Nothing much was going on in Des Moines, Iowa in ’95, so percussionist Shawn Crahan and bassist Paul Gray decided to start a band.

They named themselves Slipknot, and went on to write the next chapter in American Heavy Metal.

They took the influences of bands like Kiss, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Slayer and came out with something different, something that would later become known as New Wave Heavy Metal.

They’ve made a name for themselves as one of the darkest, most aggressive and disturbing heavy metal bands. Slipknot is so insane that on the first night of a festival, vocalist Corey Taylor broke both his heels when he jumped over Paul Gray and continued to perform multiple dates, resorting at times to crawling around stage on his hands and knees.

For a period, they kept a dead bird in a jar and occasionally brought it out onstage, opened the lid, and inhaled the aroma to see what death smelled like.

Their fans are no less demonic. During one show, a band member put the jar down on stage after a fresh whiff of death, some fans got their hands on it, and they started pulling out bits of decayed bird and eating it. People get Slipknot tattoos because for them, one of their favorite band’s music encapsulates a philosophy of being. Symbolize the darkness they espouse with a Slipknot tattoo for yourself.