Slipknot Trivia
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100 free Slipknot trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Slipknot came out of a Des Moines metal scene where the same handful of musicians kept swapping bands, a self-financed demo released on Halloween 1996, and late-night planning sessions at a Sinclair gas station where Joey Jordison worked nights. By 1999 nine masked, numbered members were on Ozzfest and the debut became the first platinum album in Roadrunner Records history. These 100 questions cover the whole story: the Pale Ones and Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat., Ross Robinson and the Malibu sessions, Iowa's 15-minute title track, Rick Rubin and The Mansion, the Grammy for "Before I Forget", Paul Gray's death and the .5: The Gray Chapter tribute, Knotfest, Tortilla Man, Eloy Casagrande and the catalog sale. Plus the masks, the numbers, the side projects and the influences from Kiss to Mr. Bungle. Every answer is cited to a page we checked. Play in sets of ten or print the list.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Slipknot formed in 1995 in which Iowa city?
Des Moines
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.
Q 02Under what name did Slipknot's founders start the band in September 1995?
The Pale Ones
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.
Q 03The name Slipknot was borrowed from what?
One of their own songs
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.
Q 04Much of Slipknot's early planning happened at what kind of business where Jordison worked nights?
A gas station
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.
Q 05What was the title of Slipknot's self-released 1996 demo album?
Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.
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.
Q 06Slipknot recruited singer Corey Taylor in 1997 from which other Iowa band?
Stone Sour
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.
Q 07What nickname does Slipknot give its fans?
Maggots
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.
Q 08Which producer offered to record Slipknot's debut after watching them rehearse in Iowa in 1998?
Ross Robinson
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.
Q 09Slipknot recorded their self-titled debut at Indigo Ranch Studios in which California town?
Malibu
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.
Q 10Slipknot's first tour, in 1999, was as part of which touring festival?
Ozzfest
Ozzfest hugely expanded their audience; the self-titled album followed on June 29, 1999.
Q 11Which Slipknot album was certified triple platinum in 2025, making it the band's best seller?
The 1999 debut
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.
Q 12Which Slipknot single lost the 2001 Best Metal Performance Grammy to Deftones' "Elite"?
Wait and Bleed
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.
Q 13Which track was pulled from Slipknot's debut album, with "Frail Limb Nursery", after a copyright claim?
Purity
Q 21Which Slipknot video did the band's label call the best music video in its history?
Duality
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.
Q 22For "Vermilion" in 2004 and 2005, Slipknot's members wore special masks made from what?
Casts of their own faces
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.
Q 23Slipknot's first concert album, released in 2005, was titled what?
9.0: Live
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.
Q 14Which animal appears on the cover of Slipknot's 2001 album Iowa?
A goat
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.
Q 15Slipknot recorded Iowa at which Los Angeles studio?
Sound City
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.
Q 16Which Slipknot single appeared on the soundtrack of the 2002 film Resident Evil?
My Plague
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.
Q 17During Slipknot's 2002 hiatus, drummer Joey Jordison formed which horror-punk band with Wednesday 13?
Murderdolls
Murderdolls put the drummer on guitar instead; Scar the Martyr, Vimic and Sinsaenum were projects Jordison started more than a decade later.
Q 18Under what name did Slipknot's turntablist, number 0, perform as a solo DJ?
DJ Starscream
DJ Starscream takes its name from a Transformers villain; under it he built a following in Japan's jungle scene between Slipknot tours.
Q 19Which producer made Slipknot's Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) at The Mansion in Los Angeles?
Rick Rubin
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.
Q 20Slipknot won their first Grammy, for Best Metal Performance in 2006, with which song?
Before I Forget
Before I Forget came with a teasing video: the band performs without masks, but the camera never shows a whole face.
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.
Q 24Which Slipknot album was the first to debut at number one on the Billboard 200?
All Hope Is Gone
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.
Q 25Slipknot's 2008 album was recorded at Sound Farm Studio in which Iowa town?
Jamaica
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.
Q 26Which acoustic-led 2008 track has been called Slipknot's attempt at a power ballad?
Snuff
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.
Q 27How did Slipknot appear at a press conference the day after bassist Paul Gray died?
Unmasked
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.
Q 28Which original Slipknot guitarist returned in 2011 to play bass on tour, hidden from the audience?
Donnie Steele
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.
Q 29Slipknot's 2012 greatest-hits compilation was titled what?
Antennas to Hell
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.
Q 30Slipknot's first Knotfest, in August 2012, was held in Iowa and which other state?
Wisconsin
Wisconsin hosted the second night, in Somerset, a day after the Iowa opener; both shows also unveiled a Slipknot museum.