In a brand new interview with the “Everblack” podcast, authentic SLIPKNOT singer Anders Colsefni, who contributed lead vocals to the band’s “Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.” report, weighed in on SLIPKNOT‘s long-running feud with MUSHROOMHEAD.
MUSHROOMHEAD launched its first album in spring 1995, greater than 4 years previous to the arrival of SLIPKNOT‘s Roadrunner debut. However the latter band, which was primarily based in Iowa, exploded on to the music scene, rapidly dwarfing the industrial heights achieved by the Ohio act.
Requested by “Everblack” if there was a rivalry between SLIPKNOT and MUSHROOMHEAD, Anders stated (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “After I used to be within the band. As a result of none of us had heard of them. We did not have Web. It is not, like, a band from one other state, except they arrive and play reveals in our city, which they did not, we would not learn about them, except they’re signed and so they’re on the market. However on the time, once we had been placing our factor collectively, we had been influenced quite a bit by MR. BUNGLE and all the opposite stage reveals that all of us liked rising up. We acquired sick of watching bands simply doing their factor. And there is no drawback with doing that, but it surely’s, like, we needed to do one thing.
“In Iowa, it is the toughest fucking place to get observed in the USA,” Anders continued. “Just about farm fields, corn fields and hog heaps in every single place round, and it is only a horrible place to attempt to begin a band. So that you needed to do all the pieces you can. We needed to get each good musician, the very best of the very best, get him to hitch the band. Like, ‘Come on. We have already acquired these guys in there. Come on, give it a attempt. It’s going to be enjoyable.’
“The primary time I noticed MUSHROOMHEAD, I used to be in [my post-SLIPKNOT band] PAINFACE and we had been in Chicago, Illinois enjoying a present, and anyone introduced {a magazine} over. He goes, ‘Take a look at this.’ And I am taking a look at it. I am, like, ‘The bass participant has a pig masks. These fuckers copied me.’ Trigger I picked out the pig masks for Paul [Gray, original SLIPKNOT bassist] as a result of he was too lazy to go there and get it. Paul, you understand this. So I simply bumped into the theatrical store and grabbed the very first thing I noticed. I used to be, like, ‘Oh, a pig masks. That’ll work.’ I threw a padlock within the nostril and gave it to him. He was, like, ‘That is work. I can see via it.’ So it was a very bizarre factor.”
Anders, who’s presently touring Australia and New Zealand with former MUSHROOMHEAD vocalist Waylon Reavis, added: “Waylon and I’ve decided that it will need to have been simply we had been all influenced by the identical shit being we had been all in farmlands.”
Though there had at all times been animosity between MUSHROOMHEAD and SLIPKNOT, as a result of they’re each heavy bands who put on masks, the true hatred reportedly began in 1999 when SLIPKNOT was enjoying in Cleveland and followers threw issues on the group whereas on stage. SLIPKNOT believed that MUSHROOMHEAD put the followers as much as it. The feud resulted in 2010 after the loss of life of SLIPKNOT bassist Paul Grey.
In an April 2020 interview with the “Discuss Toomey” podcast, MUSHROOMHEAD drummer Steve “Skinny” Felton addressed the SLIPKNOT beef, calling it “a foolish fan-fueled and, I assume, media-hyped factor.” He defined: “This [was] the ’90s, so any kind of information was cool. There wasn’t a complete lot again then. And you then get a feud between bands — it is form of an East Coast-West Coast kind of factor. Oh, Lord, right here we go. And for among the leisure worth of it, certain — plenty of us within the band had been on the time into it and performed it up and had some enjoyable. However I look again and I believe I ought to have did all of it once I knew all of it. Like, how foolish of us to even be…? Clearly, we did not have any a part of it, however to even simply leap on the bandwagon of speaking to the media about it and going, ‘Properly, we got here first, the rooster and the egg,’ and that entire silly factor. We spent plenty of time complaining about them for nothing. So God bless ’em. They’re one of many greatest bands on the market. So, it proves that masked heavy steel and that model of leisure remains to be related, and it is nonetheless very related.”
Felton‘s feedback echo these of MUSHROOMHEAD‘s J Mann, who informed Stay Metallic in a 2014 interview: “So far as a feud goes, I actually assume that it was 99 p.c media. I do not assume we ever actually had something dangerous to say about them or vice versa. However media was all about attempting to promote papers. This was again pre-Web, within the early ’90s when [SLIPKNOT] was taking off and we had been signed and folks had been nonetheless attempting to promote magazines. Nevertheless it was actually form of invented, to be trustworthy with you, as a result of thankfully I had the chance to hang around with Paul [Gray] and he was a sweetheart of a person. It is unhappy that he handed away. He was an excellent man, and we really laughed about [the feud]. After which we had a aspect undertaking and [SLIPKNOT‘s] Sid [Wilson] is on it. You realize what I imply? So the entire foundation of it was loopy as a result of we have really frolicked with the fellows and we have really labored with one of many guys. It is simply a kind of issues the place gossip sells and creates curiosity or intrigue. I take heed to the band and assume they’re kickass, and sooner or later I might wish to play with them.”
Again in 2011, SLIPKNOT singer Corey Taylor stated that he was keen to place his points with MUSHROOMHEAD to relaxation for a doable tour that includes the 2 bands. He stated: “My drawback has by no means been with that band, my drawback was with their followers on the time. I’d welcome it. I might like to do one thing like that, you understand. Particularly now. I believe it’d lovely to place one thing like that collectively and simply see what fucking occurs. As a result of if it is one factor I’ve realized, you do not maintain on to silly shit, you let it go.”
MUSHROOMHEAD‘s eighth album, “A Fantastic Life”, was launched in June 2020 by way of Napalm Information.
Colsefni kicked off a tour of Australia and New Zealand on October 11 at Crowbar in Sydney. Anders delivered SLIPKNOT‘s whole “Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.” report from begin to end, marking the primary time this report has been heard stay in 27 years.
Colsefni, Grey, drummer Joey Jordison and Shawn “Clown” Crahan first carried out below the identify SLIPKNOT in April 1996 on the Safari Membership in Des Moines. Not lengthy after, Mick Thomson and Craig Jones joined the band and the trajectory of contemporary steel was modified eternally.
SLIPKNOT erupted on the native steel scene and by October 1996 they delivered “Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.”. This LP grew to become the inspiration of what’s now SLIPKNOT‘s twenty-eight-year legacy.
A short while after leaving SLIPKNOT, Anders went on to kind PAINFACE, which later advanced into ON A PALE HORSE.