Slipknot’s Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan has told Kerrang! that he’s a very different person to the nihilistic percussionist who co-founded the Iowan nine-piece over two decades ago.



So, has Clown finally calmed down?

“The old me would feel like you’re trying to say that I’ve gone soft,” he says. “But the new me is kinda like, ‘You can think what you want.’ And I also know that I prefer to be softer. There’s a time and a place for everything. But no-one needs to feel the way I feel. I’ve been severely depressed with my anger, and my inability to feel, and to not be able to process life’s curveballs. It would really hurt me to think that there was a Clown 20 years ago that wasn’t hoping for peace for himself.

“It’s just the human condition, isn’t it?” Clown adds. “There’s no manual, and you have all these things you have to break through. I call it ‘being within the curbs’. You go down the road and there’s curbs, and the curbs help you stay in the road. If you hit them, they bounce your car and you’re like, ‘Fuck!’ And you have to get back in the lane. That’s why I drive a big old truck – I drive above those curbs. I’m just trying to process life the way you are. But what’s different now is that I’m more aware of your presence.”