It seems like DJ Sid Wilson needed to take things to a seriously wild level to become an official member of Slipknot. But for a DJ who's smooth with his hands, Wilson instead used his head—repeatedly, as it turns out—to prove that he had what it takes to don a mighty mask.
"I was already practicing with the band and coming up with parts and everything," Wilson said in an conversation with Revolver. "But before making the commitment, I needed to see the band live. They kept telling me, 'We're crazy, we're crazy. We wear masks, we're crazy.' I'm like, Got it. Check. Crazy. I'm like, 'I'm crazy. Trust me.'"
Early Slipknot shows were known for being filled with insane antics (not that they aren’t now, of course), but small clubs and perhaps a backyard crowd makes the vibe right for some next-level nuttiness. And the ringleader of the lunacy, percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan made for the perfect mad man to set things off.
"He would go out in the crowd and wrestle with kids, tie them up with microphone cords and drag them across the floor," Wilson says. "So, he would go into the crowd every show — I didn't know this, I'd never seen the show before. And I can see him looking at me through the mask, and he starts this 'Kill me' chant [leading into 'Tattered and Torn'], and I see him coming out from behind this drum, and I could just sense it.
"I was like, 'He's coming for me. He wants to prove to me that they're crazy — and I am fucking nuts.' So, I'm like, 'It's on.' And I just start running and I start leapfrogging people, grabbing their shoulders and just jumping over. And then I'm crawling across the top of the crowd. And I get up there and he was getting ready to take one step off the stage. He looked down to get his placement, and he looks up and I'm right there.”
Wilson continued, recalling that "I grab him and I headbutt him six times. Bam, bam, bam. And I'm coming in for the seventh one and he pushes me away, falls down and crawls back to Joey [Jordison, Slipknot's late drummer]. And he goes, 'I don't give a shit what anybody says — that guy's in the band.'"
What a way to make an impression, Sid! In other Sid Wilson news, recently he shared with fans that his favorite Slipknot tracks aren't necessarily the songs you'll hear at one of the band's gigs.
"My favorite tracks are always the ones that aren't played live," Wilson says. "'Skin Ticket' [is] one of my all-time favorite songs. You listen to that song and you feel different after hearing that kind of stuff. You didn't know that that level of fear even existed in the world until you hear something like that. It takes you out of your everyday world to a super dark place."
"I don't know why those [kinds of songs] are my favorite," added Wilson later in the conversation. "I don't know if it's just a reminder for me to stay on my toes all the time, and to strive to be that much better and try to help people in the world. Because [songs like 'Skin Ticket'] make it that real. Like, it's not a fantasy. That shit exists. It exists all around us, and you better understand it to some kind of degree or it'll take you out — and your face will collapse."
Which, let us not forget, actually happened. Is anyone starting to think Sid has a thing for fucked-up faces? Maybe that's just what you're into when you make a lot of money wearing a mask onstage banging a trash can. Man, I clearly picked the wrong line of work!
