13 December 1999 – Thirty-five years after the British Invasion of America spearheaded by The Beatles, the land of the free returned the favor. But the band that landed in the run-up to Christmas, to headline the legendary London Astoria, was slightly different to the Fab Four. It was the nine-headed monster known as Slipknot.
Six months after their self-titled album was released, Slipknot were already a phenomenon in the UK. Brits were early adopters of the nineties’ new wave of American metal talent, epitomised when Machine Head supported Slayer in a UK tour in late 1994 and were so popular they returned at the beginning of the following year to headline the same venues.
Slipknot’s first European show at the Astoria immediately went down in history. Kerrang!’s review described it as “mesmerising, menacing and utterly mind-blowing”. One fan turned up in a clown mask he had commissioned for himself – the first time that had ever happened at a Slipknot show. Icelandic star Björk, of all people, was in attendance. Not satisfied with two jumps from the PA stack, Sid took to the right-hand balcony, dangling thirty feet in the air before dropping into the crowd. He repeated the trick on the left-hand side. No-one had seen chaos like it.
“That’s the way it is in Slipknot,” clown said afterwards. “Sid might die, he might live, but he’s there and he’s feeling it. This is as real as it gets.”
The support band that night was Kill II This. Formed in 1995, their breakthrough came with 1998’s Deviate. Promoted with the song “Faith Rape” featured on a Metal Hammer magazine covermount CD (where I first heard the band), their sound blended industrial-tinged groove metal with trip hop and electronica. Kill II This found themselves categorised under the very broad nu-metal umbrella, though, like Slipknot, they had more in common with the mid-nineties “neo” metal of Fear Factory than Linkin Park.
Slipknot with Kill II This / Photo provided by Mark Mynett
“I really liked White Zombie and Ministry, and those industrial elements, as well as Rammstein,” says Kill II This guitarist Mark Mynett. “But then I also liked some of the hip-hop grooves that I'd hear listening to Snoop Dogg or N.W.A or Dre – the 2001 album for example. All of those bands were really having an influence on me. The groove aspect was certainly something that the drummer in Kill II This, Jeff [Singer], was really interested in. It was less about the rap side of nu metal, although we had a little bit of that element as well. It was more about riffs, and merging that with synthesisers and merging it with grooves.”
Kill II This were perfectly placed to support the big American acts that rolled into London and through Europe. Kill II This played with Type O Negative on the World Coming Down tour, as well as Fear Factory touring Digimortal. Mynett even got to play “Davidian” onstage with Machine Head during a gig in Lille, France.
The Astoria was a familiar venue to them. One memorable night, Kill II This supported Testament in its smaller sister venue, LA2, and left their gear there so they could return to play with Megadeth the following night at the Astoria proper. They embarked on a European tour playing arenas for Megadeth’s Cryptic Writings tour while sleeping on top of their equipment in their transit van. At the time, the British scene was in rude health.
“It was an incredibly vibrant scene,” says Mynett. “If you were down in London and you were in a lot of the metal pubs and clubs, all the music that they were playing in there, the scene was incredibly vibrant. And there were some really great British bands. There was a British band called Vacant Stare that I was very good friends with. And there was, of course, One Minute Silence [who also supported Slipknot a number of times - DF] and Earthtone9, and a band called Pulkas [their 1998 album Greed is a lost classic - DF].”
Going into the winter of 1999, Kill II This booking agent Derek Kemp was busy trying to get them onto one of the Christmas shows Kerrang! promoted at the Astoria that time of year. They were pitching to support Motörhead, but that fell apart when Lemmy listened to Deviate. “That’s not rock ‘n’ roll,” he demurred.
Then Kemp called the band to tell them something they weren’t expecting. He’d landed Kill II This the support slot at Slipknot’s debut gig at the Astoria. Mynett was astonished – he didn’t even know it was being discussed.
Like many British fans, Mynett had been blown away by Slipknot. “That first album is absolutely dripping with energy and commitment and authenticity,” he says.
clown / Photo provided by Mark Mynett
Years later, in 2017, he wrote the only book ever published about heavy-metal music production, Metal Music Manual, and interviewed Slipknot producer Ross Robinson. For Mynett, the key to the album’s success is how well it captured the band in full flight.
“It translates the energy so incredibly well,” says Mynett. “It's an astounding album, even now.”
As a music producer himself, Mynett credits Robinson, Andy Sneap (who produced Deviate) and Colin Richardson (producer of Machine Head’s Burn My Eyes, Fear Factory’s Demanufacture and mixer of Slipknot’s All Hope Is Gone) as pioneering an attention to detail that makes all of that era’s albums still sound fantastic today.
Mynett notes that these producers sweated the small stuff: restlessly adjusting the mic placement on drums and experimenting endlessly with guitar speaker and amp combinations. I remember an interview with British band Dearly Beheaded where they said they spent two days in the studio with Colin Richardson doing nothing but tuning the drum heads. Mynett reveals to me that Dearly Beheaded's former drummer is none other than the new drummer for Iron Maiden: Simon Dawson. Quality rewards a long game.
On the day of the Astoria gig, Mynett didn’t encounter Slipknot. But after Kill II This played their set he had his first brush with the Iowa Nine.
“I didn't actually get to meet them,” says Mynett. “They'd sound-checked, and we were just kind of knowing our place and not getting in their face. Shawn was going down to the stage for Slipknot to go on when I was coming up the stairs, and there's this guy passing me on the stairs with this clown mask, which was quite intimidating. I just heard this, ‘Hey man, that was really cool. I really enjoyed your set.’”
On the run of dates that followed, concluding on 22 December 1999 in Stockholm, Mynett got to know the members of Slipknot well. He bonded with Mick and Jim over guitar equipment. The trio also happened to share the characteristic of being extremely tall. They became such fast friends that Slipknot invited Mynett to their Millennium New Year’s Day show at the Super Toad venue in Des Moines.
“Myself and a mate of mine flew out,” remembers Mynett. “We were at the Super Toad and met their moms and met their grandmas. They were all at the side of the stage while Slipknot were setting each other on fire and pissing on each other – politely applauding after the songs. It was a trip!”
Back at the Astoria, Mynett was pleased with how Kill II This had gone down with the crowd, but he was under no illusion that everyone was patiently waiting for Slipknot. You could cut the anticipation with a knife. He tried to strike up a conversation with Kerrang! editor Phil Alexander just as the band was about to come on and got cut short.
“As soon as that intro tape started, there was nobody talking,” he says. “There was nobody at the bar. It was this atmosphere of expectancy that I have never experienced before or since. All eyes were on the stage. I think the only person that said anything was probably me to Phil Alexander. He was quite annoyed, just like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ Everybody was looking at the stage. The atmosphere was electric. It was absolutely tangible.”
Joey / Photo provided by Mark Mynett
The footage of the gig that survives today attests to Slipknot grabbing the brass ring. Even for a band known for their explosiveness, there was something brimming over that night. Sid had never attempted those vertiginous balcony drops before the Astoria show. Corey was so pumped up he even ripped into innocuous Irish girl group B*witched onstage, whilst deriding the state of popular music at the time. The energy was reciprocated.
“When I saw all those kids who knew all our songs, man, it was another stepping stone,” said Joey afterwards. “Another emotional high that we’d never felt before. When we got off that stage, we didn’t know whether it was a good show or not.”
Twenty-five years later, Mynett can confirm it was, indeed, a very, very good show.
“Really, really primal memories,” he says, smiling. “It was the culmination of everything. It had a lot to do with Joey's drumming. And it was a lot to do with Mick and Jim's guitar playing. And then you've got the different aspect of the decks, and those sounds going on. Then the visual aspect of Shawn with the percussion elements. So it was very, very enticing visually. You were witnessing something incredibly special. The expectations for that London show were through the roof. People were expecting the second coming of Christ, and nothing short of that would have done for them. Nobody left disappointed. I had expectations, and those expectations were completely blown out. They were absolutely magnificent.”
Kill II This joined Slipknot the following Spring for another run through Europe. Slipknot were on their “World Domination” tour and very focused. They had a no drink, no drugs policy, telling Mynett that the intensity they generated with their music didn’t need any extra stimulus. That did mean their touring chef opted to bunk on the Kill II This bus where the attitude towards partying was a little less hardline.
On that tour, Slipknot gave Kill II This a good amount of time to soundcheck and were generous with their stage, allowing Kill II This to have their own banner up during their set and similar benefits some headliners were more resistant about giving a support band.
But when things weren’t right with a venue, Slipknot weren’t afraid to show it. Such as when they played the Vooruit venue in Ghent, Belgium, on the third date of the December tour.
“It was a venue that was not prepared for the caliber of Slipknot,” says Mynett. “They had a power cut. It was too small. It was too crammed. The stage was really too small for the band. And I remember Shawn coming off stage and saying, ‘Get our fucking agent on the phone, now – this is not acceptable!’”
On the last date of the second tour, on 17 March 2000 in Madrid, Mynett took an afternoon stroll around the city with Corey. They spoke about the bands from Des Moines that fed into Slipknot, Corey’s time working in a porn shop, and their musical aspirations. Mynett is keen to underline the “virtuosity” of Slipknot and how accomplished they are as musicians, something often mentioned as secondary to the aggression and energy of the self-titled album. Mynett singles out Corey’s talent as a singer.
“Corey Taylor is an incredible vocalist,” he says. “He's got it all. He’s got the aggression. He's got the melodic voice. He's got the control. He's got the vibrato. He's got the intervals. He's got the range. He's got everything. There's not that many vocalists that can do it to his standard. Seamlessly go from guttural, death metal vocals to clean, melodic – and within a split second, change between those voices. It's incredible to watch. He's an incredible front man as well. All of those qualities in a singer, and as a front man, are very, very rare. He's a rare talent.”
As for Mynett, Kill II This re-emerged this year with a new album, Variant. He is also playing guitar alongside members of My Dying Bride and Cradle of Filth in new band Plague of Angels, with a couple of singles under their belt. If there was any grit in the oyster for him about their late-nineties success, it was that Kill II This was the go-to bridesmaid rather than the bride when it came to their specialism supporting American headliners. But they were a helluva bridesmaid.
“The most important thing to say is my gratitude that we had that opportunity to go out with Slipknot, not just once, not just the Astoria, but two separate tours,” he says about what it all means to him looking back. “It was an absolute honor and a privilege. And I'm very, very thankful for those memories, of those experiences. It very much encapsulates memories for me of being young and being a musician, so I'm very thankful for that.”
As for Slipknot, the European run of their 25th Anniversary tour lands in the UK this week, culminating in two massive shows at London’s O2 Arena. Sadly, the London Astoria was demolished in 2009. For those present in December 1999 who make it to this tour, the memories of Slipknot’s first landing on British shores will be stirred up like the ghosts of Christmas past. Even if Slipknot's balcony-dangling days are over.
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Remaining dates for Slipknot's Here Comes the Pain 25th anniversary tour are sold out. See the list of dates and cities on the final shows of the EU/UK run below.
