Ross Robinson broke his back in a motocross crash about three weeks into recording Slipknot's Iowa, took a day to recover, then came back to the studio on painkillers and produced the rest of the album anyway. It suited a record the band had already decided to make as hostile as possible. Roadrunner A&R executive Monte Conner said everyone expected the follow-up to a platinum debut to be "the wimp-out record". What arrived on 28 August 2001 was, in Metal Hammer's words, still the heaviest album ever to enter the UK chart at number one.
Nine men from Des Moines made it in Los Angeles, at the end of an exhausting first cycle, while barely speaking. The straight-edge rule that held on the debut was gone. Iowa went to number one in Britain and number three in America, earned two Grammy nominations, and then collided with 11 September. This is the story of the record, from a supposedly haunted side room at Sound City to the goat on the cover.
Album Facts
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Artist | Slipknot |
| Album | Iowa |
| Release date | 28 August 2001 |
| Label | Roadrunner Records |
| Producers | Ross Robinson and Slipknot |
| Studios | Sound City and Sound Image, Los Angeles (Van Nuys) |
| Genre | Nu metal, groove metal |
| Tracks / runtime | 14 tracks, 66:17 |
| Billboard 200 peak | 3 |
| UK Albums Chart peak | 1 (13 weeks on chart, one at number one) |
| Other peaks | Canada 1, Australia 2, Finland 3, Ireland 3, Germany 4 |
| Certifications | RIAA platinum, 10 October 2001; reported platinum in the UK and Canada |
| Singles | "Left Behind", "My Plague"; "The Heretic Anthem" as a promo |
Cultural Context
Stereogum's twentieth-anniversary retrospective lists the neighbours. System of a Down were political, Linkin Park had "Matrix-era nerd cred", Korn leaned into hip-hop grooves and Limp Bizkit spoke to "the inner bro". Slipknot, it said, were "genuinely kind of scary". Robinson, who had made Korn's debut, said he had disconnected from that world and found Slipknot "something totally fresh", while "copy bands, your Papa Roaches or whatever" took over the charts.
System of a Down's Toxicity followed on 4 September 2001, a week after Iowa, and entered the US chart at number one. The two bands were due to co-headline a tour together. Then came 11 September.
Slipknot's Story Up to Iowa
Slipknot formed in Des Moines in 1995 and self-released the demo Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. on 31 October 1996. In February 1998 Robinson attended their rehearsals and offered to produce, and Roadrunner gave them a $500,000, seven-album deal, signed publicly on 8 July 1998. Guitarist Jim Root was recruited during the sessions in Malibu to complete the lineup, and Slipknot came out on 29 June 1999. It went platinum in early 2000, a first for Roadrunner.
The band was a nine-piece with a drummer, two more percussionists, a turntablist and a sampler, and the success was punishing. Taylor told Guitar World in 2000 that "Slipknot is a big scary monster, and we're losing control of it." Percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan later said the eighteen months of the first cycle left the band feeling "puppetish". After the debut, their label believed a much more commercial record was coming.
Pre-production and Demos
There was no break. After the first world tour wrapped in November 2000, drummer Joey Jordison and bassist Paul Gray went straight to Gray's brother's house and began writing. Taylor later stressed, "Everybody writes", but said the pair "would get stuff going" and that each song changed between their demo and the finished version.
"We didn't know how to deal with the fame at the time, so we decided to make it the darkest goddamn record we could do and just be ourselves."
Joey Jordison, 2011, quoted in Metal Hammer, 2016
Several songs had earlier lives. "Gently" was a Clown song that predates Slipknot; Taylor said it was originally going to go on the debut, and the Iowa version is "much heavier, danker, a little more evil". Wikipedia's account has "Left Behind" starting life as "Lust Disease", an old song torn apart and rebuilt. "Everything Ends" was known for ages as "The Misfit Riff", and "The Heretic Anthem" began as "The Heretic Song" until Jordison suggested the new name. "Nine Men, One Mission" was an expected title in some press before Iowa was announced.
The band also nearly fell apart. Robinson says he got a complaint from Gray or Jordison before the sessions to say they were not getting along and might split, so he flew out to see them. Taylor spent part of the visit playing him Stone Sour material. Robinson's verdict was that it was "cool... but it's not Slipknot." As for the label's hopes of another hit, he has a plain answer.
"Roadrunner really wanted another Spit It Out, but we were looking to help Norway burn some more churches. We wanted to join that extreme metal club!"
Ross Robinson, Metal Hammer, 2026
Creating Iowa
Sessions began at Sound City in Los Angeles on 17 January 2001, with Sound Image also used. Wikipedia dates the start of recording proper to 22 January and its completion to 16 March; Metal Hammer's 2021 feature says the sessions lasted two and a half months and ended in early April. Reports vary. A planned release on 19 June slipped to 28 August because mixing overran, and a five-date warm-up tour was cancelled.
The band lived at Oakwood, serviced apartments a short drive from Hollywood. The debut had been made under a self-imposed straight-edge rule; on Iowa that "went out the window", with new management, Robinson says, funding "anything that they wanted" in the way of drinking and clubs. Taylor remembered a band "all at odds with each other". Jordison said "that's when we went to war".
"When we did Iowa, we hated each other. We hated the world. The world hated us."
Shawn Crahan, Metal Hammer, 2020
Robinson's accident came about three weeks in, on a 75 or 85 foot motocross jump that, he says, felt like his body bending in half. He was back a day later. Jordison told him it was "the greatest thing that ever happened to us".
"When I broke my back and showed up anyway, it put a very next-level diligence into those guys."
Ross Robinson, Metal Hammer, 2026
The work was physical. Robinson says drum editing took almost a month because there were no computer tools: he cut tape with razor blades, trimming tiny slivers so the playing "almost sounded rushed and even more extreme". Sid Wilson said Jordison's hands bled and were bandaged every day. Robinson's own agony, according to Metal Hammer, can be heard in the drum tracks.
Personnel and Credits
| Role | Player | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Core band | ||
| #8 vocals | Corey Taylor | Lead vocals |
| #7 guitar | Mick Thomson | Guitar |
| #6 percussion | Shawn Crahan | Backing vocals, editing, creative direction |
| #5 samples | Craig Jones | Samples, media; noise on "(515)" |
| #4 guitar | Jim Root | Guitar |
| #3 percussion | Chris Fehn | Backing vocals |
| #2 bass | Paul Gray | Backing vocals |
| #1 drums | Joey Jordison | Also designed the logos |
| #0 turntables | Sid Wilson | Vocals on "(515)" |
| Production and engineering | ||
| Producer | Ross Robinson, Slipknot | Co-production |
| Engineer | Mike Fraser | Assistant: Steve Sisco |
| Mixing | Andy Wallace | |
| Mastering | George Marino | |
| Executive producer | Steve Richards | |
| Artwork | ||
| Creative direction, photography | Shawn Crahan | |
| Photography | Stefan Seskis | Cover goat shoot |
| Art direction, layout | T42 Design | |
| Band photography | Neil Zlozower | |
No guest musicians are credited. Iowa was the first full album with Root, who had appeared on only one song of the debut. He told Guitar magazine in 2001 there was a lot of pressure from fellow guitarist Mick Thomson to perform well.
The masks changed again. Louder's history says Taylor's Iowa mask was "blacker" than the debut's, Thomson's was painted metallic with a grill across the mouth, Jordison added black corpse paint to his Kabuki mask, and Clown's gained an upside-down pentagram, two horns and a torn-back scalp showing a bloody brain. Crahan said the masks "were nasty business because we were nasty business."
The Songs on Iowa
| # | Title | Writer(s) | Length | Single? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "(515)" | Slipknot | 0:59 | Named for the central Iowa area code | |
| 2 | "People = Shit" | Slipknot | 3:35 | Live staple; blastbeat opening | |
| 3 | "Disasterpiece" | Slipknot | 5:08 | Rotating-kit drum solo on tour | |
| 4 | "My Plague" | Slipknot | 3:40 | Yes | Grammy nominee; remixed for Resident Evil |
| 5 | "Everything Ends" | Slipknot | 4:14 | Once "The Misfit Riff" | |
| 6 | "The Heretic Anthem" | Slipknot | 4:13 | Promo | Issued first as "Heretic Song" |
| 7 | "Gently" | Slipknot | 4:54 | Older Clown song, remade heavier | |
| 8 | "Left Behind" | Slipknot | 4:01 | Yes | Grammy nominee; about homelessness |
| 9 | "The Shape" | Slipknot | 3:37 | ||
| 10 | "I Am Hated" | Slipknot | 2:37 | Performed in the film Rollerball | |
| 11 | "Skin Ticket" | Slipknot | 6:41 | Began as a Clown riff | |
| 12 | "New Abortion" | Slipknot | 3:36 | ||
| 13 | "Metabolic" | Slipknot | 3:59 | ||
| 14 | "Iowa" | Slipknot | 15:03 | Band's longest continuous song |
The opening "(515)" is Sid Wilson's grief. His grandfather died during the sessions and he could not go home for it. Robinson says the track is outtakes of the backing vocals Wilson recorded for "People = Shit" while crying, "the sound of true unfiltered grief, but also the sound of pure love". Craig Jones supplied the noise underneath. Then comes "People = Shit". Robinson wanted to catch the band "at their deepest, most full-tilt slam" and credits Taylor with the "Here we go again, motherfucker!" shout. Crahan told Kerrang! it was the band's way of saying "Fuck off and leave us alone", while Taylor insisted in 2001 that the title was "a liberating statement rather than a damning one". Drowned in Sound said it "cranks it up to 666".
"Disasterpiece" opens on "I want to slit your throat and fuck the wound". On the tour Jordison played its solo on a rotating kit that went upside down. Robinson changed two vocals: Taylor says the "Everything Ends" chorus was originally very melodic until Robinson decided a scream would hit harder, and on "I Am Hated" he wanted it broken down "a little more evil and a little cleaner". "Skin Ticket" came from Taylor watching Clown play a riff with Thomson, which Thomson and Root then worked out; they were aiming for something like "Tattered and Torn" from the debut, and it got far heavier.
"Left Behind" is about the stretch Taylor spent homeless under a bridge in Des Moines, and the people who vanished once things took off. According to Wikipedia, Robinson told him he was "trying too hard" and pushed for a more guttural delivery. "The Heretic Anthem" was written, per Wikipedia, about labels that showed no interest in the band.
The title track runs 15:03 and began as a jam. The band arrived one day with bottles of NyQuil, which Robinson refused ("the only time anybody was actually under the influence in the studio"), and he crowded them into a side room at Sound City that is "supposed to be haunted, all mouldy and shitty". He is "pretty sure" the album version is the single take they played. Taylor's vocal was a separate ordeal: he told Metal Hammer he recorded it naked, "cutting myself up with a broken candle", the one time Robinson stayed out of the booth. FHM's account says broken glass, and Robinson recalls Taylor going naked on vocal overdubs but cannot be sure it was this song. Jordison, who was in the room, called it "probably the scariest track of all time".
B-sides and Extras
The "Left Behind" single, released on 29 October 2001, carried live versions of "Liberate" and "Surfacing" as B-sides. The "My Plague" single added live takes of "The Heretic Anthem" and "(sic)" from a Stockholm show on 22 January, alongside the Terry Date "New Abuse mix" made for the Resident Evil soundtrack. The Japanese edition of the album carried a live "Liberate" as a bonus track.
Album Artwork and Packaging
The image at the top of this page is the artwork from the 2011 tenth-anniversary edition: a tight crop of a goat's curved horns and coat against weathered blue boards, two teal rods crossing the frame, the scratchy Slipknot logo and the word Iowa across the centre. Louder describes it as another photograph from the same shoot as the original sleeve, a profile of a goat's head hanging on a wall by its horns. The anniversary set came in a digipak with new artwork and photography.
The goat is called Eeyore, the same name as the hidden track after "Scissors" on the debut. Crahan told Metal Hammer that his mentor Stefan Seskis shot the first album cover. Crahan wanted to do it himself and could not get the shot. "One day I handed him the goat," he said, and Seskis came back with several Polaroids. The inside cover is a mirror Crahan made, which he said matters as much as the front. Of the symbolism he would say only: "It's for the end times to put the whole picture together."
Release and Reception
Iowa entered the UK chart at number one on 8 September 2001 and spent 13 weeks on it. It reached number three in the US, number one in Canada and number two in Australia, and debuted in the top ten in nine countries. The RIAA certified it platinum on 10 October 2001.
Reviews were broadly positive. Metacritic's average is 68 out of 100 from nine critics, NME gave it 8/10 and ranked it sixth among its 2001 albums of the year, and Entertainment Weekly gave it a C-minus. Rolling Stone's yearbook called it "the sound of hell boiling over". Yahoo's John Mulvey wrote that they were "an evolutionary dead end, the final, absolute triumph of nu metal."
Then the timing went wrong. Metal Hammer's 2021 retelling says MTV, which had promised a big push for "Left Behind", decided heavy music was inappropriate after 11 September and pulled many metal bands from the airwaves. Taylor told The Ringer that "that album didn't sell at all after 9/11".
"All they heard was heavy metal and they shut us down."
Corey Taylor, Metal Hammer, 2021
"Left Behind" was nominated for the 2002 Grammy for Best Metal Performance and lost to Tool's "Schism". "My Plague" was nominated a year later and lost to Korn's "Here to Stay". Metal Hammer's 2016 list of the 100 greatest metal albums of the 21st century put Iowa at number one, and Rolling Stone placed it 50th in its 2017 list of the 100 greatest metal albums.
Singles and Music Videos
| Single | Date | Peak | Extras | Video |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "The Heretic Anthem" (as "Heretic Song") | From 15 May 2001 | Promo only | Free, limited to 666 copies | Live video on the anniversary DVD |
| "Left Behind" | 29 October 2001 | UK 24, US Mainstream Rock 30 | Live "Liberate", "Surfacing" | Dave Meyers |
| "My Plague" | 8 July 2002 | UK 43 | Terry Date remix; live tracks | Matthew Amos, Simon Hilton |
"Heretic Song" was given away free on the band's website from 15 May 2001, limited to 666 copies to match the chorus. "Left Behind" and "People = Shit" leaked online in July, which pushed Roadrunner to send "Left Behind" to radio earlier than planned.
Dave Meyers directed the "Left Behind" video in Los Angeles. A bullied boy works in a butcher's shop and lives alone in a rotting house, and the director's cut ends with him killing a goat off-screen. Taylor remembered the shoot as a field "in the middle of nowhere" with fifteen goats and a goat wrangler. The "My Plague" video cuts Resident Evil footage with the band's London Arena show and was up for Best Video at the 2002 Kerrang! Awards, losing to Marilyn Manson's "Tainted Love".
Touring and Live
The Iowa World Tour ran from 17 May 2001 to 29 August 2002, six legs and 109 shows by Wikipedia's count. It began before the album existed in shops.
- Kill the Industry, Europe, from Lisbon on 17 May 2001, with Static-X, Mudvayne, Amen and Raging Speedhorn.
- Ozzfest 2001, from 8 June, on the main stage between Papa Roach and Marilyn Manson.
- Pledge of Allegiance, co-headlining with System of a Down, with Rammstein, American Head Charge, Mudvayne and No One.
- European and Japanese legs in 2002, with "Left Behind" and "My Plague" added to the sets.
The Pledge tour was due to start on 14 September 2001, three days after the attacks, and opened in Denver on 21 September instead. The London Arena show of 16 February 2002 became the Disasterpieces DVD, shot with 26 cameras and released on 22 November 2002. Taylor called it "one of my favourite ever concerts".
In TV, Film and Media
The band appeared in the 2002 remake of Rollerball performing "I Am Hated", and the Terry Date remix of "My Plague" was made for the Resident Evil soundtrack.
Reissues and Anniversaries
The tenth-anniversary edition arrived on 1 November 2011 in a digipak.
- Disc one: the original album plus "My Plague (New Abuse mix)".
- Disc two: the full live audio of the London Arena show from Disasterpieces.
- DVD: Crahan's film Goat, unreleased interviews and footage from the period, and the music videos.
Legacy and Influence
The hiatus that followed was real. In 2002 Taylor and Root revived Stone Sour, Jordison started Murderdolls, Crahan formed To My Surprise and Wilson went solo. Taylor says the animosity of the Iowa period was "one of the big reasons" Stone Sour came back. Metal Hammer notes that the darkness of the Iowa sessions seeped into the recording of the next album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses).
Its influence is easy to trace. Louder argues that Gojira at the Olympics, Knocked Loose on late-night TV and Bring Me The Horizon's arena rise all lead back to it, while Stereogum hears Slipknot's influence in Carnifex, Knocked Loose, Vein, Harms Way, Employed To Serve and Code Orange, and says Deafheaven have cited Slipknot as an influence. "The Heretic Anthem" has been covered by Periphery, Spite and Carnifex. Stereogum says Iowa is generally regarded as Slipknot's magnum opus, "spoken of with the hushed reverence usually reserved for Kid A".
Gray died on 24 May 2010 and Jordison on 26 July 2021, and Robinson says he misses them "so much". Asked what the album's legacy is, he started with one word.
"Fearlessness. They jumped into the unknown and did the exact opposite of what a bean-counter would want them to do."
Ross Robinson, Metal Hammer, 2026
Things You Might Not Know About Iowa
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| The nearly-title | Before the announcement, some sources expected the album to be called Nine Men, One Mission. |
| The goat giveaway | On release day, sixteen UK record stores opened at midnight and handed free copies to anyone who turned up with a live goat. |
| The swear count | David Fricke counted fuck and shit more than forty times in the album's 66 minutes; Loudwire counted "fuck" alone at roughly 38. |
| Goat versus drum kit | On the "Left Behind" shoot, Taylor says one goat chewed the drum set and another ran off. |
| The thigh bone | At a Portuguese signing a fan gave Crahan a human thigh bone etched with "People = Shit"; he gave it a funeral. |
| Flying seats | In Birmingham in 2002, as "Surfacing" began, red seat covers filled the air; Taylor says they thought they were frisbees. |
| Grammy bemusement | Taylor said that if the people who nominated them "had ever seen us, they would have run a mile". |
Listen to the Riffology Podcast
We dug into Iowa on the Riffology podcast, in episode RIFF038. Find it on all major podcast platforms, and tell us where this one sits in your Slipknot rankings.
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