Music
The evolution of Slipknot masks
by Tyler Munro
October 20, 2014
If we’d have told you 15 years ago that a band of mask wearing, trash-can drumming nü-metallers would survive not just the genre, but the countless fads that followed, you’d have laughed. If not, you might’ve been a maggot, and while you’ve probably outgrown your orange onesies, the fact remains that Slipknot, against the odds, are still going strong…ish.
The last few years have been tumultuous, first with the sudden death of founding bassist Paul Gray and more recently with the booting of kabuki-masked drummer Joey Jordison. It’s a changing of the guard for the band, who’ve enlisted two, sort of anonymous—but not really—replacements, each wearing the same mask.
Oh, those masks.
They’ve gone from tacky to trippy over the years, and in preparation of their new album, .5: The Gray Chapter , which comes out this week, they’ve switched things up again.
Sure, Craig Jones has kept his mask largely the same since Iowa but the band members who actually do something—seriously, is Jones their web designer? Sampler? Bus driver?—have stepped things up a notch.
Above, we’ve run through the evolution of each member’s mask, discounting Paul Gray, Joey Jordison and the band’s pre-Slipknot Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat masks because honestly, at this point who wants to see that Anders dude shirtless and in a Vader bondage mask? Not me, man. Not me.
