Slipknot remains loyal to its 'maggots'

they may wear macabre, rubber masks and numbered jump suits on stage and album covers, but don't use the word "gimmick"to describe the iowa-based heavy metal band slipknot. evidence of the group's legitimacy on the music scene can be found in the heaviest metal of all platinum. the des moines troupe's self-titled 1998 debut was a million seller. the follow-up release iowa previewed by slipknot during this summer's ozzfest tour debuted at no 3 on the billboard charts.so, when percussionist shawn crahan declares, "i think we're hated more now than we were before,"it seems a bit disingenuous. crahan insists he means it. "i always feel i'm at war,"says the 31-year-old father of three who is recognised as slipknot's guiding force. "i never felt at peace. i never feel this absurd dream we asked for is getting easier. it feels like it's getting harder and harder every day. but that's what makes me work and makes the guys in the band work." crahan's ire is directed at a recording industry he says has remained antagonistic towards slipknot since its formation in the mid-1990s. the band's weird look and its swirling, clangorous blend of hard rock with angst-ridden anthems like i am hated drew considerable attention in america's heartland. "it was an insult to us that we couldn't get (record company) a&r people to come to a local bar where we were playing for 500, 600 people crammed into a room, because we were in des moines,"crahan says. band members also were frustrated by the fact that label scouts seemed incapable of seeing or hearing past the masks. "the music is always the most important thing, first and foremost,"says drummer and co-founder joey jordison, who wears the number 1 and a blood-soaked kabuki mask. "people talk about shock-rock bands, but we're nothing like that. we don't spit fire and blood like kiss or cut our heads off like alice cooper. all we do is go up there, look kind of (messed up), and it's just us and the crowd creating the biggest ball of energy that we can." the band's "energy"generates its own spectacle. violent and seemingly oblivious to pain, slipknot lists its onstage injuries with pride; one account claims 45 broken ribs and 240 stitches collectively among the nine members during their lengthy tour to promote the slipknot album. slipknot's new show, meanwhile, sports even greater dangers, including more pyrotechnics, jagged-edged stage props some of which were welded by crahan himself and hyped-up hydraulic percussion kits that vault crahan and fellow percussionist chris fehn in all directions. "we are not slaves of any conditioned, theatrical show; we're trying to grab our potential screams out of every direction,"crahan says. similarly, the band set out to make iowa an even more extreme explosion of sound than slipknot. "it's heavier, more complex and more technical but never loses the slipknot way of melody and groove,"jordison says. "it's the ultimate backlash against radio and mtv, and it shows you how true we will remain to our sound and what we do."