Slipknot's M. Shawn Crahan
Photo: Neil Zlowzower

This summer, Des Moines, Iowa's own Slipknot — along with Disturbed, Mastodon, DragonForce, Machine Head, the Red Chord, Suicide Silence and a handful of others — will be taking part in the inaugural run of Warped Tour mastermind Kevin Lyman's Rockstar Energy Mayhem festival (otherwise known as the tour that effectively immobilized Sharon Osbourne's long-running Ozzfest).

But Slipknot percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan doesn't care what you call Lyman's latest brainchild, so long as you understand that it's not a festival at all — it's a Slipknot tour, plain and simple.

"It's a bunch of bands opening for Slipknot," Crahan told Metal File last week, during a brief break from the studio, where the band is working on its fourth, still-untitled LP, which should arrive in stores by summer's end. "We're headlining, as it should be. Sorry — it's a Slipknot show, kids. We've been gone for two years, and you've all had the chance to do what you're going to do. But now we're back; step in line. That's what's up. We're the DNA that keeps whatever cell this is moving. Period.

"With me, I've been out with a lot of bands, and I don't care," he continued. "We're back, and it just happens to be this thing called the Rockstar Energy Mayhem festival. That's cool. But we didn't want them, they wanted us. Everyone wants our f---ing money and our kids. We're playing a show, and a bunch of great bands are playing too. But we're back, so get out of our way. Call it what you will, but we're headlining. It's our show, and we're here to kill you."

And he's not kidding. Crahan said he's keyed up for Slipknot's return to the stage, following two years of hibernation, and promises that this summer, the boys will preview some of the new material they've been working on since early February.

"We're going to cast some magical spells, and you're going to get more than you can choke on," he said. "Slipknot is a philosophy, a way of life. We're a great band, and if you don't know that, I don't know what you know. We've been doing it longer than most bands can, and no one has done it harder than us."

According to Crahan, Slipknot brought an abundance of songs into the studio and is nearing the completion of the effort, under the direction of producer Dave Fortman (Mudvayne, Superjoint Ritual). And while he wouldn't go into detail about the LP (frontman Corey Taylor said in a recent interview with Billboard that the album would "rip your face off"), he scoffed at the suggestion that it's the band's heaviest offering to date.

"I'm not that guy who's going to tell you it's harder," he said. "Harder, to me, doesn't mean anything. I could give a sh-- about hard. Hard means nothing to the Clown. Slipknot is a phenomenon, it's an enigma, and the enigma weighs on your emotions. And the emotions aren't just heavy, they're cerebral, they're surreal and they're on a whole other level. I just know that this album is different than anything we've done."

When asked to elaborate, Clown refused, saying that the music, once it's released, would speak for itself. "Listen, we are the hardest ever," he said. "We blow all bands away. I don't give a f--- who your band is. I've probably played with your band, and you don't show me sh--. So, it's like, is this band heavy? Oh, yeah, we're the heaviest. We're heavy thinkers, heavy hitters, heavy writers and heavy people, but it's emotionally heavy. There's a lot of emotion on this record, and we're all on the same page with our own emotions, so you're finally seeing the kings of all the courts bringing their kingdom's jewels in for one gigantic war."

But Clown did admit that the record sounds more mature than anything they've done previously, because, well, they're all grown up.

"It's a record made by a bunch of f---ing adults, and that's why it's different. Every record should be different," Crahan said. "Our self-titled came out in '98, and the second record, people were thinking maybe we'd give 'em more commerciality, and give in like everybody else does. But instead, we go completely against that, and we made the anti-sophomore record, and we get all the respect for that.

"The third record, we start moving in directions we always wanted to. Basically, on the second record, it was like, 'We're the drug penetrating the vein, and we're on our way to your brain and your heart,' " he continued. "The third record was, 'Now, I'm in your brain. Check out this other sh--. No other band can handle this. No one can fathom what we do. This fourth record was done by a bunch of crazy guys in their 30s. That doesn't mean we're slowing down or not as intense — our brains are different, so we're bringing different emotions, different feelings and different anxieties to the table now. This record is another diagnosis of our insanity.

"No one has done what we have done," he added. "This is a war, man. The sh-- that we do, nine guys trying to f---ing write together, and keep this insanity going? Does anybody take the time to realize that? For me, this is like going to Vietnam, serving your tour and then the government asking you to do another tour because you're a badass. We've got 10 purple hearts, and we're f---ing killers. This isn't your rock and roll; this is our rock and roll."

For Crahan, making the record hasn't been a picnic. The music has taken an emotional toll on him ("This sh--'s real, it hurts, and I've cut myself open and given everything to this record," he said), but he's cool with that — so long as Slipknot's allegiant fans, the Maggots, aren't disappointed with it.

"The reason the fans love us is because they sense and feel something they've never gotten from anybody else — it's loyalty, it's respect and more importantly, they've finally found someone who feels like they feel," he said. "We're not your normal band. We represent something to kids they never gotten from school, or their parents, or other bands. We supply a feeling only Slipknot can supply. We have our own culture, because, we've done this 10 years for you, and 12 years for ourselves.

"We have nine guys, and all nine are different," Crahan went on. "But we're still doing this, so I'm amazed. That's how f---ing badass we are. Some stupid band with three members or four members wants to bellyache to me? Come on, man — this is the 'Knot. This is nine guys, an assault on the senses, a physical war through music, and it's going to be force-fed down your throat, and it will turn your insides out. It's been designed to destroy you."

The rest of the week's metal news:

Glenn Danzig's Blackest of the Black Tour will be returning this year, but the question is, when? While tour stops haven't been released yet (it's expected to kick off in October), the bill has. It'll feature Danzig, of course, along with Dimmu Borgir, Moonspell, Winds of Plague and Skeletonwitch. ...

Spastic British metallers SikTh have thrown in the towel. "A combination of factors has driven us to make this decision," the band said in a statement. "We want to assure you that if it were viable for us to carry on, we would. We are so proud of all that we have achieved as SikTh, and we have agreed to work together again in the future. We are currently involved in new projects so keep checking our personal pages for announcements." ...

Animosity have their drummer back. Navene Koperweis, who had taken a break from the band earlier this year, has returned to the fold. The band claims it has started writing new material for its next LP but provided no indication of when that effort could be in stores. ...

Hatebreed have dubbed their forthcoming covers collection For the Lions. The Connecticut hardcore harbingers will be tackling songs by Metallica, Misfits, Judge, Cro-Mags, D.R.I., Negative Approach, Agnostic Front, Madball, Obituary and Sheer Terror, among others, for the disc. ...

Bullet for My Valentine and Bleeding Through — on the same bill? Snore. But at least Cancer Bats and Black Tide will be opening for them. The trek kicks off July 14 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and dates are booked through August 16 in Detroit. ...

Exodus have re-signed with Nuclear Blast, which will release the thrash legends' next LP, The Atrocity Exhibition: Exhibit B, later this year. The band began working on new tracks back in October. ...

Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky, which features former members of Bodies in the Gears of the Apparatus and Dehumanized, have wrapped pre-production for their album, The Grand Partition and the Abrogation of Idolatry. The band plans on hitting the studio next month with producer James Murphy (Testament, Obituary), and complete the effort in time for release later this year.

• Slipknot
• Danzig
• Sikth

The Chariot
Photo: Tooth and Nail

Take a quick glance at the track list for highly technical, wholly unpredictable metalcore outfit the Chariot's latest LP, The Fiancée, and you'll notice the titles of the first eight songs — when linked together — form something of a paradoxical and rather morbid poem: "Back to Back," "They Faced Each Other," "They Drew Their Swords," "And Shot Each Other," "The Deaf Policeman," "Heard This Noise," "Then Came To Kill," "The Two Dead Boys."

If this poem sounds vaguely familiar to you, then congratulations — you actually do remember something from grade school.

Frontman Josh Scogin — who was Norma Jean's founding singer before he departed following the release of that band's sophomore set, 2002's Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child — says he never heard the anonymously written limerick until his band started writing material for The Fiancée. That album is in stores now and follows 2004's Everything Is Alive, Everything Is Breathing, Nothing Is Dead, and Nothing Is Bleeding.

"Our bassist [Jon 'KC Wolf!' Kindler] just blurted out a part of it one day, and it intrigued me," Scogin explained. "I asked him what it was, and he told me he wasn't sure, that he'd heard it in elementary school, and so I did some research on it to make sure it wasn't in a book or something. ... There are hundreds of versions of it. I just kind of made up my own version of the poem so that each track would have its own title, and when reading it together, it would still make sense and keep in line with the original poem's story."

That doesn't mean The Fiancée is a concept record about the poem — none of the album's lyrics correspond with the song titles. But making the record was something of a different kind of experience for the Chariot — Scogin especially. Produced by Matt Goldman (Underoath, Cartel), The Fiancée was written and recorded under rather tight time constraints.

"It was actually a very easy record to write," he said. "It came more naturally to us. Sometimes with art, there's the art of, 'Well, I just created it because that's just what I wanted to do,' and then there's the art of, 'Well, we have a deadline, and we have to be done by this date — no exceptions.' This time the record was more the former — we wrote all of these songs within a week of each other and they all came very naturally, very fast and very easy. I like that process a lot better."

But that wasn't the sole difference between the recording sessions for Everything Is Alive and this latest studio offering. Scogin said he waited until all the music was finalized before even thinking about lyrics, which is something "I will never do again, because it was pretty challenging.

"A couple of weeks before we were in the studio, and even while we were in the studio, I was writing lyrics, so there was a lot of pressure [on me] in that sense," he continued. "Still, it came pretty naturally for me, but it was definitely one of those things where it had to get done, because ... we were in the studio and I just had to get them down on paper."

The Chariot — whose intense live gigs are the thing of metalcore legend — will hit the road Wednesday in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with Misery Signals, I Am Ghost, the Human Abstract and I Hate Sally for a tour that runs through June 27 in Cleveland. After that, the band will do a short stint on this summer's Warped Tour, starting July 18 in Atlanta and concluding July 25 in Washington, D.C. But not every gig's been a slam-dunk, Scogin admitted — in fact, one concert the singer wasn't too proud of inspired a track on The Fiancée.

"I knew I was going to name a song 'Forgive Me Nashville,' and the lyrics are based around a show we played there where I kind of let the business of rock and roll get in the way of true rock and roll," the frontman explained. "My mind was somewhere else — on managers, tour managers, lawyers and all that crap. It wasn't my best show, and I wanted to make sure I named a song after it, to just keep that there in the forefront of my mind.

"The whole reason we're in a band is for the fun part of the performance," Scogin continued. "I come from back in the day, when you'd pay $5 for a show. ... We just try to make it worth it to the person who paid that money to get into the show. We try to pull out all the stops and make sure that every show stands on its own. ... We keep it spontaneous. Our first love is the live show — recording records, that's all circled around hopefully bringing more kids to the live show so we can perform for them. The focal point of this band is the live show and to make sure if you paid money to come see us, when you leave, you feel it was worth the money you'd spent."

While the Chariot have been tagged a "Christian" band, Scogin said he's not interested in force-feeding his beliefs on anyone else. To him, it's all about the music.

"I believe there are people in this world who have the exact opposite beliefs as me, and they hold firm to those just as strong as I hold to mine," he said. "When I was growing up, if I liked [a band], I listened to it — and I went to the shows. If I didn't, I didn't. It wasn't like, 'Oh, they don't believe the same thing I do,' or, 'They don't do drugs,' or, 'Oh, they do do drugs,' or, 'Their pants are too tight,' or, 'Their hair's too good.' ... What about just music — isn't that enough? People care too much about the fashion of it all. To me, a band's either good or they ain't, and that's the only thing that should matter."

The rest of the week's metal news:

Sikth frontmen Mikee Goodman and Justin Hill have taken leave of the British progressive metallers. The split is said to have been amicable. Goodman will pursue other musical activities, while Hill plans to focus on production work. The rest of the band is in the middle of writing new material for its forthcoming third LP but is in dire need of a new singer (or singers). Think you'd like to front Sikth? Applicants should e-mail the band at sikthmail@googlemail.com. Goodman and Hill will remain with Sikth through the end of their July tour. ... Zao need a drummer again. Josh Walters — who just joined the band earlier this year as the replacement for Jeff Gretz — has left the band, according to guitarist Scott Mellinger. "He is very involved in his work and doesn't have the time needed to do anything music-related," the guitarist wrote in a statement. "We do have a friend that will be learning some stuff and hopefully be playing with us very soon. Once we solidify the drummer position, we will be playing some shows in our area and possibly be playing Cornerstone, Illinois. Zao is not dead. We have every intention to do shows and records in the upcoming months." ...

Arsonists Get All the Girls will tour in June and July with Elysia, Knights of the Abyss, My Bitter End and Moria. The trek's first gig is set for June 1 in Anaheim, California, and dates are booked through July 21 in Santa Cruz, California. ... Ex-Snot and Soulfly guitarist Mikey Doling will co-produce the debut album by Unset along with Brad Dujmovic. The disc will be released late this year on Gridiron Records, the label Doling co-owns with Kansas City Chiefs offensive tackle Kyle Turley. "Every song we put together comes from an honest and — at most times — vulnerable place," Unset singer Frank W. Torres said in a statement. "In the end, we hope that the record will portray a sincerity that borders on confession, an emotion that borders on madness and an originality that borders on art." So long as it borders on rockin', we'll be happy. ... The Great Deceiver, which features ex-At the Gates singer Tomas Lindberg, will release their third album, Life is Wasted on the Living, later this year on their new label Deathwish. The disc will be produced and engineered by Berno Paulsson (the Haunted, Amon Amarth) and will be the band's first offering since 2003's Terra Incognito. ...

Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing and neoclassical guitar virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen will guest on two songs apiece on the upcoming Violent Storm album Storm Warning, which comes out July 17. The band was formed by ex-Ritchie Blackmore and Malmsteen tourmate Mick Cervino and ex-Blackmore's Night drummer Mike Sorrentino. In addition to playing on the album, Downing executive produced the disc. "When I heard Mick's stuff, I thought, 'This is pretty cool — it has a freshness about it. Very classic metal,' " Downing said in a statement. "So, I played a couple of solos and things went on from there." ... Modern thrash revivalists Lamb of God have been nominated for "Ballsiest Band" at Spike TV's Guys Choice awards. They'll be up against Disturbed, who are kinda ballsy themselves, but c'mon. ... Fans can vote right here through June 1. The show will be taped June 9 and air June 13. ... Chris Cornell's brother Pete is the singer in a New York-based band called Black Market Radio, which was just signed to startup label, Slugfest Records. Singing is definitely in this boy's DNA, which explains why his band bears a striking resemblance to early Soundgarden. "We are really happy about our addition to the Slugfest family," Cornell said in a statement, avoiding any reference to his brother's legendary outfit. "The combination of our raw power as a band and Slugfest's long-term plans are perfect. We will see everyone on the road. ...

Bury Your Dead singer Michael Crafter has decided to leave the band. "I wanted to prove myself so much and be a good frontman for [Bury Your Dead]," he wrote in a statement. "It's been two months since I got to the U.S.A. [from his native Australia], and all I have wanted is to be home with my friends and this stops me from giving my all. I met a lot of great people here. My time with the band was short and was a lot of fun and a great experience." ... Overkill's original drummer, Rat Skates, has just released his documentary film, "Born in the Basement." "This [movie] looks deep into the scene we came up in and should be required viewing for anyone starting a career in music," Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian said in a statement. Skates also served as associate producer of the upcoming Rick Ernst thrash-metal documentary "Get Thrashed," which is currently making the rounds at film festivals. ...

English doom band Orange Goblin will release their new album Healing Through Fire on June 26. The record is the group's first since 2004's Thieving From the House of God and includes "Vagrant Stomp," "Cities of Frost" and "The Ale House Braves." The first pressing of the album will include a DVD of a London show from 2006. ... Japanese black-metal trailblazers Sigh will play select U.S. shows with Israeli Mesopotamian black-metal band Melechesh starting July 6 in Brooklyn, New York, and running through July 14 in Montreal. Sigh will also open for Norwegian black-metal legends Mayhem July 16 in Santa Ana, California, and July 18 in West Hollywood, California. Sigh's tremendous new album, Hangman's Hymn, comes out June 12.

• Sikth
• Overkill
• The Chariot
• Zao
• Soulfly

SikTh
Photo: Bieler Bros. Records

There's a good chance you've haven't heard SikTh's brand of highly technical, forward-thinking noisecore — even though the British six-piece has released a pair of EPs, Let the Transmitting Begin ... and How May I Help You, as well as a proper full-length, 2003's The Trees Are Dead & Dried Out Wait for Something Wild. That's because while SikTh's been around for more than four years, they've yet to release an album Stateside. Of course that's all about to change.

SikTh will release Death of a Dead Day in either January or February through Bieler Bros. Records; the band signed with the label, home to Nonpoint and Skindred, earlier this year. The album's in the mixing phase at this point, according to guitarist and pianist Dan Weller.

"Within the next fortnight, we should be done," he said. "It's been a long process. We stayed away from putting an album out in the States until we knew we'd have someone in the States who was worth working with and could support us."

SikTh — Weller, dual vocalists Mikee W. Goodman and Justin Hill, bassist James Leach, guitarist Pin and drummer Dan "Loord" Foord — sound like the Dillinger Escape Plan on fire. Or at least their earlier stuff sounded that way. It was almost comically chaotic.

"For me, Trees was quite gimmicky and had a jokey feel and a bit of a humorous edge," Weller explained. "I think that left a lot of people feeling, you know, 'Are they taking a piss? Are they winding us up? What are they trying to do here?' That's not the impression we wanted to put across. So we wanted to take a more mature, deadly serious approach this time. We're not playing around."

The end result is Death, which Weller says still has its melodic moments, but also houses huge, memorable riffs and complicated structures. "It grooves, too," he said. "Our goal is to make an album that can be put up there with the best metal albums made in the past 20 years. That's all we're doing this for. We're not writing our music to be second best. We want people to aspire to be as good as this and, although that sounds arrogant, we're totally approaching it from the angle that there isn't enough innovation going on in our genre. We're determined to show that there's still things that can be done, rhythmically and with melody, without sounding like someone else."

Weller said the band hasn't agreed on which of the album's 11 tracks will serve as the first single, but considers "Bland Street Bloom," "Flogging the Horses" and "Another Sinking Ship" to be strong contenders.

SikTh are looking forward to making a fresh start with Death more than anything else, Weller said. "When we first came out in the U.K., there was a hype, a buzz and a kind of excitement around the band. And a shock factor. So when you play for a while in a country, people become familiar with you, and you lose that, leaving you to just create music that's hopefully great. What's exciting about starting in the States is we're relatively unknown, so we have that potential to start fresh and shock people and blow people away.

"We see this record as a turning point for this style that we're playing. And maybe I'm far too confident and deluded, but we want this to be something where people go, 'Sh--, what's that? That is great,' " he continued. "I do believe there's a huge sort of metal fraternity out there who're satisfied by a lot of bands but are still not getting what they want. I don't want to be the arrogant pr--- who says we're going to give everybody what they really want, because we're probably not, I just think we're encapsulating so many things that so many bands don't risk encapsulating and I hope we get noticed for that. And if we don't, tough sh-- — we tried."

The rest of the week's metal news:

Cannibal Corpse will enter Mana Studios in St. Petersburg, Florida, October 7 to start recording their 10th LP; Erik Rutan (the Absence, Soilent Green) will produce. "We are doing everything we can to make sure it's the heaviest, most brutal one we've ever made," reads a post on the band's Web site. "We have 11 songs completed and if possible we'd like to write one or two more before entering the studio." ... Anthrax bassist Frankie Bello hosts MTV2's "Headbangers Ball" this Saturday. Throwdown will be this week's in-studio guests. ... Gwar have tapped DevilDriver, A Dozen Furies and Mensrea as the openers for their North American tour. The trek kicks off October 7 in Sayreville, New Jersey, and runs through November 11 in Seattle. ... New York hardcore metal band Cipher are looking for a new bassist to replace Mark Dollar, who had been in the band a little over a year but recently quit to pursue other ventures. Interested candidates should be at least 18 years old and be able to practice regularly in Western Long Island near Queens. Contact cipher@cipheronline.com for more information. ... Brazilian-American metal kingpins Soulfly and Orange County hardcore outfit Throwdown will tour together starting in October 12 in Fort Worth, Texas. Dates run through November 9 in Denver. ... That city's sardonic metalcore band Grace Gale will release their debut album, Few Easy Steps to Secure Heli-Camel Safety, on September 27. Tracks include "There's Nothing Honorable About This Discharge," "James Caan Make Yourself at Home" and "I Don't Know How to Put This ... But I'm Kind of a Big Deal." A video for the latter is available for viewing on BlackoutRecords.com. ...

The first of four teasers for Machine Head's "Elegies" DVD, which hits stores October 11, is available on the band's Web site. ... More than a few indie-rock acts on Matador Records have mocked heavy metal in the past, so it's kind of odd that one of the most rippin' new duos, Early Man, are now on the label. And they're no joke. Singer/guitarist Mike Conte and drummer Adam Bennati's first album, Closing In, comes out October 11 and sounds like a fierce hybrid of Blizzard of Ozz-era Ozzy and Master of Puppets-era Metallica. ... Dutch death dispatchers Severe Torture will release Fall of the Despised November 7 through Earache. Tracks include "Endless Strain of Cadavers," "Unconditional Annihilation," "Impulsive Mutilation" and "Dead From the Waist Up." ... French metal outfit Wormfood will release their next disc, called, um, France, through Code666 Records November 18. Carnival in Coal frontman Axel Wursthorn produced the effort, which the label describes as "a bizarre and grotesque view of modern French society, a melting pot of doom, thrash, death, gothic, punk, pop, classic, baroque, jazz and black humor." ... Los Angeles '80s death-rock/punk-metal band .45 Grave have pulled out of all dates on the Misfits tour, which runs through November 19 in Springfield, Virginia. They blamed the cancellations on "circumstances beyond their control." Madball used the same excuse for two shows they recently canceled, September 19 in Portland, Oregon, and September 20 in San Francisco, however they resumed the tour September 21 in Los Angeles. Madball dates are scheduled through October 1 in Buffalo, New York. ...

Mediaskare Records needs help naming its upcoming Slayer tribute record, which should surface early next year. The disc is set to include contributions from On Broken Wings, Scars of Tomorrow, Contra, the Esoteric, New Dead Radio, the Burning Room, Death by Stereo and others. More info can be found at www.myspace.com/atributetoslayer . ... The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza will hit the road for a 16-date run starting October 1 in Birmingham, Alabama. The trek wraps October 16 in London, Kentucky. ... Lamb of God frontman D. Randall Blythe's Halo of Locusts side project, Byzantine and the Dream Is Dead will embark on the Under the Underground Tour, a three-week jaunt across the country that's set to kick off October 13. A complete list of dates will be released soon. ... Detroit band Still Remains will tour with Atlanta metalcore outfit Norma Jean starting October 8 in Memphis, Tennessee. Dates run through October 30 in Nashville, then the band will return to the road in November with U.K. scream kings Bullet for My Valentine; Buffalo, New York's It Dies Today; and Riverside, California's Sinai Beach. ... German thrash band Dew-Scented have been added to the Polish invasion tour that features Decapitated and Vader. Dates run from November 7 in New York through November 30 in Utica, New York. Decapitated will return to the road with Greenville, South Carolina Egyptologist death-metal band Nile, New Orleans hardcore doomsayers Soilent Green and Sacramento, California, melodic death metallists With Passion. Dates run from January 13 in Houston through February 12 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. ...

Virginia's Arsis will release a three-song EP, A Diamond for Disease, October 25. The disc will feature "Roses on White Lace," "The Promise of Never" and the 13-minute title track. ... Members of Kiss, AC/DC, Motörhead, Anthrax, Dio, Judas Priest, Testament, Extreme, Whitesnake, Slaughter, Helmet, Dokken and others are banding together in tribute to Iron Maiden, literally comprising new bands for each of the 11 songs on Numbers From the Beast: An All-Star Salute to Iron Maiden, due October 11. For instance, "Wasted Years" features Dee Snider on vocals and Jason Bonham on drums, while "The Trooper" features Lemmy Kilmister on vocals, Suicidal Tendencies' Rocky George on guitar and AC/DC's Chris Slade on drums. Another pairing has Chris Jericho on vocals and Alice in Chains' Mike Inez on bass for "The Evil That Men Do." ...

• Sikth
• Cannibal Corpse
• Terror
• GWAR