In 1995, five musicians in Des Moines, Iowa formed the band Slipknot with the goal of creating innovative, aggressive music. They recruited additional members and released their debut self-titled album in 1999 to massive commercial success. Slipknot is known for their intense live performances in elaborate costumes and masks and have sold over 30 million albums worldwide, establishing themselves as one of the most influential metal bands.

1. Elliot B

2.  History…………………………………………………3
 Members……………………………………………7
 Albums………………………………………8
 Music Videos ………………………………………9
 Websites……………………………...........10

3.  1995: Shawn Crahan, Paul Gray, Kun Nong, Donnie Steele and Anders Colsefini, 5 well-
known musicians from Des Moines, Iowa, decided to start a new band. But this band was
not going to be a common band; it must be the band, the one that will **** everything up!
Anders Colsefini was, at the very beginning of Slipknot, the singer, Shawn Crahan was the
drummer, Paul Gray was playing the bass, Kun Nong was playing the guitar and Donnie
Steele was also playing the guitar. Wanting it to be perfect, they tried to recruit the best
musicians from Des Moines to complete the band.
 1996: Donnie Steele decided to leave the band because he didn’t appreciate Slipknot’s
trash metal-oriented music. A friend of Joey’s, Craig Jones, took his place. In April, Craig, a
real computer freak, chose to work on the samples while Mick Thompson, a guitar
instructor, played the guitar. The band became more and more popular every day, so
Shawn and Joey spent most of their nights talking about their projects in the garage where
Joey works. They decided to hire a manager, so they recruit a young journalist, Sophia
Jones, who supported them from the beginning. When people asked her why she decided
to be the manager of a crazy band, she answered: “Because if you ask me, Slipknot will be
playing at Ozzfest, will sell over a million albums and be on the cover front cover of Rolling
Stone!!”. “Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.” was immediately an enormous success in Des Moines.

4.  1997: While Slipknot performed at Dodfest, another festival, a young DJ named Sid Wilson, alias DJ Starscream, saw them and
loved their music. Unfortunately, the quality of the sound that day was so bad that Joey decided to leave the band after he
messed up with Shawn because of what just happened during the show with that ourful sound. However, he rejoined the band
just a month later. Then Slipknot and Stone Sour met again at the Runaway, Shawn’s club. Slipknot are just hypnotized by
Corey’s voice and asked him to join the band because he plays with a band of losers. He accepted. Soon after, Corey wrote the
framework of a song that will later become “Me Inside”.
 1998: Sophia Jones, the manager, used her contacts to introduce the band to Ross Robinson, who’s absolutely not interested in
hearing them, but who, after all, traveled to Iowa to hear them practice. During the session, everyone was over-stressed and
everything went wrong. Joey even made a mistake and accidentally threw one of his drumsticks in Ross’ face! But, the
impossible happens: Ross Robinson absolutely appreciates what he’s hearing and decides to give them a chance. He went to
one of their concerts at the Runaway and was totally hypnotized by the show. He immediately asked the band to record a CD
for him! But 6 months later, Slipknot still haven’t got any news from him, so Joey gives him a phone call and 48 hours later, the
'Knots are in the Roadrunner studios to record their first album! In June, Cuddles is fired for some obscure reasons that will not
be exposed. He was replaced by Chris Fehn, the percussionist that became famous with his long-nose masks. During the
recording, the band meet a lot of other artists like Kiss, Robert Flynn from Machine Head and Casey Chaos from Amen. Josh
left just before the end of the recording, leaving his place to James Root, a guitarist that was desperately trying to make it out
with his previous band, Atomic Opera. Here is the final line up of the band:
 #8 / Vocals - Corey Taylor
 #7 / Guitar 1 - Mick Thompson
 #6 / Percussions - Shawn Crahan
 #5 / Samples - Craig Jones
 #4 / Guitar 2 - James Root
 #3 / Percussions - Chris Fehn
 #2 / Bass - Paul Gray
 #1 / Drums - Joey Jordison
 #0 / DJ - Sid Wilson

5.  1999: Sophia Jones again used her relations to make them perform on the Ozzfest. The show was a complete
success. The 29th of May, after some shy debuts, “Slipknot” immediately reached the top of the World charts
with more then 2 million copies sold within a year. Their first video, “Welcome to our neighbourhood” also
reached the top and beat other DVD’s, even from Madonna and Shania Twain. The album tour was also a
complete success, the band made the craziest things ever seen live, like a drum kit on fire, 3-meters-high stage
divings from Sid, and a huge pentagram painted on the wall in the back of the scene.
 2000: Slipknot participated during this year to a lot of other festivals like the “Rock Am Ring” and the “Dynamo
Open Air”, where they received a huge public coming especially for them. At the end of the year, the Knots
entered the studio again to produce their 2nd album, again helped by Ross Robinson.
 2001: Crazier then ever, the 9 masked metal stars played again in the Ozzfest, and released their 2nd album:
“Iowa”. It is certainly one of the heaviest cds you will ever hear from them. With “Iowa”, the band really showed
what they were capable of and immediately started touring again, this time for the “Pledge of Allegiance”
tour, with Mudvayne, Rammstein and SOAD.
 2002: A huge concert (15.000 fans) has entirely been filmed and put into their 2nd DVD, “Disasterpieces”.
Slipknot also wrote a new version of “My Plague”, which has been selected for the “Resident Evil” movie as the
official theme. Corey also appeared in the “Spiderman” soundtrack with his other band, Stone Sour, while Joey
started another band called “Murderdolls”. Stone Sour had a huge success in the USA while the Dolls exploded
everything in Europe.
 2003: The year started with a lot of problems: Corey, too occupied with Stone Sour forgot a little bit the knots just
like Joey who was busy touring with the Murderdolls. No one will hear anything from Slipknot until
September, when Shawn will also tried to start his own solo project: “To My Surprise”, which remained
absolutely unknown for a very long time. When the band re-enters the Roadrunner studios at the end of the
year, some members of the band became angry with Joey because he wrote 7 of the songs on his own: he
oriented the band to a darker style while Corey would like to try something more rock-like. The band finally
announced that the new album would probably be out in spring 2004.

6.  2004: During 6 long months, the band recorded the new album with Rick Rubin (SOAD, Slayer). A
few times, Rick asked them to re-write some of the new songs, which was not a good sign at all.
But the 24th of May, just a day before the new album, Slipknot gave a secret concert at London.
European fans were the first to hear the new songs of the new album: “Vol.3: The Subliminal
Verses”. “Duality” is the first of single of the album, and the least we can say is that the 2004
version of Slipknot is a lot different than what we heard of them before: the band left apart all the
rage from “Iowa” and made this album more rock-like, but still influenced by the trash and
extreme metal scene. The group headed for Europe, where they took part to a lot of festivals, the
Ozzfest again with Hatebreed, the “Fury Fest” and the “Unholy Alliance Tour”. The 2nd
single, “Vermillion pt.1” went out with a strange video showing the band…with new masks
representing their real faces!! “Vermillion pt.2” also went out, but the video has quickly been
censured because of its insanity. After a huge show in Paris and a tour in India, the band returned
to the USA just for the winter holidays.
 2005: The year started just like 2004 ended: on the road! Slipknot travelled all around the world
for the Vol.3 Subliminal Verses tour. Announcing that the recording of the next album will be at
the end of 2006, the band released “9.0: Live”, their first live double-album. It is a huge success in
the whole world: 350000 copies have been sold just in the USA!! Stone Sour are now recording
their 2nd album and Murderdolls just split up, so they are trying to decide what is going to
happen to them next. Slipknot is at this moment certainly the most amazing band ever seen on a
stage and the band with the most fans all around the world: The “Maggots” who will always
support them until the end.

7.  Corey Taylor – Vocalist
 Mick Thomson - Guitar
 Shawn Crahan - Precusion
 Craig Jones - Sampler
 James Root - Guitar
 Chris Fehn – Precusion
 Joey Jordison - Drumer
 Sid Wilson – DJ
 Paul Gray- Base player

8.  1999- Slipknot
 2001- Iowa
 2004-VOL.3 (the subliminal Verses)
 2008- all hope is gone

9.  Spit it Out
 Wait and Bleed
 My Plague (New Abuse Mix)
 Left Behind
 Duality
 Vermilion
 Before i forget
 Psychosocial

10.  http://www.opiumofthepeople.net/ootp/slipknot
/timeline
 http://www.ultimate-
guitar.com/columns/the_history_of/behind_the_
masks_the_complete_history_of_slipknot.html
 http://slipknotweb.yaia.com/biography.html
 http://www.black-goat.com/thestory.php
 http://www.scaruffi.com/vol7/slipknot.html