The question of who truly initiated SLIPKNOT has long been a subject of intrigue and speculation among fans and music enthusiasts alike. At the forefront of this debate stands Shawn “Clown” Crahan, one of SLIPKNOT‘s founding members, whose recent statements have ignited fresh discussions about the band’s origins.
“There’s all these real misunderstandings about who started the band or whatever,” he continued. “And the bottom line is it was Andy Rouw [a.k.a. Anders Colsefni, vocals], the original singer, myself and Paul [Gray, bass]. But Andy ended up leaving really early in the game. And so once we were signed, it was just basically Paul and I… I’m here to tell you my friend Paul Gray was at my wedding three years prior [to] he and I and Andy starting the band. And that’s that.
“And so I had family. I had two kids at that moment. When Paul came to the wedding, we were eight months pregnant walking down the aisle. He had L.A. County Jail pants on, peroxide hair, pack of Marlboros, totally the realest person at my wedding besides close, close family. But you skip forward and then we start the band and then a year or so after starting the band, we get pregnant and have our third child, and we have that child before we’re signed. So, we have three children and lots of work raising children. And I’ve been married now five, six, seven years — three years before we even started the band, so everybody needs to kind of figure it out about reality of what sacrifice really is.”
“First and foremost, I made a decision to take a pretty selfish path. I can say that,” he continued. “We’ve lost a child. When something as horrendous and unexplainable as that is, you look back on your path and you realize the decisions you made, and it’s not too hard to realize the ones that were bad decisions real quick, when you don’t get to say goodbye to someone or hello to someone again. So moving forward through those sorts of thoughts, making agreements, saying goodbye to kids, buses leaving, these sorts of things, and promising my wife we would always make sure it was moving forward. And here 25 years [later], we’re just relevant and it hasn’t stopped. It’s pretty amazing. I’m blessed.”
Shawn’s daughter, Gabrielle Crahan, passed away in Los Angeles on May 18, 2019, with Shawn publicly announcing her death the subsequent day. At 22 years old, Gabrielle was one of four children born to Shawn and his wife, Chantel, whom he wedded in June 1992.
