I can't speak for anybody else but myself 'cause I usually get in trouble when I speak for other people, so I've learned my lesson not to do that, but for me, I've been known to pace for quite a while when I walk onstage, and that's just because I'm becoming one with my shell.
— Shawn Crahan
I've been to Dachau.
My art in my head just needs to come out for me - for my legacy and who I am.
Believe me, I go and go, 'cause I know how short life is, and I know how very blessed all of us are to be here and how very short it is.
I bought a bar because we got banned from playing everywhere else. We were too nuts, and everyone was scared of us. It was Des Moines, Iowa, remember.
Slipknot started out of tragedy.
I'm not drawn to people that much unless there's a really serious energy happening, but I'll take a lot of pictures of trees, or I'm always staring at the ground. I'll see an oil stain that looks like something out of 'Lord of the Rings' or something, and that's what kind of calls to me... I'm drawn to that aspect of photography.
'American Psycho' is violent. 'Apocalypse Now' is violent. 'Officer Downe' is a comic and not violent to me.
I was born to make movies.
I'll die on the stage, man.
I'm pretty infamous for opening my garage and standing in the middle of it and sneering.
Because of Iowa, I like being in a different state that doesn't even have grass and think that I smell fresh-cut grass. It brings me home.
The one thing that has always been there for me is music. Before I met my wife, there was music. If my wife were to pass or something, there would be music to help me through that.
I jumped off my lift, smashed my knee pretty good - my meniscus and everything. So I had to have surgery.
I'm not gonna be like, 'Farewell tour!' then come back. Never say those words to fans - you have to come back if you say that.
What the world needs to know is that it's okay to need help.
I still live in Des Moines.
I've been fortunate to have been in Paris a dozen times, where I've gone to the Louvre. I'm very big on Impressionistic paintings.
I've been inside the Anne Frank house. You've only read about Anne Frank in grade school. I've been in it. I've seen the diary. Things that teachers couldn't teach you.
I've been obsessed with death since I was a little kid.
I'm a pretty aggressive person, and I'm very saturated.
I liked playing drums in the band, but the truth is, I always knew they were going to call Joey to play drums.
I've been working on the way my originality, my body, my face, my original form is perceived by me.
There's a lot of different things that make me want to take photos. A lot of it is, for a long time I've been obsessed with the thought of time travel with my camera.
I don't look at my work as being violent. 'Officer Downe' is more campy than anything. It's a comic book, so it's funny to me.
There is nothing perfect, no one can be perfect, and perfectionism is something you shouldn't chase.
I didn't finish college, and I was very sad about that because I don't think I gave myself a chance to learn, to prove to myself that I could learn.
My wife loves elephants and compares me to a big bull elephant.
I lost both my parents, and it wasn't as hard as losing Paul, because you've got your whole life with them - you know it's going to happen. With Paul being my best friend, I just didn't see it coming.
I love music, and I can't imagine life without music.
This world is ugly, and it's supposed to be, and it has to be in order for art to lead to grandness and beauty.
I don't wanna work with people who only want to make money.
As the world grows and technology grows, it's getting harder to communicate and for kids to socialize.
A lot of us in Slipknot, we get to go to wounded soldier hospitals where soldiers have lost their limbs. That's surreal. It's even more surreal to talk to them about your band. They're talking to you about war and losing their limbs, and at same time, they're talking about their favorite album, these kind of things.
After I started Slipknot, I was very honored because I got in touch with the masses. But I was very down on myself because I dropped out of college, which meant I dropped out on myself.
My oldest boy, when I do skip, he's gonna take over my slot. He was sitting on the stair in diapers wearing my mask with sticks while we were downstairs trying to learn how to be a band.
I can't predict the future, nor will I. I'm not a fortune teller.
We will never recreate 'Iowa.'
Paul just had a way about him that was different. I was really attracted to his writing.
I forced myself to have a big family because I never had a big family.
It's very important every day that I get up and breathe, and I can say the word 'Slipknot,' and I still have friends that I do it with.
I work really hard to portray things that you're not going to see at Walmart.
People always ask me: Is it the music? Is it the masks? No, it's all of it. It's Slipknot. It's the optics, it's the masks, it's the music, it's the performance, it's the records.
I don't like people because I don't trust them.
I won't even let anyone in my house. I'm a private person.
I don't usually let people see me cry.
The masks were more of a representation of what you wanted to present as yourself.
Corey Taylor won't be mad at me saying, but I didn't think there'd be other bands. I thought we'd wear masks forever.
To the general public, just remember the people around you. You might not know what they're thinking, so it's always nice to be checked in on and to check in on people.
The people who you think are the most solid are often the most hurt.
