During a recent interview with Kerrang!, Slipknot percussionist M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan discussed the band's upcoming 25th anniversary tour. According to him, the group will be playing their self-titled debut album in it its entirety and some shows may even be in smaller venues. Clown said the following:
“Are you joking right now? You’re talking about the anniversary of one of the greatest metal albums to ever release in the thought process known as reality, and you think this 54-year-old man who just told you ‘I’m going out the way I came in’, you think for one moment that this album isn’t going to be played in its entirety in front of, like, a hundred people, 200 people, 300 people, 50,000 people.
I’m not going to live forever, man. Neither is everybody else. Things are changing very quickly. I ain’t got no more time to fuck around. That is the vehicle of my soul, and the remembrance, the memories, the heartache of lost brothers and even sisters — all these people that are gone and we’re still doing it.
Yeah, we’re going to play that album from beginning to end. But I sure as hell am not going to just succumb to the corporate world and give all those people what they want. They’re going to get it. But you know what we’re going to get? We’re going to have fun, too. So that means small shows and you won’t know until you hear it. And if you heard it, you’re already too late and you’re not going to see it. So you better open up your soul, because then you’ll feel it and you won’t have to hear it, because I’m being very serious.”
He also added:
“We’ve got shows, brother. And I doubt you know when my first show is. I doubt I know when my first show is. What I am going to say is that we love our fans, we love our band, we love what we’ve done. We are in a very special place. We’ve never been happier because we’ve just been working on ourselves for a long time. And I’m not trying to sound crazy or whatever, but there is still a very deep thing between the OGs, and there’s five of us. And we have some pride in that and we have deep things we still work on fixing and we’re doing a lot better at that, and because of that, things are a lot easier. We’re really happy.
‘The End, So Far’ is done. We’re off a record label, we’re off a merch company, and we’ve decided to move on. We’re moving on. We’re already there. We don’t pull a trigger unless it’s loaded, and we already hit the target. We’re confident enough to put out some dates. That’s all I can tell you, but I think you’re going to be happy. I think everybody is, because nobody knows anything. That’s all I know. Because of that, I’m super-happy. It’s just Slipknot as usual, and if you love Slipknot then you know what’s coming. Because Slipknot now is about being true to ourselves, and we know what we want. Honestly, brother, I’m really excited for everyone, for the future of Slipknot. I’m really excited for all of you guys, for what we want to do for ourselves. And if we work hard and do what we want to do, which we are, it’s really going to be an exciting 2024, and I think things are going to happen that you wouldn’t think ever could.”