For Slipknot, getting selected to play Ozzfest 1999 was a dream come true. Not only would the Des Moines nine-piece get to embark upon their first national tour in the company of some of metal’s biggest artists - Black Sabbath and Slayer among them - but the travelling summer caravan would present them with a priceless opportunity to promote their forthcoming debut album, scheduled for a late June release on Roadrunner Records, all across the country.
On the eve of the tour’s opening date in West Palm Beach, Florida, as their bandmates sat in the back lounge of a tour bus excitedly passing around a newly acquired copy of Metal Hammer issue 63 in which their forthcoming self-titled record was teased as “one of the most over-the-top and downright brutal recordings ever unleashed”, percussionist Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan and drummer Joey Jordison could be found repeatedly sprinting across a hotel parking lot, competing in what Clown calls “40-yard dashes” to burn off excess energy, such was their anticipation and excitement. “We were so fucking ready to go,” he recalls today.
