Slipknot are keeping the identity of their mysterious new bandmate sealed.
Shawn 'Clown' Crahan
The 'Wait and Bleed' hitmakers recently added a ninth band member, a
percussionist to replace Chris Fehn, who left the heavy metal group in March, and the band's other percussion player Shawn 'Clown' Crahan has refused to reveal to fans who it is.
He told Kerrang! magazine: "The position you may or may not be talking about is nobody's f***ing business. The proof is in the pudding."
Meanwhile, frontman Corey Taylor recently teased that Slipknot's upcoming album 'We Are Not Your Kind' is the "darkest writing" he has done in six years.
The 45-year-old singer insisted it was vital for the outfit to make a "crazy" and "insane" sixth studio album, and told their fans - who are known as Maggots - to expect one of the band's heaviest-ever records to date.
He said: "It's very dark. It's some of the darkest writing I've done in years.
"In the Slipknot index, this album would sit somewhere between [2001 second album] 'Iowa' and [2004 third album] 'Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)'.
"Lyrically, it has the force of 'Iowa', but musically it has the heaviness but the experimentation as well.
"It was very important for us to go somewhere crazy and make something insane."
The 'Spit it Out' rocker previously opened up about going through a bout of depression around the time of his divorce from second wife Stephanie Luby - who he was married to from 2009 to 2017 - and while part of the record deals with his feelings, he will not have to go through such pain when playing the songs live.
He added: "I was able to let that pain go. It means that I can kind of enjoy everything for what it is now.
"It's night and day from where I was two and a half years ago, so now I can listen to the music and go, 'Jesus Christ.'
"But, at the same time, it helps to know where I was. It's one thing to record something heavy; it's another to forget what inspired it. And, for me, that will never go away. My memory is long. I can tap into that, but that's it."
Last week, Slipknot confirmed the name for their hotly-anticipated record, which has been produced by Greg Fidelman, and revealed the album will drop on August 9th.
Guitarist Jim Root said: "This is the most time we've had to write a record, and work stuff out together.
"One of my inspirations this time around was those artists that recorded full length albums - not just songs. While the industry is moving toward singles, Slipknot wanted to make an album experience, front to back."
Clown added: "These days the art we are making comes with the highest reward, because it's taken the most time.
"Almost four years to create this emotion and temperature, and the reward now is nothing short of salvation."
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