Music Week have Slipknot‘s Corey Taylor and M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan on the cover of their latest issue alongside the band’s manager Cory Brennan. Amid the chat Crahan speaks on whether or not record sales still matter to him and how he defines success these days:
“What’s important is what’s always been important for me, and that is to be able to get the demons out and to be able to perform. I like to live through music and I like to take my pain and music and perform it in front of people who like to let out their pain and love. That’s number one. Record sales have never meant anything to me ever, and I’ll tell you why.
- Advertisement -I’m sorry I don’t know the exact fact, but I want to say it was [2008 album] ‘All Hope Is Gone‘ that finally helped [2001 record] ‘Iowa‘ to be certified platinum. Business begets business. From the time ‘Iowa‘ came out until the time it went platinum which was many, many years after, all I heard from people was that ‘Iowa‘ was the greatest metal album of all time but, fuck, it didn’t even go platinum until our fourth record. If I got caught up in record sales I would drive myself mad.”
Lest he be discussing a different territory, it would appear that Crahan‘s recollection of events may be a bit clouded though as “Iowa” was released on August 28th, 2001 and certified both gold and platinum by the RIAA on October 10th, 2001.
Later in the chat Crahan also spoke of the band’s controversial Grammy loss back in 2015 to Tenacious D‘s cover of Dio‘s “The Last In Line” [Slipknot were nominated for “The Negative One] and more. When asked what the music industry can learn from Slipknot‘s career thus far, he offered:
“I’m going to tell you, it’s easy, but I don’t know if it’s easily understood. All I know is you can walk outside your house right now and everything you see is somebody else’s idea. We live in a very, very, very fake world of safety.
When a band like Tenacious D can win a metal Grammy with a cover, I mean, you tell me what they need to learn… What act do you have at something like the Grammys that is better than Slipknot?
What you can learn from us is: ‘Why aren’t you letting us in?’ It’s because then you’d have to let more [like us] in, and then your show would change, and then your magazine would change and then your TV channel would change.
I get it, but see what I said first is that we all live in somebody’s else’s idea. What you can learn from Slipknot is this is our idea, and it’s not a very general idea to allow in because it’s very extreme. I understand that.
But if you’re not letting us in, you must not be letting a lot of stuff in, and isn’t that disservice? We perform real pain and give a real insight about human life and the experience of living reality – why are we not being invited in?
I’ll tell you why, because everybody’s comfortable with the way things are, and I’ll tell you what, man, things aren’t good. Let’s learn how we can change. You might get healed, you might find some redemption and salvation.”
Thus far Slipknot have notched up ten Grammy nominations throughout their career, taking home one: the ‘Best ‘Metal Performance’ for “Before I Forget” back in 2006.
Slipknot‘s new album “We Are Not Your Kind” will be available in stores on August 09th.
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