![\"1997-september-mfkr-article\"](\"http:\/\/www.mfkr1.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/1997-september-mfkr-article.png\")
by R. H. Michaels<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
It was a hot night at Safari. Hot enough that even the fish tank developed a coat of steam.<\/span><\/p>\n The all ages crowd eagerly anticipated SlipKnoT\u2019s performance. Chants of SLIP-KNOT could be heard, but not for long.<\/span><\/p>\n Strobe lights kicked on and a sample loop of a maniacal laugh and ice cream man chimes added to the anticipation. The Clown dropped his power saw, sending sparks across the already charged crowd.<\/span><\/p>\n Why the anticipation? It wasn\u2019t just the summer heat and the good cause of the benefit concert. Most of the crowd wanted to see if former Stone Sour front man, Corey Taylor, could pull it off.<\/span><\/p>\n He did. By appearances you\u2019d think Corey died and came back as a different man. He prefers the name, Faith, and he showed at least six very distinctive vocal styles.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s full on, that first song, second song, third song. It\u2019s full on and you just feel like there\u2019s this sound in your ear,\u201d said Faith. \u201cYou\u2019re on the verge of just skitzing and swinging this big mallet right into the crowd.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Full on is exactly what their performance was. The band was tight and often had three or more vocalist performing simultaneously. One of those was former lead vocalist, Anders.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was crazy. It was weird. I\u2019m not singing as much, but I am moving more and beating on the drums more,\u201d said Anders. \u201cI thought I was going to be a lot less tired than I normally am, but I was wrong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n There was some speculation that Faith\u2019s arrival would mean Ander\u2019s departure.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf I didn\u2019t like it, I wouldn\u2019t be here anymore\u2026. At first it was a little bit of a shock,\u201d said Anders. \u201cMy thing was, \u2018let\u2019s see how it sounds.\u2019 We practiced, and everything just clicked. A lot of bands do lots of vocal over-dubs in the studio to make everything fuller, but live they can\u2019t do it because they don\u2019t have enough people who can sing. We can get five going at once.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And they did. The old and the new meshed well. Vocals contained all of the passion and emotion that fans have come to expect from SlipKnoT, they also attained a crisper sound.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI was really, really, really nervous at first, but I put all that into the aggression because I wanted this to go over and I wanted people to accept it,\u201d said Faith. \u201cI\u2019ve never pushed that hard in my life, there was times when I had to cut back, and I missed a few lines, but I came right back in. Luckily I had guys on stage to help me out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Corey Taylor\u2019s departure from Stone Sour has left many rumors in it\u2019s wake. Faith stresses that he wanted his leaving Stone Sour to be on good terms. It was just time for a change.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was something I really wanted to do. Ever since I saw these guys there was this thing in my head going \u2018what would it be like to be in (SlipKnoT)? what would it be like to do that?\u2019 I loved Stone Sour, I love the guys in Stone Sour\u2026 I just feel like I can expand more here, like I can do more here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cStone Sour and SlipKnoT had a lot of crossover fans,\u201d said Anders. \u201cYou never know how things are going to work out, as far as what people think. We were planning on, if we liked it, going for it anyway.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It definitely appeared that the crowd liked it. The Safari was packed to the walls for the benefit show. Two concerts were held Saturday night to benefit Multiple Sclerosis, and the Sunday show was for Blank Children\u2019s Hospital. Many of the bands had personal ties to the causes.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m doing this for Blank Children\u2019s Hospital because they saved my boy,\u201d said Clown. \u201cThey are a god send. I\u2019m gonna take my little \u201cclown\u201d boy up there tomorrow and deliver the check in person.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The show turned into a circus of fiends. Boys, girls and stuffed animals joined in a great big sing-a-along. Fans can expect many more opportunities to join in the parade.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to playing more shows, getting out of town and writing new music,\u201d said Anders.<\/span><\/p>\n The only thing they aren\u2019t looking forward to is the bad feelings they seem to attract.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI can see people trying to start controversy\u2026 it cause headlines, publicity, people start talking about it\u2026. but when it gets down to a personal level, it\u2019s wrong,\u201d said Faith.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere was always competition when you were younger,\u201d said Anders, \u201cbut if you have self confidence, you don\u2019t need to feel competition towards other bands.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhen we first started this band, we didn\u2019t expect anybody to like us. We\u2019re writing the shit because we like it. The fact that people like us bugs people,\u201d said Anders. \u201cWhat we\u2019re doing isn\u2019t really original, it\u2019s just extensions of our personalities.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n SlipKnoT has always been a cosmic blender of sorts. It\u2019s hard not to find elements of their music that you can appreciate for their craft. Most just like them for the pure intensity of sound. But if you don\u2019t like their music, that\u2019s okay with them.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI got a wide variety of music that I listen to, but I don\u2019t like everything,\u201d said Anders. \u201cIf I like the people who are playing the music, but not the music, I still like the musicians and don\u2019t talk shit about everybody.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Faith agreed that\u2019s it\u2019s time for bands in Iowa to rise to a new level and support each other.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cEverybody\u2019s got to get out of the basement and get on stage,\u201d said Faith. \u201cNo one\u2019s going to hear you in the basement. We\u2019ve all got to support each other.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by R. H. Michaels It was a hot night at Safari. Hot enough that even the fish tank developed a coat of steam. The all ages crowd eagerly anticipated SlipKnoT\u2019s performance. Chants of SLIP-KNOT could be heard, but not for long. Strobe lights kicked on and a sample loop of a maniacal laugh and ice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-280","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mfkr1.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mfkr1.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mfkr1.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mfkr1.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mfkr1.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.mfkr1.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284,"href":"http:\/\/www.mfkr1.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/280\/revisions\/284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mfkr1.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}