photo by Jon Wiederhorn

About 30 minutes before Killswitch Engage opened the Epiphone Revolver Golden Gods Awards with a riveting three-song set, Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor spun records for the crowd to warm them up for the show.

Afterwards, during an exclusive on-site interview with XM Satellite Radio DJ Jose Mangin, Taylor talked about deejaying, the arrival of the Golden Gods and Slipknot's new video for "Sulfur." Click "more" to watch it, and don't miss a special edition of "Headbangers Ball" hosted by Taylor and Suicide Silence tonight at midnight on MTV2. Read more...

Just a couple more days of special "Headbangers Ball" programming on MTV2 before the Epiphone Revolver Golden Gods Awards special telecast rips you a new orifice Saturday night at 11 p.m. Tonight's "Ball," which starts at 11 p.m., will be hosted by Massachusetts mainstream metalcore band All That Remains, and will feature exclusive interview footage and videos.

Tomorrow's special "Headbangers Ball" will air at midnight and will feature 30 minutes with Cali deathcore sensations Suicide Silence and a half hour with Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor, who deejayed the Golden Gods pre-show.

Stay tuned after Saturday's Golden Gods special for a one-hour post-show special featuring performance outtakes as well as more interviews and backstage footage. Click "more" to see our Golden Gods interview snippets with All That Remains. Read more...

photo by Jon Wiederhorn

Having shot a couple dozen or so videos, Slipknot have become masters of the art -- so much so that percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan has co-directed the last two of the band's clips with Paul Brown. The latest, "Sulfur," is visually stunning, creepy and conceptual in a way the Iowa band have never been before. Click "more" to read Crahan's description of the video and to watch the Internet premiere. See it again on Saturday on "Headbangers Ball," which airs from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. on MTV2. Read more...

All-star supergroup, Camp Freddy, performed on January 19 at the Sundance Film Festival at Harry O's in Park City, Utah and during the show they were joined by Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor The Cult guitarist Billy Duffy, ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons and others. The group, which usually performs in Los Angeles, features ex-Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro (who couldn't make the Utah show), ex-Jane's Addiction bassist Chris Chaney, ex-The Cult bassist Billy Morrison, Velvet Revolver drummer Matt Sorum and Donovan Leitch. Click "more" to watch Taylor belting out Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" with the band. All we can say is we're glad this wasn't his audition tape for Slipknot. Read more...

Facecage frontman Denny Harvey has announced the return of Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor's New Years Eve cover band Dumfux, which has been scheduled at the Val Air Ballroom in Des Moines for "another drunken night of revelry and soiled underwear." Read more...

For the past three weeks, HeadbangersBlog.com has been celebrating the art and vision of Slipknot percussionist Shawn Crahan (a.k.a. Clown) with the ongoing guest photo blog "The Eye of a Clown." In addition to providing us with a previously unpublished shot to run every week, Crahan gives us candid insight about what the images represent to him. The more entries we received, the more we realized that Clown's not only a talented artist and an entertaining character, he's also a deep thinker. So we figured it was high time to do a podcast interview with Crahan about the Knot, his photography and his obsessions with sex and death. We planned to post a single 20 to 30 minute interview, as we do with most acts, but Crahan was so direct, honest and confessional that we felt obligated to run the whole hour-long conversation over the next two weeks.

In part one of our Clown podcast, Crahan talks about how pain inspires great art, the bones that have broken on the road supporting Slipknot's new record All Hope is Gone, why it's not so great to have a number one album and how he has taught his son the ropes on the road. The rock n' roll Sensei also discusses the next "Voliminal"-style DVD he's planning to make for Slipknot, the screenplay he's been writing for five years and how filming his father's ashes after he was cremated changed his life for the better.

Click "more" to stream or download the podcast, and come back next week for part 2: Read more...

And now, to close out HeadbangersBlog.com's celebration of the 20th anniversary of "Headbangers Ball," we bring you the premiere of Slipknot's new video "Dead Memories." The song comes from the band's most recent album All Hope is Gone and was written by singer Corey Taylor about the painful collapse of his marriage to his ex-wife. The video was co-directed by Paul Brown and band percussionist Shawn Crahan (a.k.a. Clown). Click more for Clown's interpretation of the clip and then watch it right here. Catch it again tonight on "Headbangers Ball," which will commemorate its 20th anniversary this week with a special two hour program that starts at 10 p.m. EST. Read more...

The excellent thrash metal documentary/sociology study, "Get Thrashed: The Story of Thrash Metal," comes out on DVD on Tuesday, September 16. For our final promotional clip for the movie, director Rick Ernst has supplied us with a batch of outtakes of bands from various subgenres of metal talking about how they discovered thrash and the importance of the genre. We'll get to the video soon, but first here's Ernst talking about this week's clip.

With over 100 hours of footage filmed for "Get Thrashed," we couldn't possibly squeeze it all on one DVD - although we tried! Thankfullyk, we have the Internet and HeadbangersBlog.com, which allow us to share clips that are not on the DVD. That's right, you can only see this footage right here and this exclusive clip covers a lot of ground.

For starters, Slipknot's Corey Taylor talks about being a thrash fan in Des Moines, Iowa where apparently you really had to work to find thrash albums in the '80s. Contrast that with my experience growing up in New York at the time, and I could almost always find the thrash classics.
Several artists talk about the initial run of "Headbangers Ball." While the show didn't feature a ton of thrash videos, the ones they did play forever changed the lives of many artists watching back in the day. Personally, when I was growing up I didn't have cable, so each and every thrash video I saw on "Headbangers Ball" at a friend's house was a treasure. It was pre-Internet and a music video was as close to going to a show as you could get without physically being there. Yes, thrash fans would begrudgingly sit through non-thrash videos just to see Exodus' "Toxic Waltz" or my personal favorite, Vio-lence's "World in a World." We bitched about it then, but it is a badge of honor now.

Thankfully, today's new breed of thrash influenced bands and fans don't have to work as hard or wait as long to get their thrash metal fix. It's at the tip of their fingers -- on call 24/7 -- and they don't have to wait. It's instant gratification and its awesome -- for the most part. As Lemmy so eloquently sang, "Sometimes the chase is better than the catch".
Now click "more" to watch our final "Get Thrashed" clip: Read more...

You may have missed Slipknot's surreal appearance on this week's FNMTV, which was hosted by Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz and featured Nelly, The Jonas Brothers and other things of a non-metal variety.

Adorned in a black leather bondage mask, percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan paced menacingly, baseball bat in hand as singer Corey Taylor talked about the band's new masks and drummer Joey Jordison discussed gifts the band has received from fans.

Click "more" to watch the band's spot on the show and to check out their new video for "Psychosocial"

Does Corey Taylor want you to abandon all hope when you enter the domain of Slipknot's new album All Hope is Gone? Not really.

When the singer says "hope is gone" he doesn't mean everything is hopeless, he means all hope is lost for anyone who thinks they've got his band all figured out. Slipknot's new album doesn't just defy expectations, it sneeringly shatters them. Those expecting a continuation of the band's last disc Volume 3: The Subliminal Verses, will be surprised. Anyone hoping for a flashback to the brutal rancor of Iowa might be annoyed and fans anticipating a disc colored by Taylor and guitarist Jim Root's last album with Stone Sour will be sorely disappointed. Who will be happy? -- pretty much anyone who's ever liked Slipknkot because of their jarring artistry and striking sense of originality in a genre filled with predictability and cliches.

All Hope is Gone is musically revelatory, combining the acute melodies of Volume 3 with the savagery of Iowa and adding new elements that have blossomed from the band's growth as musicians, attention to detail and unhurried approach to songwriting. The disc is packed with conflict and juxtaposition. Taylor growls throughout instead of actually singing, yet the tracks are suffused with strong melodies. The guitar work and drum patterns are technical and complex, however the music isn't too challenging and the lyrics are rife with pain and rage, yet glimmer with hope.

Our exclusive Independence Day interview with Taylor was conducted in late June as Collin Richardson was mixing All Hope is Gone. And while the singer was swamped with meetings to finalize details for the record, last minute scheduling for the upcoming Rockstar Energy Mayhem tour (which they're co-headlining with Disturbed) and family obligations, he was focused, insightful and friendly during our 45-minute conversation, which alternately was laced with confessional sincerity and peppered with levity. In addition to discussing the creation of the new disc, he talked about: the ever-present studio tensions that allow Slipknot to create such explosive albums; the volatile political climate in America and why he's not voting in the 2008 election; the rewards and responsibilities of being a father and the personal hardships he was able to temporarily escape during the making of All Hope Is Gone.

Click "more" to stream or download the podcast: Read more...