Slipknot

The short version is Slipknot was founded in 1995 during a role playing game called Werewolf which most of the early lyrics were based on. They convenced Paul Gray to move back from California and began recording their Demo CD Mate, Kill, Feed, Repeat at SR Studio adding and replacing members as they recorded. The recording and mixing took close to a year. Played their first show at the Love Shack in the October 1995. The line up at their first show was Andrew Rouw "Anders Colsefini" - Vocals/Precussionist, Josh Brainard - Guitar, Craig Jones(133) - Guitar, Shawn Crahan "Clown" - Prechusionist, Paul Gray - Bass and Joey Jordison - Drums.

The first change was bring Mick Thompson in on guitar so Craig could move over to samples and began wearing masks. They played and won the 107 the Dot Battle of the Bands beating out their future band mates band Stone Sour and winning recording time at SR Studios and an opening slot for a national act. On October 31st they had their CD release party for M.K.F.R. at Safari Nite Club They only pressed 1000 of the CDs and they are much sought after and often bootlegged.

By the spring of 1997 they were in the SR Studios again recording and we're being managed by The Dot's Sophia John. The focus of the recordings was producing material to shop to labels. Shawn had also took over ownership of Safari NIte Club by this time and the band went through a period of playing countless shows. It was at this time that they added Sid Wilson and played their big show to date that June, Dotfest. Later that summer they brought Corey Taylor in on Vocals and Andy left the band. Greg Welts was brought in to replace Andy on percussion and this brought band up to the 9 members. It was around this time that they began wearing their trademark coveralls and began going by numbers 0 - 8. 

In 1998 they went to showcase at the EATum Fest in Las Vegas, Nv, By this time Ross Robinson had already signed on to produce them and when most of the other labels offers fell through he signed them to his sub-label on Roadrunner Records. Before signing to RR Greg was asked to leave the band and they went through a few replacements over the next few months until they got Chris Fehn. Chris was in Deadfront which had formed out of the ashes of Stone Sour(This began the joke around town that Deadfront was a farm team for Slipknot especially after Jim joined the band and Shawn left to roadie for the band). Self-titled was recorded in California and by the time it was done, and Josh left the band and was replaced by JIm Root. This was the line-up that would continue until Paul Gray's Death.

Slipknot has gone on to tour world wide and there is a great deal of documentation after they left Iowa for OzFest in 1998.