Clown Admits He Was a “Naysayer” About Revisiting Slipknot’s First Album

It’s 2025, and somehow Slipknot is still here, still wearing masks, still smashing percussion instruments like cavemen discovering fire, but also—shockingly—getting reflective about their past. Yes, you read that right: Shawn “Clown” Crahan, the band’s resident chaos conductor, actually sat down and got nostalgic.

In a recent interview with NME, Clown opened up about Slipknot’s early days, lost friends, and his initial doubts about revisiting their self-titled debut album. Here’s the part that’s got Maggots talking:

“It’s been good to do this with newer members, but I do miss Joey [Jordison, late drummer] and Paul [Gray, late bassist],” Clown told NME. “They, along with Chris [Fehn, percussionist] and Craig [Jones, sampler], were a big part of that music, so it’s been a quarter of a century of friends who have come and gone. Revisiting the debut album reminds me of what it felt like in the beginning, though. I was a bit of a naysayer about the idea at first, but the fact that we’ve been around this long and can now walk into these venues to play our first album, without having to put all the hits into it, has been mind-blowing.”

Alright, let’s unpack this.

CLOWN? HAVING DOUBTS? WHAT TIMELINE IS THIS?

Slipknot isn’t exactly known for hesitation. This is a band that built its entire reputation on full-throttle insanity, fire hazards, and absolute refusal to chill—so hearing that Clown was a “naysayer” about playing their groundbreaking 1999 debut in full is like finding out Lemmy Kilmister secretly enjoyed herbal tea. It just doesn’t compute.

But hey, turns out even Clown has his moments of existential crisis. Maybe he stared into his creepy mirror mask too long and saw the abyss staring back. Maybe the idea of playing songs written when they were broke lunatics in Iowa made him question whether they could still summon that feral, pre-international-stardom energy. Maybe he just didn’t feel like hauling around two tons of beer kegs and baseball bats for another tour.

Either way, Clown came around—and now they’re out here playing Slipknot (1999) in full, no greatest hits setlist, just pure chaos.

A BAND HAUNTED BY ITS OWN HISTORY

What really hits home in this quote is how much Clown still feels the absence of Joey Jordison and Paul Gray. That’s not surprising—Joey was one of the most insane drummers to ever sit behind a kit, and Paul was the quiet mastermind that held Slipknot together when they were just nine masked weirdos trying to convince record labels that, yes, this much noise was intentional.

But Clown doesn’t just mention Joey and Paul—he name-checks Chris Fehn and Craig Jones, both of whom were removed from the band under messy circumstances. Fehn sued Slipknot over money (classic), and Craig vanished in 2023, replaced by a literal faceless new guy (seriously, the dude has no name, just a blank black mask).

This band is like a haunted house where the ghosts keep getting replaced by newer, slightly different ghosts, and Clown is clearly aware of just how many faces have cycled through the madness. A quarter-century of friends who have come and gone—that’s a poetic way of saying, “Damn, this band has been through some serious drama.”

SLIPKNOT (1999) STILL HITS DIFFERENT

Back in 1999, Slipknot’s debut was a nuclear detonation in the metal scene. Before then, nu-metal was mostly guys in Adidas tracksuits rapping about trauma, and then Slipknot showed up like a horror movie villain kicking down the door with blast beats and pig squeals. It was unhinged. It was brutal. It was a soundtrack to getting banned from your local mall.

And now? They’re playing it live in full.

Think about that for a second—these middle-aged masked millionaires are stepping back into their own time machine, dragging those songs out of the ‘90s and smashing them into the present, in a world where music streaming makes it impossible to shock people anymore. Back then, “Surfacing” felt like a war cry—now, it’s probably on some dude’s gym playlist between Bring Me the Horizon tracks.

But Clown knows this isn’t just a nostalgia cash grab (or at least, he wants us to believe that). The fact that they’re not mixing in newer hits—no “Psychosocial,” no “Duality,” no radio-friendly bangers—shows that Slipknot is going all in on capturing that pure 1999 chaos, even if that means playing deep cuts that half the audience won’t even recognize.

WHAT’S THE VIBE?

Slipknot in 2025 is a paradox:

• They’re a legacy band now (?????), but still trying to tap into their deranged origins.
• They’re missing half their original members, but still wearing the same damn jumpsuits.
• Clown was skeptical about playing the debut album, but now he’s saying it’s “mind-blowing.”

And honestly? It kinda makes sense.

Slipknot is no longer the same band that dropped Slipknot (1999)—they’re bigger, older, angrier about different things (taxes? back pain?), but somehow they’re still leaning into their own insanity instead of just taking the easy nostalgia-tour money. That’s rare.

Maybe Clown doubted it at first because you can’t go back—not really. You can play the songs, but you can’t be the same person who wrote them when you were a pissed-off 20-something from Iowa. But here’s the thing:

Slipknot never really left 1999.

They just dragged it, screaming, into the future.

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