The early era of Slipknot touring was a wild time to be alive if a new anecdote from frontman Corey Taylor is to be believed.
Speaking to Classic Rock while promoting his second solo full-length, CMF2, Taylor let slip that Slipknot percussionist and creative visionary Clown, once willingly ate a public toilet urinal cake in an attempt to impress or gross out, Pantera's Dimebag Darrell.
The hygenically questionable act took place during an early Slipknot tour. When the tour rolled into Dallas, the late Paul brothers (Dimebag and Vinnie) turned up and after the show took the Slipknot guys to the infamous Clubhouse strip club. It was there that the groups got into a bit of a contest to see who could pull the biggest prank or dare, and as you might expect, given the people and substances involved things got out of hand pretty quickly as Taylor recalls.
“They were all about doing pranks on people. "Clown was like, 'whatever you try, I’m not going to baulk.' They had one of their cooks hollow out a tomato and fill it with these insanely fiery red chili peppers. “Dime pulls out this tomato stuffed with this stupid knot of chilis and he goes, “How much is it gonna cost to get all this down?” And Clown goes, “I don’t need your money”, and just grabs it and starts eating it like an apple.
“It gets worse. We head to the bathroom, and we're pissing at the urinal. There’s a piece of gum on one of the cakes in the urinal, and Dime looks over and goes, ‘Alright, Clown, how much would it take…’ Before he can finish, Clown reaches down, grabs it and starts chewing. It was so fucking gross.
“Dime just threw his hands up. He talked about it until the day he died: “Clown, he was the one motherfucker I couldn’t get to collapse, he just fucked me up.”
This anecdote follows the recent revelation that Sid Wilson once head-butted Clown to prove that he was just crazy enough to be worthy of joining the band. The head-butting took place during a rendition of the song Tattered and Torn during which Clown had a tendency to go out into the crowd and engage in all sorts of carnage with fans while they chanted "kill me" and as far as Wilson is concerned, Clown had it coming.
"He would go out in the crowd and wrestle with kids, tie them up with microphone cords and drag them across the floor.
"So he would go into the crowd every show — I didn't know this, I'd never seen the show before. And I can see him looking at me through the mask, and he starts this 'Kill me' [chant], and I see him coming out from behind this drum, and I could just sense it."
"I was like, 'He's coming for me. He wants to prove to me that they're crazy — and I am fucking nuts.' So, I'm like, 'It's on.' And I just start running and I start leapfrogging people, grabbing their shoulders and just jumping over. And then I'm crawling across the top of the crowd. And I get up there and he was getting ready to take one step off the stage. He looked down to get his placement, and he looks up and I'm right there.”
"I grab him and I headbutt him six times. Bam, bam, bam. And I'm coming in for the seventh one and he pushes me away, falls down and crawls back to Joey, and he goes, 'I don't give a shit what anybody says — that guy's in the band." As far as initiation stories go, it's hard to imagine many others matching Sid's for badassery. As for whether he chooses to teach his new son and namesake Sidney the way of the head-butt, remains to be seen.
Slipknot's 2009 headline show at Madison Square Garden will be released on vinyl this August. Set for release on August 18th, the 2LP Live at MSG will mark the first time the show has ever been made available on vinyl. Considered a landmark moment by both band and fans, the Live at MSG performance saw the band take over the 'Word's Greatest Arena', filling it with maggots and treating them to a night they'd never forget.
Live at MSG serves as a time capsule for a moment in which Slipknot were celebrating their first ever US #1 album All Hope Is Gone. A pristine recording of the band at their most visceral, Live at MSG took place eight months and nine countries into the All Hope Is Gone world tour, and showcases the group in jaw-dropping form. The release will also commemorate the 15th anniversary of All Hope Is Gone.
The artwork for the Live at MSG release was created by Slipknot percussionist and creative visionary, M Shawn (Clown) Crahan
The 2LP black vinyl Live at MSG is available to pre-order now via Maniacs.
Last month Taylor released a blistering new solo-single Post Traumatic Blues. The second taste of his forthcoming second solo release CMF2, Post Traumatic Blues is a far heavier outing than lead single Beyond, with the iconic voice behind Slipknot and Stone Sour exorcising some demons.
“‘Post Traumatic Blues’ is my attempt to describe for people what it’s like to deal with PTSD,” says Taylor. “Sometimes it’s so hard for people to understand the ups and downs, the severity of the cold and numbness, that I wanted to try and build a bridge lyrically between the ones living with the disease and the ones who are trying to help them.”
Set for release on September 15th via Decibel Cooper/BMG, CMF2 is available for pre-order now here. CMF2 will be the sequel to Taylor's 2020 solo debut CMFT and follow-up B-sides collection CMFB...Sides.
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