Slipknot percussionist M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan has maintained a dominant presence throughout his run as a co-founding member of the storied Iowan band. While often perceived as a menacing agent of chaos onstage, his musical contributions, which generally consist of extracurricular percussion in the form of a baseball bat smashing a beer keg alongside some more traditional drumming, have seemingly left him with at least some degree of imposter syndrome over the years.
Of course, Clown has remained an integral figure in the group’s public persona, frequently serving as their mouthpiece and sounding board, while also overseeing the various artistic aspects of the their imagery and accompanying artwork, right down to directing their music videos. As lawsuits from past members have revealed, he is also understood to be one of the band’s shot callers alongside vocalist Corey Taylor.
However, while his contributions to Slipknot have been fundamental, stacked up against the chaos of eight other bandmates onstage, his musical contributions aren’t exactly at the forefront. In a newly published interview with Knotfest, the outspoken 55-year-old musician/artist stated, “I’ve had a hard time with the art things. It’s been harder for me to generate interest and honest desire.”
While the bulk of the outfit have traditional roles more readily apparent to the audience in a live setting, Clown‘s contributions are perhaps more amorphous. Speaking of the apparent lack of interest he finds his artistic contributions generating from the press and fans in comparison to the musical aspects of some of his bandmates, he offered:
“Then Clown comes out. If you know what the Clown is, you’re like: Where we at? Where are we at tonight, Clown? We happy? We in-between? Feel like breaking everything? But it’s not easy to understand what you’re dealing with.
So I’ve had a rough twenty-five years trying to reassure myself that anything I do is really important. Because I don’t have people asking me about my album covers. I never have people ask me about my videos. Eloy [Casagrande, Slipknot drummer] is up for drummer of the year. No-one in twenty-five years, including Modern Drummer, has asked me about the keg.”
He continued:
“I don’t know what benefit talking to people is anymore. I’m not really concentrating on all that noise anymore. You know, I like going on stage, and that’s about it.”
He later added, “I’m anti-life for 22-and-a-half hours.” It would appear that he is working through that thought process however, as he went on to offer:
“2025 I’m going to work on ‘No Complaining.’ Just not going to do it anymore. I realized my expectations are never going to be met. So I need to give myself a break. It’s probably the last part of ego I need to work on. That way I can just float. Nothing will bother me. I can just work on positive potential. We got a new album. We’re gonna start at some point. I just want to roll into that with an energy like it’s all starting again. That’s how I want to approach it.”
Later in the conversation, Crahan also spoke of the storied lost ‘Slipknot‘ album “Look Outside Your Window“. Recorded during the sessions for 2008’s “All Hope Is Gone“, only Clown and the band’s vocalist Corey Taylor, guitarist Jim Root and turntablist Sid Wilson took part in that effort, separately recording it almost as a rival faction to the rest of the band.
It has been previously described by the group as possessing a ‘Radiohead‘ vibe and is seemingly once again on track for a release. However, in this latest conversation, Clown cautioned fans that it won’t be viewed as a proper addition to the Slipknot catalog. He relayed of that:
“It was never a Slipknot album. Not while it was happening, not while I’ve held onto it for ten years, and certainly not f*ckin’ when it comes out.”
He continued:
“…We just did what you should do. We made music. Now, if any of that music could have been Slipknot, it would have been brought down [to the studio]. But that’s not where Joey wanted to go. It’s not where Paul wanted to go. It’s not where Corey wanted to go. It’s not where anyone wanted to go. We had All Hope Is Gone. So I just need people to know it’s not Slipknot at all, not even close.”
