When you think of the location of famous musical homelands in the US, you obviously think of Memphis, Nashville, New York, Los Angeles & a select few others, but one place you'd not ordinarily think of as a musical mecca would be Des Moines Iowa. Well, now it's time to think again.
While not famous for it's musical exports in the past, one band of manic metalheads by the name of Slipknot are putting a severe dent in the musical anonymity of their hometown. I recently got a chance to chat on the phone with Paul Gray, bassist for the 9 member band who have been slaying them in both the live sense & in the charts. Paul proved to be a talkative & interesting conversationalist who is as interested in finding out about others as he is in discussing the band itself.
First up, I congratulated the band on the quite amazing album,
which has been selling very well so far.
"Hey thanks man, you know, we really tried very hard to put our utmost into it. Everyone in the band put a lot of effort into it & we think it's pretty good. That might sound a bit pretentious, but we really do care about our music."
The band's home town Des Moines, sounds a lot like my own local area, so I had to ask what sort of barriers to their music prompted them to start a band.
"About our biggest problem in Des Moines is that there are hardly any venues & most of those that are there have cover bands. It's totally disappointing that a cover band will attract so many more people than a band or an artist who gets up & plays their own original songs. I think that's why we originally started Slipknot, so we could create something that people would hear about & want to come & see for themselves."
The band's sound is quite distinct & I had to find out what bands had influenced the sound, which includes samples, DJ & assorted other instruments as well as hip hop vibes.
"I've always been into aggressive sounds. Not necessarily metal as such, but angry sounds. I've listened to a lot of hip hop & metal or just music that has a lot of rhythm. I like Public Enemy for that reason, they have some very angry sounding songs & they have a point to everything they do. Although we're not a political band as such, I respect bands who can do that as well as entertain the listeners. Of course I'm also into the traditional metal bands like Sabbath & I love Machine Head, who we're about to go on tour with. The other guys in the band all listen to a whole lot of different things too, so there's nothing in particular that makes up our sound, but a whole lot of other sounds."
An interesting aside was Paul's view on the state of metal & why it's reappeared on the charts all of a sudden.
"For me, hard music has never really gone away, I've always listened to hard edged music like I was just saying. I think the major labels have got a lot to do with it, but you occasionally get bands like Machine Head or Korn, who have sort of paved the way for smaller bands like us & who buck the trend & ride pretty high in the charts. I think the day is coming, maybe because of things like the Internet, when the charts will actually reflect what people listen to."
Lastly, with that point about the Internet being made, I enquired as to how the band had made use of the Internet & if it had helped them at all.
"Well, to be honest, it's helped us get a lot higher profile more quickly than we might have done without it. We've gotten in contact with a lot of fans through our website who mightn't have known about us without it. I think it's a real asset for any band these days, though I think things like MP3 are going to cause headaches for bands until some way is found to ensure that bands get some payment for their work. It's not that we're into music just to get paid, but it's nice to get some compensation just to live on. I think it'll all work out in the end though, just a matter of time."
Check out the band's self titled album out now through Roadrunner or watch for them touring soon.
