In the cartoonish wild west of the nu metal era, few band-on-band beefs were more iconic than Slipknot vs Mushroomhead. Despite having donned horror-influenced masks for years before Slipknot exploded in popularity with the release of their 1999 debut, Mushroomhead were often accused of riding on the Des Moines giants' coattails, leading to some bitter wars of words and even an infamous incident where Slipknot were allegedly pelted with missiles by fans while playing a show in Mushroomhead's home state of Cleveland.
Today, it seems cooler heads have prevailed. Speaking to Metal Hammer in their latest issue, Mushroomhead leader Steve 'Skinny' Felton insists that much of the feuding between the two bands was exaggerated by the media, and has nothing but positive things to say about Slipknot.
“Slipknot, man, amazing," he effuses. "One of the biggest heavy metal bands in the world. Holy shit, it’s gigantically huge and what they have done is amazing. And I think it opens the doors for other bands as well as my own. People like this masked metal. They like theatrics.”
- “We jumped offstage and took our masks off and started swinging at people at the end of one song”: The wild story of Slipknot vs Mushroomhead, the masked band feud that lit up nu metal
- “We got pelted with glass bottles and dead rabbits. We stood our ground”: Slipknot’s Corey Taylor and Machine Head’s Robb Flynn’s wild tour stories of bust-ups, injuries and urine-soaked tobacco
When asked by Metal Hammer's Paul Travers about the Cleveland incident specifically, Skinny suggests that it was nowhere near as bad as made out at the time. “A bit of it over time has been inflated," he insists. “I wasn’t there personally and I’ve heard 20 different versions over the years. And let’s not forget that it was popular in that era to have beefs in bands and stack people against each other. It was huge with the West Coast and East Coast rappers. The media fuelled it and fans bought into it.”
Skinny is also philosophical when pondering how his band's careers may have turned out had Mushroomhead been signed to Roadrunner instead of Slipknot, once again giving Slipknot praise for their status in the scene and the battles they've faced over the years.
“There were lots of people signing lots of bands in the day, he explains. "It wasn’t like we got the exact same offer by the same guy who signed Slipknot. And I have a lot of compassion for them, because they’ve put up with a lot of bullshit just to make music and art, and they’ve lost good people. I commend them for everything they do and it just goes to show that I wasn’t that far off many years ago that this type of thing was going to be bigger than we even knew. I wasn’t wrong. It just wasn’t my band.”
While Slipknot have gone on to become one of the biggest bands in the history of heavy metal, Skinny has enjoyed a long and healthy career with Mushroomhead, with the band's ninth album Call The Devil releasing earlier this month. Read the rest of Mushroomhead's interview in the new issue of Metal Hammer, out now.
