Slipknot have written ‘27 pieces’ of new music
Shawn 'Clown' Crahan gives an update on album no.6
Slipknot’s Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan says the band have “27 pieces of work” written that could potentially appear on their sixth studio album.
The percussionist and film director says the band members’ intensely busy schedules means they’ve had to take a different approach with the follow-up to 2014’s ‘.5: The Gray Chapter’.
Excitingly, he’s also revealed his wishes for the record to be a double or concept album.
“I will give you this – we have decided to do things differently,” Clown told NME. “Our label had been bought and sold, people who used to give me advice are gone now, we’re still standing.
“We’re not going to wait around for Corey to say that he’s ready, no one’s going to wait for me to finish directing a movie, the same thing goes if someone wants to go out on tour with someone else.
“Every three or four months we’ve been getting together and we’ve been writing for up to 30 days. Currently, we have about 27 pieces of work – about seven or eight are completed. They’re not completed songs, that’s far from the truth.
“That’s where people start fighting over Corey not being there or Jim wanting to do something else. We as artists have demanded that we get together every three or four months and blow our brains out with art. We’ve been trying to create as much art as possible.”
Pressed about a tentative release date, Clown responded: “For the three years we toured we were writing and recording the whole time. We’ll be getting together in September.
“Corey is doing his thing right now with Stone Sour, and when he’s done, he’ll need a little time off. He’s always done that. Then he’ll be right back in it, writing Slipknot songs and lyrics.
“A lot of us are meeting up in September to start working on those 27 pieces of music and we’re going to add to that. Our goal is to get to somewhere where it feels like we could have a double album. Whether or not we’ll get to that, I have no idea.
“It’s almost an impossible thing to arrive at because you have to have so much music and pick what’s right. But I would like to have a double album and I would like to have a concept album. I’ve been speaking to Corey and Jim and we’re not just going to ‘do it’, we’re not going to be contrived. It has to be right, it has to work for all of us.”
Reflecting upon the significance of Slipknot’s next record, Clown added: “The future is very exciting because it’s the sixth record.
“The number ‘six’, besides being my personal number in Slipknot, is biblically, in computers, in maths, in whatever – the number six is a very important and structured number.”
Slipknot’s documentary film ‘Day of the Gusano’ – directed by Clown himself – hits over 100 cinemas across the UK on Wednesday 6th September.
Documenting the Iowan masked metallers’ inaugural visit to Mexico City in December 2015, the 90-minute film features exclusive interviews with the members of Slipknot and sees Maggots themselves share the limelight.
Tickets to ‘Day of the Gusano’ are on sale now! To see the full list of participating cinemas in the UK and to buy tickets, click here.