The Beginning
Chris Fehn joined the band late 1998 (or very early 1999) as Brandon was just temporarily filling in. Prior to this, the band had done a photoshoot for the album cover picture (early September 1998) and they had a stand-in for the photoshoot: Anthony ‘Satone’ Stevens.
The band traveled to Indigo Ranch Studios in Malibu, California to record “modern Slipknot’s” debut self-titled album in September 1998. Chris did not record anything on the album.
While in California, they had photoshoots for promo material in preparation for releasing the new album, most famously near the Santa Monica Pier. One of the pictures of Chris from these photoshoots was later used to photoshop Chris’ head on the S/T cover art.
In the future after Jim would join the band, they’d also photoshop Jim’s hair on Josh’s head on the album cover. The photoshopped version of the picture was featured on the original album releases that still had Purity on the record, the photoshopped hair was later removed for unknown reasons. See sliders below:
Chris’ head edited on the album cover.
Jim’s hair edited on Josh.
In December they took a Christmas break from recording and during that break Josh Brainard decided to leave Slipknot. There was once again an open spot in the band that needed to be filled. Slipknot would recruit Jim Root as their new guitarist. Now Slipknot was complete: Sid, Joey, Paul, Chris, Jim, Craig, Clown, Mick & Corey. The band returned to Malibu to finish recording the album.
The album was finished early 1999 with Jim only having to record “Purity“. Rest of the songs featured on the album were already recorded by the now ex-member Josh.
The mixing stages of this album turned out to be challenging. This is because Joey and their producer Ross Robinson mastered the entire album with analog equipment instead of the more common method of using digital formats.
Click below to see full pictures.
Like previously mentioned, the band had photoshoots while in California and this time they had all the new members with them. These photoshoots were used to take pictures for the album booklet, promotional material etc. Chris and Jim adopted the masks of their predecessors, Chris wearing the liar mask and Jim wearing the bondage hood. Jim would make his purple hair stick up out of the bondage hood, which made it stand out from the previous wearer of the mask, Josh. The band later took advantage of this by photoshopping Jim’s purple hair on Josh who was pictured on the album cover.
Jim had to wear Aaron’s (the roadie) red suit with an upside-down A on the sleeve, as he was too tall for the existing #4 suit, previously worn by Josh. For the same photoshoots Chris wore the #4 jumpsuit, the reason for this has not been confirmed. Might have been a sizing issue with the old #3 suit, or maybe it was not available for the photoshoots.
First shows with Chris & Jim
After finishing the album, Slipknot went on to play at First Avenue on May 3, 1999. This was Chris’ and Jim’s first live show with Slipknot, and the only show where Jim wore the bondage hood. Mick’s new Leather Devil mask got it’s live debut at this show. Chris wore his Liar mask seen in the Spit it Out music video. The members wore black jumpsuits that would in the future be better known from the upcoming Ozzfest tour.
The band would go on to change their jumpsuits quite regularly for different shows and this has continued to this day. More information can be found in S/T Suits section.
Slipknot filmed The Shining sequences for the “Spit it Out” music video sometime in May 1999, between the First Avenue and Hairy Mary’s shows. The sequences were shot at the Villa Carlotta, in Hollywood, California.
Before the upcoming Ozzfest tour, Slipknot played one more show which happened at Hairy Mary’s on May 22, 1999. Jim’s new Jester mask, which replaced the bondage hood, got it’s live debut at this show. Chris also wore a new liar mask which would become his main mask during the S/T and IOWA eras. More information about the masks at our S/T Masks section
Ozzfest 1999
Now it was time for Slipknot to head out on their first tour as part of the line-up for Ozzfest in 1999. At this point their roadie Aaron stopped working for the band. Jim finally got a new red jumpsuit with his #4 on the sleeve, although they had to use a different model jumpsuit. For some unknown reason Corey would wear a red #4 jumpsuit for a few shows. The band would also sport black jumpsuits in some of the shows.
The Ozzfest tour started on May 27, 1999. The Atlanta show on May 29, 1999, was filmed and later used for the “Spit it Out” music video’s live shots, together with “The Shining” sequences that were shot earlier on May.
Ozzfest had a huge impact on Slipknot’s growth, furthering the band’s success with their self-titled album that was released on June 29, 1999. Slipknot performed 28 shows in total at Ozzfest 1999 and would finish the tour successfully on July 24, 1999.
Following the band’s highly successful Ozzfest tour, Slipknot decided to produce a video-album called Welcome to Our Neighborhood, with Doom Films Production. The video was directed by Thomas Mignone, and would later be released on VHS through Roadrunner Records.
Touring & Welcome to Our Neighborhood
Slipknot would go on to perform a total of 72 shows at the Livin La Vida Loco concert tour between August 19 and November 14, 1999. The tour was organized by the band’s record label, Roadrunner Records. During August, Corey Taylor switched from his Dummy mask into the Ghost Glow mask, due to his dummy mask starting to rot heavily.
On November 9, 1999 Slipknot released their first video-album: Welcome to Our Neighborhood. The 28-minute home video-style release is a compilation of live footage featuring: “Surfacing”, “Wait and Bleed” and “Scissors”, interviews, concept imagery and music video of “Spit It Out”.
The band’s first international tour, World Domination Tour which they were also headlining, would start only two weeks after finishing the last tour. They started the tour in November 28, 1999 in North America and would continue to Europe, Japan and Australia. They returned from the first leg of the tour in July 13, 2000. After a 3 month break from touring they continued on the second leg of the World Domination Tour to play shows in the USA between October 24 and November 1, 2000. Slipknot performed a total of 110 performances during the whole tour.
“Purity” Controversy & Album’s Success
On December 1999, Slipknot’s self-titled album was reissued with a slightly altered track listing and mastering after facing allegations of copyright infringement. Slipknot removed “Purity” and “Frail Limb Nursery” from the album and issued slightly remastered standard and digipak versions.
Those two songs were inspired by a story that was published online. It was about a girl named Purity Knight, who was kidnapped and buried alive. Many people including Corey Taylor believed the story to be true. The case was made even more complicated by audio samples from the authoring website being used in “Frail Limb Nursery”, the prelude to “Purity”. To prevent the whole album being pulled, they ended up removing the two songs from it and replacing them with “Me Inside”.
On May 2, 2000, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a first for any album released by Roadrunner Records. In Canada, the Canadian Recording Industry Association certified the album as platinum on June 10, 2000.
Dynamo Open Air 2000
On June 3, 2000, Slipknot performed on the main stage of what would become one of their most known S/T shows, Dynamo 2000. Clown’s mask got a new paintjob and due to the show’s popularity, this version of the mask would later be known as the Dynamo Clown. Their white jumpsuits would also be known as the Dynamo Jumpsuits.
Tattoo the Earth
Next big tour for Slipknot would be the Tattoo the Earth tour. This tour made Clown’s new mask famous, and gave it the nickname “TTE Clown”. Slipknot co-headlined the tour with band such as Slayer and Sevendust. The summer part of the tour came with it’s challenges to Slipknot, as the masks paired with jumpsuits got easily very hot.
Joey Jordison:
“Everyone passes out two or three times per tour. It never happens ’til the end of the show. People are like, ‘I don’t know how you do it with the mask on, let alone one-piece wool coveralls in 110 degree heat.’ But it’s the music that drives us, and we’ve built up a tolerance for it.”
Slipknot played a total of 21 shows during the TTE tour which lasted from July 14 to August 14, 2000. Later, the compilation album Tattoo The Earth: The First Crusade was released and it contained two songs the band performed live on the tour.
Spit it Out Single & Music Video
In September, 2000 Slipknot officially released the “Spit it Out” single and music video. The video was directed by Thomas Mignone and features cuts of the band re-enacting scenes from the classic horror film The Shining. These sequences were cut between a live performance of the song, recorded last year in Atlanta during the Ozzfest tour.
The music video was banned from MTV for the many violent scenes, including Corey’s smashing through a door with an axe (a spoof of the “Here’s Johnny!” scene in The Shining) and the scene where Jim viciously assaults Corey with a bat. A re-edited, less violent version was later aired on MTV.
Joey and Paul began working on new music together in October, 2000 and would soon call in Jim to join them.
More about Slipknot at our IOWA History section.
Special thanks to: Anthony Mazur & Mike Covert for helping with figuring out timelines and some pictures.