In a recent interview with Kerrang Magazine, SLIPKNOT percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan talked about the band’s upcoming studio album, which is due out on August 9 as the follow-up to 2014’s .5: The Gray Chapter.
The musician said:
“I would have to say [the new album is] like discovering Slipknot all over again – but the way it always needed to be. I’m not a fan of the sound quality of our first album, because there’s a noise in my head.
“I’m not speaking for anybody else here, and I’m not trying to take anything away, so, please, don’t f*ck up my words here! The bottom line is, for me, there’s a noise in my head that’s constantly going as I grow old.
“When I started the band, I was 26 years old, okay? I’m going to be 50 in September, and the noise changes. So this album is like… not being given another chance, because we don’t need a chance. We’re here.
“But this album is like discovering us all over again as older human beings. You got a certain sort of war in ’98, and now you’re going to get another war in 2019.
“No albums are better or worse than each other, and they’re all important to our legacy, and our story. But what I’m trying to tell you is: that first album is like being smacked in the face with a garbage can, or a bat. It’s a f*cking assault on your soul.
“With this album, because I don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring, I have to look at this being it. Every time we come out, people are like, ‘What’s Slipknot going to do? Who are they going to be?’ And I really feel this is like me coming out again.
“I can’t explain it. But it’s like discovering us all over again. We’re back to help the new generation discover it like they first did in ’98.”
Band’s latest album, .5: The Gray Chapter, was released in Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands on October 17, 2014, the UK on October 20, 2014 and in North America on October 21, 2014.
It is the first studio album by the band in six years and the first not to feature founding bassist Paul Gray and longtime drummer Joey Jordison due to the death of Gray in 2010 (the title of the album being a reference to his name), and the departure of Jordison in late 2013.
