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Slipknot Exposed! |
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Confidential
Case Report (Internal)
The office of
Dirk Spenser – Rock Detective
Case: The Unmasking of Slipknot
Date: 5-17-01
Case Number: 5-01-OICU812
Case Notes Summery:
(Late April 2002) - I was busy working on
smaller cases when I got a call from the publisher of a British metal magazine
who asked me if I was interested in trying to locate photos of the band
Slipknot without their stage masks on. The case seemed simple enough and
he offered a healthy fee and expense account that was payable regardless
if I was able to locate the photos or not, with a healthy bonus if I did.
The first thing I did after doing a little
research on the band was to book a flight to Iowa. I spent about a week
looking through various high school yearbooks trying to locate students
with names that corresponded with those of the Slipknot band members. This
ended up being a dead end as I searched through countless yearbooks at
libraries across the state and was unable to locate even one photo or student
with the same name as the Slipknot members. So my original thought that
this would be an easy task of finding old high school yearbook photos didn’t
pan out. The members must be using stage names.
From there I headed east to New York, maybe
I could catch a lead at the band’s record label. I met with resistance
from the very start. I first went up to the front desk and asked to speak
with a publicist. A young man soon appeared who looked like he had just
graduated 6th grade last week and introduced himself as a publicity assistant.
Instead of playing the sluth, I was honest with him and told him I was
trying to track down some early information on the band Slipknot and locate
possible photos of them without their masks on. He politely told me, “wait
right here a minute and I’ll see what I can do to help you.” He walked
out of the lobby and a few minutes later a security guard appeared and
informed me that I had to leave the premises. I reluctantly agreed, determined
to return and try a different tact the next day. For the next week, I failed
at my quest. The security guard would not let me past the front desk.
I began to hang around outside right before
lunch hour in hopes of finding an intern or secretary that would be willing
to help me. On the third day a young lady who would have been attractive
if she didn’t have several pieces of metal sticking out of every surface
of her face, agreed to help me for a hundred dollars. She told me to meet
her a few blocks away at a coffee shop at 6 o’clock that evening and she
would see what kind of information she could find.
With nothing else to do for the next few
hours, I spent that time on my cell phone tracking down leads to other
cases I was working on. I arrived at the coffee shop at about a quarter
‘til six and the metal-faced intern showed up twenty minutes later. She
first demanded the hundred dollars, once I placed it in her hand and she
reached down the front of her shirt into her a-cup sized bra and pulled
out a piece of paper which she then handed to me. It has “Sound-Demand
Studios” written on it and Los Angeles address. I asked her what it was
and she told me that she found out the band was currently recording in
that studio and I should be able to sneak some photos of them there.
Elated I caught the redeye flight to L.A.
The first thing I did once in Los Angeles was rent a car, taxies just do
not make sense in that town. I went by a camera shop to pick up a few extra
rolls of film on the way to the Sound-Demand Studios. After an hour of
driving around alleys and backstreets, I finally located the studio in
an out of the way building in one of the many suburbs of Los Angeles. The
studio didn’t have a sign on the front identifying it as the Sound-Demand
Studios, it simply had a steel door with the address printed on it.
I tried the door but it was locked. As I was walking back to my car, with
the idea of staking out the studio, the door opened and a middle-aged man
in a security guard uniform popped his head out. He yelled after me, “Can
I help you?” I lied and told him I was a reporter for a non-existent music
magazine and said that I was hoping to get a few minutes with the band.
He looked puzzled, as if someone wanting to interview the band seemed out
of place and he asked if I had an appointment. I decided to tell the truth
on that front and told him, “No, but I really need this interview or my
editor is going to fire me. I screwed up and didn’t get a hold of the band’s
manager in time to set it up and I have a deadline in three hours!” As
I told him this, I reached for my wallet and withdrew a fifty-dollar bill
and handed it to him. He took the bill and casually slid it into his uniform
pocket and said, “I don’t know if I can arrange an interview but I can
get you into the studio and tell them that you have an appointment.”
As we walked into the building I pulled
out my camera and switched it on to full automatic and took the lens cap
off. If anything I might have a half a minute to snap some pictures before
someone of real power in the studio ejected me. To my surprise the front
office seemed deserted, as did the rest of the building. The security guard
led me down a hallway to a room label “control room 3” and lightly tapped
on the door, within a few moments the door opened and a middle-aged man
with long hair stood there and asked us what we wanted. The security guard
responded, “this man is a journalist and he is here to interview the band.”
The middle aged man responded, “that’s impossible, no one interview this
band.” He took a closer look at me and asked, “What magazine do you work
for?” As I named the fake publication I gave to the security guard I caught
a glimpse of the band playing behind the glass and it appeared to be four
men in their mid to late thirties. Once I finished telling my lie the man
said, “I’ve been a producing records for 25 years and I’ve never heard
of it. What band are you supposed to be interviewing?” I told him Slipknot
and he shouted, “They are not here” and slammed the door. The security
guard shrugged and started to lead me to the front door. I asked him which
band was actually in the studio, he walked to a desk in the front office,
shuffled through some papers until he found what he was searching for and
read off the name, “Threat Razor Fun” and then led me out of the building.
This had turned out to be another dead-end
but as I put the key in the ignition and prepared to drive away I had the
thought of waiting around to maybe catch one of the musicians as they left
the studio and ask them if they had seen Slipknot and if they knew when
or if they were to return.
I didn’t have to wait long, I only sat
in my car for about fifteen minutes listening to some prankster named Phil
Hendrie on Los Angeles radio do bogus voices saying ridiculous things and
tricking his stupid listeners into believing the voices belonged to real
people. As I chuckled to myself listening to one inane called berate the
bogus voice who was touting “post-term abortion of the mentally challenged”,
the door to the building opened and one of the musicians I had seen in
the studio immerged. I casually walked up to him as he leaned
against the wall and lit a cigarette and asked him how he was doing. He
looked up and blew out a puff of smoke and responded, “It’s going. This
damn album is taking forever and you can’t smoke a damn cigarette inside
anywhere in this damn town!” I remembered the state of California
has outlawed smoking in bars and restaurants a few years previous and to
lend moral support told the man, “Yeah, it’s pretty crazy that you can
go to a bar and get drunk and the bartender will let you drive home but
if you light up a smoke, they’ll kick you out or call the cops.” He laughed
and muttered, “fuckin anti-smokers, but just you watch, they’ll come after
the booze next!”
I gave him the BS line about being a music
journalist and asked is he had seen Slipknot around and he said, “no they
aren’t gonna be here until later this week, maybe tomorrow I don’t know.
We got the studio at the last minute because they got stranded in an airport
or some shit.” Hoping I might be able to pump him for more information
I told him since I was there maybe I could talk to him about his band,
“How long have you been together?”. He then threw his half smoked cigarette
on the ground, walked a few steps to the door and began pounding on it
and said, “look, I really have to get back inside, sorry I can’t talk right
now”.
I sat around in my car for a few hours,
staking the building out, listening to the same talk show host until he
was replaced by some guy talking about aliens in the postal service. I
didn’t have anything better to do and I was hoping to maybe talk to one
of the musicians and get some more information, even though the chance
of them knowing anything seemed slim. I finally grew tired and too board
with the talk radio chatter that I decided, forget it, I’d come back the
next night. Maybe Slipknot will have shown up by then.
The next evening, I went to the studio
having had an easier time finding it since I didn’t have to search back
alleys this time. I knocked on the door and the same security guard from
the night before opened it and after a split second he appeared to recognize
me and smiled, “Oh, it’s you, the reporter. What are you doing here, I
thought you had a deadline?” I dodged that bullet by telling him my boss
gave me an extension on the story. He nodded his understanding and I asked
if Slipknot was there? As he closed the door he told me he didn’t
know the name of the band that night but he told me to hang tight he would
go check. A couple of minutes later the door reopened and he was holding
a piece of paper in his hand. As he read it he shock his head and said,
“I don’t see anyone named Slipknot the band name tonight is called ‘Sinister
Bastard Virgin’”. I asked him if he has a list of bands that were scheduled
the next night and he shook his head and told me that the secretary keeps
that under lock and key, so word of famous bands recording there doesn’t
leek and the studio ends up surrounded by fans. He told me he only sees
the daily itinerary, left by the secretary when she leaves each night and
he really isn’t allowed to look at list either. I pulled out a blank
business card I keep in my pocket for when I use a cover story and wrote
my name and my cell phone number on it. I handed it the security guard
with another fifty dollar bill and asked him if he could call me if Slipknot
showed up. He smiled and said, “sure enough! They show up here, I’ll call
you right away.”
I went back to my car and decided to stake
the joint out for a few minutes and maybe I’ll get lucky and one of the
musicians would reappear. I turned on the same radio show I had listened
to the night below, kept an eye on the door to the building, slumped back
and waited. About twenty minutes later the door opened and a man appeared,
I couldn’t really make out his features because where he was standing was
cast in shadows. I got out of my car and walked towards him about
half way there I began to introduce myself and said “You must be in Sinister
Bastard Virgin, I’m a writer for Music Voyage and I’d like to talk to you.”
Just then I realized that this was the same musician I had seen the night
before, he looked at me like a deer caught in a headlight, stamped out
his barely smoked cigarette and beat a path for the door which exclaiming,
“I can’t talk to reporters, not while I’m recording!” The security
guard opened the door and he slipped in like a snake on a fast retreat.
Before the door closed I managed to get the guards attention, “hey, you
didn’t tell me there was more than one band recording here. That the same
guy from Threat Razor Fun that was here last night”. He rushed out
the door and closed it behind him, his eyes darting from side to side seeing
if there was anyone within earshot and whispered, “That guy is here most
nights. It always says a different band but it’s the same four guys most
nights.” Ah, so they were studio musicians. I asked him if he had ever
seen Slipknot in there and he nodded, “Yeah, they are one of the band that
have been here but I can’t hear the music from the office so I don’t know
who is playing it.”
Could it be possible that the studio musicians
were really recording Slipknot’s record inside and using bogus band names
to cover their tracks? I thanked the security guard and headed to the nearest
record store. I went to the rock section to see if I could locate
any CD’s by either Threat Razor Fun or Sinister Bastard Virgin. As expected
I couldn’t find any CD’s by either band. I went up to the counter and asked
the clerk if he had any CD’s by either of the bands, he said, “No man,
they don’t have any CD’s out yet but they do have them in this weeks Slammin’
magazine! They sound like they are gonna be off the hook!” He picked
up a magazine from behind the counter and flipped through it and sure enough
there in a section labeled “coming attractions” with write-ups on both
bands, with photos. The only problem is none of the people I had seen in
the recordings studio were among the five guys in either band photo. The
band members pictured for both groups looked to be just out of puberty
and were covered in tattoos with metal objects stuck all over their faces.
Some were bald and others had dirty dread locks and still others had half
shaved heads.
Thinking that I had uncovered maybe a much
deeper secret than the true identities of the members of Slipknot I returned
to motel room to plan my next move. My head began to throb as I contemplated
going from my seemingly easy assignment of tracking down or taking photos
of Slipknot unmasked to maybe uncovering a conspiracy!
Continued...
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