SHAWN 'CLOWN' CRAHAN: What Makes SLIPKNOT A Culture And Not A Band Anymore

SLIPKNOT percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan was interviewed on the July 11 edition of "Whiplash", the KLOS radio show hosted by Full Metal Jackie. You can now listen to the chat using the widget below. An excerpt follows.

Full Metal Jackie: What kind of mental buildup do you go through to prepare for the rigors of a SLIPKNOT tour? And how do you recalibrate when, like what happened recently, tour dates have to be postponed or rescheduled?

Crahan: "I've done this for twenty years, so I don't wanna lie to you and whatever… I'm pretty chill these days. I don't have time for heartache or problems, especially drama. And I don't have time for the Internet and he-said-she-said. I don't have time for any of that garbage. I love what I do, we love what we do, things happen. We're getting older. I'm 46. People can't even imagine what's wrong with my body; just take a look at me and you can understand what we've gone through. So you do have to prepare mentally, you have to prepare physically, and you have to prepare spiritually. And, by this time, twenty years, there's nothing you can really do. You can only hope to take a deep breath, do the best you can and put your best foot forward and roll."

Full Metal Jackie: Tell us, how does growth and maturity of SLIPKNOT's audience change your role in their lives through music?

Crahan: "Well, the good news is it hasn't changed at all. We can go away for six years and still come back and catch the young generation. We're just a band that's gonna keep doing that and keep doing that. That's how we designed it. That's who we are. So, unfortunately, I don't change; I get to be a kid forever. I get to sit in my maturity, and my furtherment of being wise and being a man with my family and in my privacy, but when I get to go out on the road, I still get to be Clown, [and] I still get to do what I get to do. I used to talk to 10-year-olds in 1999, I talked to 10-year-olds in 2000, I talk to 10-year-olds in 2016. So, the crowd hasn't changed at all. No one has changed. Okay, the old crowd's gotten older, and they're still around, but there's a whole new crowd, there's a whole new 10-year-old-to-14-year-old coming to the show — just like '99, just like 2000, just like 2001, and so on and so forth. So that's what SLIPKNOT's about. We're a culture. We're not really a band anymore. I say that all the time. I know people are sick of it, but that's just the truth — we're a culture.

Full Metal Jackie: It absolutely is the truth.

Crahan: "We are always gonna be here. And it's gonna go on after I'm not here, the philosophy of SLIPKNOT. It's a culture. I won't allow it to be a band. I mean, [if] you wanna break it down, yeah, we're a band. But a band, to me, is something that goes into a rehearsal room and practices. We haven't been a band forever. We're basically this entity, this culture. And we love it, and we've designed it that way, and it's so much easier for us to have it like that, 'cause it's a mindset, it's a thought process. We don't preach, we don't talk about religion, we don't talk about politics. We just talk about life and living, and if we ever have said anything, it would still be, you know, 'don't ever judge me.' And that's what we try to give kids — live your life, come with us, whether you're 10 and become… That's why I affectionately call all the fans 'maggots.' Everybody in the beginning was, like, 'Ah, that's too hardcore!' Well, what do maggots turn into, people? Open your brains! They turn into flies. So come here, be a maggot, feed off of the pain and crap of the world, but still, be rewarded with your own self-awareness. Make it through, don't commit suicide, don't run away, don't get addicted to drugs. Fight this world, find your social scene, find your culture, be self-aware, pick yourself up, grow wings and take off — go wherever you want. But the beautiful thing is, they always fly back and say hi. They may not listen to SLIPKNOT anymore, but it'll always be a pillar within their soul, and they know it, and we know it, and that's what makes us a culture and not a band anymore."

"Whiplash" airs every Monday night from 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. on the Los Angeles radio station 95.5 KLOS. The show can be heard on the KLOS web site at 955klos.com or you can listen in on the KLOS channel on iHeartRadio. Full Metal Jackie also hosts a nationally syndicated radio program, which can be heard all over the country.

To see a full list of stations carrying Full Metal Jackie's show and when it airs, go to FullMetalJackieRadio.com.