stood for the band's ego; the clip earned Slipknot a first MTV Video Music Awards nomination.

Corey Taylor likened Look Outside Your Window, a 2008 side album by four Slipknot members, to which British band?

Radiohead was his shorthand for its melodic, arty mood; the tapes then sat unreleased for eighteen years before appearing on Record Store Day 2026.

Which Slipknot guitarist, once a guitar teacher at a local shop, has kept a hockey-style mask since joining in 1996?

Mick Thomson bought his first hockey mask in a shop and has only refined the design since, saying it already got across who he is.

Slipknot's The End, So Far topped the British chart by outselling a reissue of which late singer's Older by 340 copies?

George Michael's reissued Older had led in the midweek count, but Slipknot overtook it by the end of the week to claim a third British number one.

At which English festival in 2013 did Slipknot twice halt their headline set so a split crowd barrier could be repaired?

Download drew roughly 90,000 people for the set, and the front barricade split open under the pressure of the crowd, once in the middle of a song.

What nickname does Slipknot give its fans, a word that also names the mask on the cover of Vol. 3?

Maggots also gave the 2004 album a fan anthem, Pulse of the Maggots, whose title Knotfest later borrowed for its stages for emerging acts.

Slipknot self-released their 1996 demo album, recorded for an estimated $40,000 of their own money, on which holiday?

Halloween 1996 was the release date, but the demo won no interest from record labels, so the band went back into the studio and sought a more melodic singer.

Corey Taylor tried out to replace the departed singer of which supergroup, recording ten unreleased songs with them?

Velvet Revolver went as far as recording ten songs with him, but guitarist Slash ruled him out, saying it just was not right even though he loved him.

Corey Taylor says his grandmother introduced him to rock music through her collection of which singer's records?

Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to the 1970s filled her collection, and she later took legal custody of Taylor and helped him buy musical equipment.

At his first Slipknot gig in August 1997, Corey Taylor performed wearing what in place of a mask?

Face paint lasted a single night: the band felt the show went badly, and by his second gig in September he had a mask much like the one from the first album.

Which horror make-up legend, famed for Dawn of the Dead, created Corey Taylor's Slipknot mask for the band's 2019 album?

Tom Savini, who also created the gore for Friday the 13th and Day of the Dead, made the masks Taylor wore for the album and the tours that followed.

Which band borrowed Joey Jordison as a touring drummer in 2007 and joined Slipknot's Prepare for Hell tour in 2014?

Korn needed cover when David Silveria went on hiatus; seven years later the band joined Slipknot's North American headline tour, with King 810 opening.

Which masked band from Cleveland spent years in a feud with Slipknot, claiming the Iowans had stolen their image?

Mushroomhead formed in 1993, two years before Slipknot; Corey Taylor called the likeness a coincidence, saying neither band knew anything about the other.

Slipknot's concert film Disasterpieces was shot with 26 cameras, some fixed to the band's masks, in which European city?

London Dockland Arena hosted the 2002 show, and the mask cameras let viewers watch from a member's point of view; the DVD went quadruple platinum in America.

Jim Root is unusual among metal guitarists for favouring guitars from which American maker?

Fender gave him a signature Telecaster in 2007, and Root credits fellow guitarist John 5 with inspiring him to pick the model up.

Which animal gave Paul Gray both his Slipknot nickname and the mask he wore on the band's first album?

A pig mask stood on a stand beside a bass guitar throughout Slipknot's 2011 shows, the band's tribute to the bandmate they had lost.

Corey Taylor was mostly raised in which Iowa city, which he called a hole in the ground with buildings around it?

Waterloo is where he lived with his single mother until, as a teenager, he went to visit his grandmother and never moved back.

Which 2014 Slipknot single has a video set in an asylum, with fans in straitjackets dancing around the band?

The Devil in I also introduced the band's unnamed new bassist and drummer, who shared one near-identical mask design that set them apart from the full members.

Which Slipknot single, whose video follows a bullied boy working in a butcher shop, earned a 2002 Grammy nomination?

Left Behind lost the Best Metal Performance award to Tool's Schism, in a field that also included Black Sabbath, Slayer and System of a Down.

Which 2009 Slipknot video, the last to feature the classic nine-man lineup, shows each member submerged underwater?

Sulfur borrowed its underwater imagery from Ascension, a video installation by the artist Bill Viola, and was shot in a glass tank the members found uncomfortable.

What forced Alessandro Venturella off stage and into hospital midway through Slipknot's 2015 concert in Hartford?

Extreme dehydration made the bassist collapse; after a 20-minute pause Corey Taylor told the crowd the show would go on, and the band finished the set minus its bassist.

Before joining Slipknot on bass, Alessandro Venturella worked as touring guitar tech for Brent Hinds of which band?

Mastodon was one of several employers: the Englishman also looked after guitars for Coheed and Cambria, Architects and Fightstar, and played lead guitar in Krokodil.

Slipknot's self-titled album opens with a track titled 742617000027, digits copied from what on the band's demo?

Its barcode supplied the digits, and the short intro itself is built from guitar scratches and abstract sound samples by Craig Jones.

Slipknot's logo, drawn up by the band's members early in their career, is a star known by what name?

The nonagram is a nine-pointed star, a fitting emblem for a band that settled on nine members for more than a decade.

The Laurel Canyon mansion where Slipknot made Vol. 3 is widely, if doubtfully, said to have housed which entertainer?

Harry Houdini rented a cottage nearby in 1919, which fed the legend, and the band itself called the studio the Houdini mansion.

Which band's frontman inflamed a 1999 feud by insulting Slipknot's fans after Corey Taylor burned magazines on stage?

Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst was defending a friend whose fashion advert Taylor had burned; the two were on friendlier terms by 2010, and Durst's children were said to be Slipknot fans.

Slipknot's clothing line, launched through Hot Topic in 2008, is named after which song from the band's first album?

Tattered and Torn runs as an imprint of the band's merchandising company, though Corey Taylor pitched it as cool clothing at prices fans could afford.

Slipknot appear on screen performing I Am Hated in which 2002 action film directed by John McTiernan?

Rollerball reached cinemas in February 2002, months before internal conflicts sent the band's members off to their side projects.

Which keyboardist from Shawn Crahan's band Dirty Little Rabbits was confirmed in 2022 as Slipknot's new percussionist?

Michael Pfaff spent almost three years as an anonymous touring member, and he holds a master's degree from the New England Conservatory of Music.

During Slipknot's 2002 hiatus, Shawn Crahan sang and played guitar in which experimental rock side project?

To My Surprise released its only album in 2003 after producer Rick Rubin invited the band to record in Los Angeles; it parted ways with its label when its frontman left a year later.

Slipknot recorded Iowa at which California studio, later the subject of a 2013 documentary directed by Dave Grohl?

Sound City had hosted Nirvana a decade earlier; Slipknot's own sessions there were fraught, with the members worn down by constant touring and recording.

Under which name did the future Slipknot play their first public show, a benefit gig in November 1995?

Meld was the six-piece's stage name for that night in its hometown; within weeks the group had settled on the name that stuck.

Which 2021 Slipknot single was teased through a website bearing its own title before its live debut the day it came out?

The Chapeltown Rag takes its title from a district of Leeds; Corey Taylor used a notorious 1970s murder case there as a metaphor for how the media handles tragedy.

A two-day edition of Slipknot's Knotfest in November 2014 took the festival to which country?

Japan joined the Knotfest map two years after the festival began in the American Midwest, and has hosted further editions since.

Corey Taylor's 2011 book about being born bad or damaged good takes its main title from which religious list?

The seven deadly sins get a personal rethink in the book, whose subtitle promises to settle the argument between born bad and damaged good.

Slipknot's longtime turntablist, designated number 0, based most of his stage headgear on which protective item?

Gas masks were his starting point: his first was a British civil duty model with the front filter and the glass lenses removed.

Jim Root, one of two classic-era Slipknot members born outside Iowa, was born in which western city?

Las Vegas was Root's birthplace, while the other outsider, Paul Gray, was born in California before his family relocated to Iowa.