Slipknot will tour Europe this December for a special 25th anniversary trek celebrating their 1999 self-titled album… though it seems like California might come way before that.
Reddit user deadendandrea posted a photo of a mysterious Slipknot billboard (below) out in Indio, CA (on the site of Coachella) that says three things – "ONE NIGHT ONLY", "LONG MAY YOU DIE", and then a link to a website called You Can't Kill Me. While the site has been up for a little while now, it's been completely reskinned to look like it's straight outta 1999. There's always a scrolling message up top that says "pay attention… the answers are all around you…"
So stay tuned, because Slipknot is absolutely up to something. Percussionist M. Shawn "Clown" Crahan recently confirmed to Kerrang! that Slipknot will be playing smaller shows celebrating the album, so maybe the first one is happening in California?
"Yeah, we're going to play that album from beginning to end," said Crahan. "But I sure as hell am not going to just succumb to the corporate world and give all those people what they want. They're going to get it. But you know what we're going to get? We're going to have fun, too.
"So that means small shows and you won't know until you hear it. And if you heard it, you're already too late and you're not going to see it. So you better open up your soul, because then you'll feel it and you won't have to hear it because I'm being very serious."
Crahan further elaborated in an interview with Knotfest Australia, talking about everything from their mysterious new drummer and new material, to the possibility of smaller show.
"I'm very excited about this idea of a new drummer," said Crahan. "There's many reasons for it. It's not to be confused… it doesn't matter what the situation may seem like, unless you're in the band and understand there's no hard feelings, there never was. We just went our way, understand? There was really no bad things, that's as much as I can say.
"What I can say is Slipknot decided to you know, move on and that's what we've done. I'm very excited for what we have done. We're really working hard and you know, there'll be new music, there'll be new masks, there'll be new people, there'll be new ideas celebrating a 25 year anniversary. I would imagine there'd be some shows that could be 200 people, 500 people, 700 people, 2,000 people."
Crahan later clarified on the new music front: "I wouldn't look at it like new music like, an album and stuff. I think we're gonna have some fun. I don't know exactly what we're trying to do. I know that we just want to do what we want to do, so however it happens, it happens. We're not going to push it and we're not going to mold it into something that it doesn't need to be, but I will tell you we're having a really good time right now. Some real magical stuff is happening."
