Slipknot fans could be hearing a very special project in the near future, with the band revealing that four members recorded a secret album back in 2008.
Last week, it was announced that Slipknot are set to honour the tenth anniversary of All Hope Is Gone with a special expanded reissue.
To celebrate the release, current and former members of Slipknot sat down with Metal Hammer to discuss the recording process of the record, noting that they felt the band “cracking” during this time.
“The tensions are what made that record great,” explained former drummer Joey Jordison. “Everyone was completely on fire with emotions and being in different places, and you could see the lines in the sand, you could feel the concrete breaking a little bit.”
However, it appears that the recording sessions were a little more productive than first thought, with the band revealing a secret, non-Slipknot album was made during the same time.
Now, in a further interview with Metal Hammer, Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan revealed that he hit up another studio with Slipknot’s Jim Root, Corey Taylor and Sid Wilson during the recording of All Hope Is Gone to work on a seperate project.
“There’s a collection of songs that were recorded, 11 I think,” Clown explained. “I’ve held on to them for 10 years because it hasn’t been right, and I’m going to let you know now that it’s feeling right.”
“Is it Slipknot? No, it’s not Slipknot. Is it four members of Slipknot? Yes. It’s four members of Slipknot. Is it music being written at the same time as All Hope Is Gone? Absolutely.”
While one of these songs – ‘Til We Die’ – appeared on a special edition of the album, the rest have gone unheard since then.
“Jim would write guitar then go down and play guitar on the album, then come up and finish playing guitar on the song,” Clown continued. “That’s how we’d kill time during those four months.”
However, if you’re worried this is going to be one of those projects that goes unheard indefinitely, Clown says he’s hoping to release the record sometime in the near future.
“There’s a big collection of music, it’s fucking really amazing,” he added. “It’s so amazing it had to be held back to wait for the right time, it’s been 10 years. It wasn’t going to be one of those things to loosely go out and confuse everyone, and piss everyone off.”
“I’m not going to put music out to spite people – we do things the right way in this camp. The right way is that sooner or later, people need to be made aware of it because it’s the truth. It happened.”
“We spent time doing it, we worked it every day, we mixed it, we mastered it, there’s artwork. It’s amazing stuff. But it’s all got to be right in the story of Slipknot.”
While the tenth anniversary edition of All Hope Is Gone is due out on December 7th, the band are reportedly hard at work on their sixth album, releasing ‘All Out Life’ at the start of the month.