Slipknot are once again at the center of a storm. Unconfirmed reports that longtime turntablist Sid Wilson may have been dismissed from the band have dominated headlines in recent days, fueled by cryptic social media posts and a wall of official silence. But turmoil is nothing new for the most combustible metal band of the past three decades, and a new interview is a reminder that the drama runs all the way back to the making of their most punishing record.
The current uncertainty kicked off when TMZ reported that Wilson had been told on July 31 that he’d been permanently removed from the group, citing a source with direct knowledge but offering no reason. Since then, neither Slipknot nor Wilson has confirmed or denied anything. Guitarist Jim Root appeared to counsel patience with an Instagram message, and Mick Thomson‘s wife, Stacy Thomson, posted a tongue-in-cheek jab at the rumor mill. Wilson himself finally resurfaced online, but rather than address the reports, he simply promoted his revamped merchandise store, leaving fans no closer to an answer.
Against that backdrop, producer Ross Robinson has offered a timely reminder that Slipknot‘s history is riddled with near-implosions. Speaking to Metal Hammer ahead of the 25th anniversary of Iowa, the man who produced both that 2001 album and the band’s game-changing 1999 debut revealed that the group was openly discussing calling it quits before they’d even started recording their second record.
“I did get a complaint from Paul [Gray] or maybe Joey [Jordison] at one point before we recorded, where they were like, ‘We’re just not getting along. We’re gonna break up,’” Robinson recalled. “So I flew out to them. Corey [Taylor] took me out and was showing me Stone Sour stuff. It was like, ‘Erm, this is cool… but it’s not Slipknot.’”
To hear Robinson tell it, the friction had less to do with the music than with the disorienting rush of sudden fame. The band had gone from anonymous outsiders to the most talked-about new act in metal almost overnight, with no roadmap for handling it.
“That transition from having this vision from nothing, to it becoming so extreme as far as success and everything goes… Nobody goes to school for it, there’s no education for how to deal with everybody suddenly kissing your b**t no matter what you do or say,” Robinson said. “Girls that would never have looked at you, suddenly paying you all this attention… it’s very confusing. It was tough on these innocent Beavises!”
Once the sessions did get underway, Robinson pushed the band, and Taylor in particular, to extremes of emotional and physical vulnerability in order to capture the raw darkness that would come to define Iowa. The producer described a process that demanded the frontman lay himself completely bare.
“He had to strip his soul all the way. I do remember seeing him naked a lot. We’d get all woo-woo around the lyrics, go deep into the meaning and the tone of everything, so I’d have chills by the time I hit record,” Robinson said.
That intensity paid off. Released on August 28, 2001, Iowa built on the ferocity of the debut and has since come to be regarded as one of the heaviest, most uncompromising major-label metal albums ever made, a record whose brutal reputation is inseparable from the punishing circumstances of its creation. The band Robinson describes has, of course, since weathered enormous loss: bassist Paul Gray died in 2010, and drummer Joey Jordison, who exited the group in 2013, passed away in 2021.
A quarter of a century on, Slipknot find themselves navigating fresh upheaval, and as of now, the questions surrounding Sid Wilson‘s future remain firmly unresolved, with no official word from the band or the turntablist himself.
