MICK THOMSON Goes Over The Complicated Origins Of SLIPKNOT

The fact that a lot of bands broke up was a blessing.

View the originalSlipknot percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan recently clarified that he, bassist Paul Gray , and vocalist Anders Colsefni are the original three founding members of the band. Now in an interview with Fishman Music , Slipknot guitarist Mick Thomson breaks down how the band actually came to be.

Thomson claimed that Thomson, Gray, and Colsefni were part of a death-metal group known as Body Pit. The band later recruited Crahan who began jamming early Slipknot songs along with Gray and the Colsefnis. The trio later brought on the late and legendary Joey Jordison, who brought along guitarist Josh Brainard and sampler Craig Jones. And the rest was history and now we’re a few many decades later still listening and discussing the group!

“Before Slipknot, Paul, and Andy as well as me Andy was the original singer from Slipknot and we were in the band Body Pit, a death metal band. They just have lost the drummer. They enrolled me in the group, but the drummer and a guitarists left and we started looking for the drummer. So, we started writing songs – Paul and me. Paul as well as Donnie [Steele who was a former Slipknot bassist and guitaristand guitarist on a few songs and I even recorded some ideas on a four-track that didn’t end in a place. However, we had composed songs.

“So we were working on the same thing, and were in search of an drummer. At the time, our equipment was in the place that we were using for our practice at our singer’s home, Andy. Therefore, Clown would appear. He was familiar with Andy. Clown arrives and begins making music along with Paul and Andy playing in the basement. They were playing Body Pit stuff, really that was the place where Body Pit practiced. There wasn’t a drummer and there was a bit of in-between time before they started making music.

“And that’s how it got began. Paul along with Andy was playing together with Clown. I had no idea about Clown at all, but I had previously met him. Then Paul as well as Andy and me were all in the same room. It was just them playing with a friend of theirs. It was a separate thing; they were performing] different songs. Then we didn’t ever really… What will we locate an expert death metal drummer from Des Moines? Joey. But Joey didn’t wanna do it. However, Joey was able to perform the Slipknot thing together with Andy along with Paul as well as Clown. So, that’s the way it went. Our band died.

“See, Joey was in a band along with the other guitarist on the first album, Josh, and Craig Craig, who were our sampling players. Both were guitarists in Joey’s group. It’s similar to the way you took Paul, Andy, Joey, Josh and Craig and put them together, and then added Clown. Clown was in a way the one who was the key element on the basis that there were two bands that kind of split around him and then formed around the idea of Clown.

“So I suppose that, in a sense, it’s like two distinct bands disintegrated and then merged into one thing. We didn’t really look at the situation in that way, since it was it was just the timing and manner in which it occurred was not our intention. What’s interesting, however was that we broke another band — we disbanded Corey‘s band Stone Sourby taking him. Then we required another guitarist which is why we hired Jim Root Rootwho was in Corey‘s team to join. That’s right, it was a very intimate kind of thing. We basically went around and messed up bands of people and played the rest is shit.”