Slipknotin Clown: ”Slipknot on kulttuuri. Se ei ole bändi enää”

Yhdysvaltalaisen metalliyhtye Slipknotin perkussionisti M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan on antanut hiljattain haastattelun Full Metal Jackielle, jossa mieheltä on kysytty kuinka yleisön ikärakenne on muuttunut vuosien varrella. Clown on haastattelussa todennut bändin tavoittavan kokoajan uusia nuoria faneja ja onkin yltynyt kutsumaan bändiä enemmän kulttuuriksi kuin yhtyeeksi. Clown kertoi asiasta seuraavaa:

“Well the good news is it hasn’t changed at all. We can go away for six years, come back and catch the young generation. We’re a band that’s going to keep doing that and doing that. That’s how we designed it. That’s who we are. So, unfortunately I don’t change. I get to be a kid forever. I get to sit in my maturity, [the furthering] of being wise and being a man with my family and in my privacy, but I get to go out on the road, I still get to be Clown. I still get to do what I do.

I used to talk to 10-year-olds in 1999, I talked to 10-year-olds in 2000. I talked to 10-year-olds in 2016. So, the crowd hasn’t changed at all. No one has changed. The older crowd has gotten older, and they’re still around but there’s a whole new crowd. There’s a whole new 10-year-olds and 14-year-olds coming to our shows. Just like in 1999, just like 2000, just like 2001 and so on and so forth. That’s what Slipknot is about. We’re a culture, we’re not really a band anymore. I say that all the time. I know people are sick of it, but that’s just the truth — we’re a culture.”

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“We are always going to be here. It’s gonna go on after I’m not here, the philosophy of Slipknot. It’s a culture. I won’t allow it to be a band. You wanna break it down, yeah, we’re a band. But a band to me is something that goes into a rehearsal room and practices — we have not been a band forever. We’re basically this entity, this culture. We love it and we designed it that way and it’s so much easier for us to have it like that because it’s a mindset, a thought process.

We don’t preach, we don’t talk about religion or politics. We talk about life and living and if we’ve ever said anything, it’d still be don’t ever judge me. That’s what we try to get to kids — live your life, come with us whether you’re 10 and become — that’s why I affectionately call all the fans ‘maggots.’
Everybody in the beginning was like ah, that’s too harsh! What do maggots turn into people?

Open your brains, they turn into flies. So come here, be a maggot, feed off of the pain and crap of the world but still — be rewarded with your own self-awareness. Make it through, don’t commit suicide, don’t run away, don’t get addicted to drugs. Don’t fight this world, find your social scene, find your culture, be self-aware, pick yourself up, grow wings and take off — go wherever you want.

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But the beautiful thing is, they always fly back and say hi. They may not listen to Slipknot anymore, but it’ll always be a pillar within their soul and they know it, we know it and that’s what makes us a culture and not a band anymore.”