Slipknot at the Olympic Opening Ceremony? That is the unlikely prospect we could be seeing in four years’ time if the Iowan be-masked metallers get their wish…
The band’s drummer Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan has been talking to Metal Hammer when the conversation turned to the Paris opening ceremony and the appearance of French metal band Gojira.
"I got goosebumps (watching Gojira at the opening ceremony),” Crahan said. “I know this is going to sound stupid, but I’m just so proud of them. I know the word ‘proud’ probably sounds weird coming from me but that band is so incredible, and they’re friends of ours ...
"When I saw the performance, I was just proud to have them do that. What a huge, huge honour, what a huge performance.”
"And what an enormous metaphor: you have all these wonderful athletes, the best of the best of the best together, and someone involved thought, ‘We should get Gojira to open this up…’ Like, Gojira are the gold medal."
As for whether Slipknot would like to follow in their footsteps, Crahan gave an unequivocal ‘yes’: "We’d love to do it. You’re gonna start to see Slipknot do some weird shit.”
"We’ve reached the point where, you know, we want to play the Grammys, we want to play the Olympics. Why not? We’ve done the standard circuit already, for 25 years, and in the future we are going to be everywhere."
Previously, Crahan has talked about the group’s desire to play smaller venues. Late last year He told NME that the group were allegedly ‘going back to basics’ again: “I’m ready to kick everybody in the face again! I’m ready to do a 100-person venue again! I’m ready to do a 500-person venue. We want to play in front of 500 people, but there are a lot of factors that will mean it can’t happen. We’re at the point where we’ve got to ensure safety.
Before then the group are set to play some European arena shows at the end of the year, winding up at a date at London’s 02 on December 20. It’s part of their Here Comes The Pain tour which celebrates 25 years since the group’s self titled debut album. For the tour the band are playing that album in full and have revived their old school look, bringing back the red boiler suits and many of their early masks.
