Slipknot co-founder and percussionist, Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan, was one of the latest interview guests of Metal Hammer this week and shared the little-known story of the goat on Iowa‘s album cover.
‘Iowa’ is the second studio album of the heavy metal band Slipknot and it’s considered as one of the most successful albums of the band commercially. The album received Platinum certification and was sold more than a million albums in the U.S. It also had a track named ‘Eeyore’ on the 10th Anniversary Edition of the album which was also the secret song of their self-titled debut album.
In an interview with Metal Hammer, Slipknot co-founder shared the story of why they put a goat on Iowa’s album cover, and explained how the hidden track of the debut album led them to make such an unforgettable cover art. According to Clown, everything started after he handed a goat named ‘Eeyore’ to his mentor Stefan Seskis and ‘Eeyore’ became one of the most popular album covers of history.
Clown revealed the story saying:
“That goat’s name is Eeyore. My mentor who got me going into photography, Stefan Seskis, shot the first album cover, I came up with the concept and I so badly wanted to shoot the second album cover, and I just couldn’t get it done. One day I handed him the goat.
The cover has a lot of symbolic, metaphoric solutions in it for everyone in our culture. I haven’t really explained it. It’s for the end times to put the whole picture together, so I’m not going to go into that.
The cover is as important as the inside cover, which is the mirror I made. All these people think they know what Slipknot is, everyone wants to judge a book by its cover but t if you’re a good parent, and you’re checking out what your child is listening to, you open it up and you realize you’re already part of it. There you are. Your twisted little fucking self. Right there in that mirror, you’re already part of this timeframe called Iowa.”
You can listen to ‘Eeyore’ right below.
