because in this episode we're exploring Shock Rock.
Every sub-genre up til' now has been based on a particular
sound but Shock Rock is based on the visual, and this guy,
Alice Cooper basically created this sub-genre by creating a
stage show that was so spectacular and so over the top...
*
So what I wanna find out is why is it that
hard rock and metal music marry so perfectly
with the spectacular and the horrific.
* Music *
* Intro *
>> Shock rock is a sub-genre where theatricality and a
provocative visual style is as important as the music itself.
But the use of shock in entertainment has a much
deeper history than heavy metal, or even rock and roll.
Sam: So I'm here on Coney Island in New York,
because long before shock was used in rock or metal music
it was part of theatre or circus entertainment,
so I'm meeting with Donny Vomit who's a freak show performer and
a real expert on this topic, I'm going to talk to him about
where shock in entertainment all began.
Donny Vomit: The side shows began in the circuses and
the carnivals and the side shows would tour from town to town
bringing with them human oddities, this would be
dwarves, elephant skinned men, baby shows where there would
be babies preserved in jars with 2 heads or
6 limbs and people loved to see these.
Sam: Tell me about the heyday of the freak side show, when was that?
Donny: Back in P.T. Barnums time, the 1840's and he
had the greatest collection of oddities of all types
and it was shocking how much money he made.
P.T. Barnum learned really quick that it's easier
to get people to write articles about you,
than to take out ads.
The more they say about you that's negative the more it's
going to create that desire to come and see whatever
show you're putting on. People love to be shocked,
it does something to them inside, it gets the blood
going, and it's a feeling of excitement and
exhilaration it's something that people crave.
Rob Zombie:: I just think that most people want a thrill,
they want a (beep) thrill in life.
Whether it's you know it's jumping a motor cycle over
a tour bus or bands blowing stuff up that's what they want.
Sam: What are the earliest examples of shock being used in music?
Gavin Baddely: I think the roots of the use of shock in
music go as far back as when you want to look at when
music has been used. I think if you're talking about the
50's through to the mid 60's those early rock and roll
artists who used a bit of shock to grab the attention
of the audiences. It's not insignificant this stuff is
in parallel with the birth of rock and roll essentially,
and also with the birth of the teenage demographic.
* Music *
Chris Alexander: Every generation is afraid of losing
control of that generation and when they see something
that is alien to them they can't understand at all,
they can't fathom the appeal of this,
they're afraid of it and want to put their stomp on it.
Bob Gruen: Suddenly anything relating to the gay culture
relating to men looking like woman which was illegal at the
time was very underground, so for someone like Little Richie
to actually write songs so well that he actually got hits
and got into the public eye and all of a sudden people were
seeing one of these underground trans gender kind
of performers, that's what was so shocking.
Lemmy: Little Richard god save him was from
Macon, Georgia, imagine being black and gay
in Macon, Georgia in 1957. Puttin' a dress on
with a pencil mustache and a marcel wig, right?
Jesus Christ it's bad enough being gay there now I should think.
* Music *
Sam: What about Screamin' Jay Hawkins? Are you familiar
with what he did why it would be so shocking at the time?
Chris: Screamin' Jay, I mean as far as defining what a
shock rocker is, we can say Screamin' Jay Hawkins was
the guy because he brought the macaw into it, he was that
bridge between rock and roll and horror.
Bob: They would carry this big coffin out on stage
and out comes Screamin' Jay with a cane with a big skull
on the end of it and he was very spooky, and he looks at
the audience and goes "I've put a spell on you."
* Music *
Neal Smith: We talk about outrageous costumes I mean
he came right out of voodoo world almost and actually,
I mean I hate to say it being the owner of Kachina snake
on the killer album but he was the first one really
that I know of that had a snake on stage.
Oderus Urungus: Just catching a brief glimpse of him
shaking his mojo stick had a huge effect upon me as a young
little scum dog puppy. His very existence must have freaked
people out, no one had ever seen anything like that before.
Gavin: It's easy to underestimate how shocking some
of this stuff was in the 1950's, he's the first high profile guy
singing about cannibalism and voodoo and so forth.
So a guy singing about this stuff would push a
few buttons amongst sort of frightened white Americans.
* Music *
>> While Screamin' Jay was shocking American audiences
in the 1950's, a decade later across the Atlantic
a British performer named Arthur Brown was setting
the template for future generations of shock rockers
Sam: With the crazy world of Arthur Brown,
what was your goal of that whole visual presentation?
Arthur Brown: Well uh it started to develop in Paris in 1965.
I was a pretty stand up singer singing R&B and Blues,
and this club was extremely wild.
It was the beginning of flower power with naked people,
poets, political activists, performance artists,
musicians all doing their thing.
When I saw everybody I thought right, and I started to swing
from the rafters, stage diving and all kinds of things.
It was a whole experimentation with consciousness.
I can remember once I met an 11 year old who had already taken
a hundred trips of LSD you know, lived on his own in a hut.
And you might say it's bad parenting but he's quite a remarkable fella.
* Music *
Bruce Dickinson: When I saw Arthur Brown, Arthur came on in
this Inca head dress, he was a very imposing figure, face
painted in gold and stuff with this amazing light show and this
incredible voice, I mean I've never taken acid but actually I
didn't need to cause he's so Arthur and it was the same.
* Music *
Arthur: People are going around saying we're disgusting,
it's them who's disgusting inside you know,
it's like a big sewer pipe you know they're full of education,
full of religious dogma and they don't know
what anything is about they haven't had the
feeling of what the universe is about.
Arthur: Our kind of music was quite shocking, it had that
capacity to challenge people, there's the classic figure of
the monk meditating but losing focus and so the master
goes around wacks him and it was a bit like that really.
Bruce: That's why Arthur was such an influence on everybody,
you know everybody from KISS to Alice Cooper to Peter Gabriel.
Arthur had content up the ying yang, umpteen years later when
I was in Iron Maiden very successful, bloody bloody bloo
I was going for a walk down by the shops,
and there's Arthur Brown and he's doing a gig at the
Town Hall and about 20 people showed up. I went up
afterwards and sort of said "Hi Arthur, you probably
don't have any idea of what I do or who I am but
I probably ripped off 50 percent of my vocal style from you
and I've made an amazing career out of it. Thank you!"
* Music *
>> The first musician to successfully combine
heavy metal and shock was Alice Cooper.
While his songs "I'm 18" and "Schools out" made him the
darling of 70's rock radio. His gruesome stage show was
creating outrage among concerned parents and politicians.
So I've come to meet with Alice in Montreal to ask
him how the original concept for the band came about.
Sam: So what was your philosophy, your main drive
when it came to your stage show in the early days?
Alice Cooper: For me it was, there were all rock heroes
and no rock villains.
And I went "Why not a villain?"
I'll make Alice the ultimate villain.
In the early days we had to create our own theatre.
I would go back stage and I would go "there's a hammer"
Aha that's good, cause I can hit that on the mic stand
and sparks will come up. There was CO2 cartridges back
there right, you wanna know how many feathered pillows
it would take to fill up a theatre if you opened them up
and had a pillow fight. Open the feather pillows, turn on
the CO2 and the place was covered, not only that
everybody that was at the show was covered.
* Music *
Sam: Can you walk us through that infamous
day at the revival concert at varsity stadium?
Alice: The chicken. My manager was one of the guys that
put the show together, and he says don't pay me
the only thing I want you to do is I want Alice to go on
between John Lennon and The Doors.
We weren't really that well known, we were notorious
but we weren't well known. We do our set and we do the
feather pillows and the CO2 is coming out and the
next thing I realize is I look down and there's a chicken.
Now I didn't bring the chicken, nobody in my band
brought a chicken... who brings a chicken to a show?
I'm from Detroit, never been on a farm in my life,
it had feathers, it was a bird, it should fly. And I tossed it
lightly into the audience and the audience tore it to pieces,
blood everywhere, and threw what was left on stage.
The kicker to the story is this, the first 5 rows
of the concert were all people in wheelchairs,
they're the ones that killed the chicken.
Neal Smith: All I know is the press the next day had said
"Alice Cooper bites the head off a chicken and drinks the blood",
and I said "oh my god it doesn't get any better than that".
It was like Christmas.
Alice: Frank Zappa called me the next day and he says,
"Did you kill a chicken on stage last night?" and I went
"No", he says "Well don't tell anybody they love it".
* Music *
Rob: I think Alice took everything to a new level,
I mean he was sort of first and best at everything,
he was kind of like the Beatles for this type of music
you can't think before them.
Sam: To what extent was it important to you
to shock people for what you were doing?
Alice: It was everything. Everyone else was avoiding that
kind of press, and we were going "Come on, bring it on!"
Neal: I think parents were very afraid of us, that sort of
gets washed to the side over the years about how frightened
people were of that band. One time I carried 3 guns with me.
Dennis Dunaway: We always had death threats, bomb threats.
We would get to the gig and there would be the fire
marshalls, the humane society, everybody you could think of
there to think of a reason to prevent us from playing.
Alice: We went to England and already the urban legend
had started. You know I heard that he kills cats and eats
them and things like that. By the time we were scheduled
to go over, they had banned us. Thank you.
They couldn't of been better, we sold out every ticket
at Wembley, the record went right to number 1.
Sam: Why did the audience and press get so bent out of shape around people like Alice?
Rob: Well, because people are idiots.
In fact I think the best reviews you can ever get is if
someone tells you you're horrible and have no career.
That almost guarantees you'll be around forever.
* Music *
>> If there's one band in thehistory of metal that
epitomizesthe use of spectacleto shockaudiences
andfillarenas,it'sKISS.
Demon,Starchild, Spaceman and the Cat
seemed to strike a perfect balance between art and commerce.
Peter Criss: We knew we had wanted to do something
that no one else had ever did in the world.
We saw Alice Cooper, he was the only one who had
make-up on no one else did. So we thought what would it be like
if 4 guys had the make-up on? We knew we wanted to make the show
like a Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey, we just had
millions of ideas but no dollars to do these ideas.
I've always wanted to levitate my drums, and in the
beginning we'd play clubs where 4 or 5 big fat drunken guys with
muscles and they would pull me up on ropes, the first drum
thing and it would go up like this you know in a show.. hahah
Larry Harris: We realized from day one their
music was not great, they were not great musicians.
That's why you know the whole KISS phenomenon
had to concentrate on their show.
We actually took them by hand to go visit magic shops
and we paid for them to meet with the Amazing Randi
to learn a lot of things and get ideas.
Peter: No one wanted to spit fire. Gene said "I'll do it,
I'll do anything to get in the middle of the stage."
Ace Frehley: We were trying new things that no one
else has done, you know maybe with one of my special effects,
I had the smoking guitar I had the light guitar
I had the rocket guitar. I came out with a smoking flute.
(laughing) It was hysterical
Peter: We were a rock and roll band, we were young we're gonna
kick ass, if it's bothering you that was just too damn bad,
because sooner or later we'll be the biggest band in the
world and you'll have to join the party.
* Music *
Larry: Somehow, somebody started talking about what KISS
was doing was demonic. KISS didn't say they weren't,
especially Gene would kind of go along with it.
In certain cities in the south people would start burning KISS
albums because they were the devil reincarnate, and we liked
it because they had to buy the KISS album before they
could burn it so that was fine. It also got us free publicity.
Ace: That only made the kids want to come see us more you
know when they saw that on the news, so it really backfired.
You got 2 jewish guys, a catholic guy and a Lutheran
who all grew up in America and just decided to have
a theatrical rock group but whenever somebody says we're
devil worshippers is completely obsurd, preposterous. (laughs)
Chris: When I was 3 years old I remember I was at the library
getting some records out and books with my old man and there
in the shelf beside the Raffih's
and Sharon, Lois and Bram's was
The Love Gun, and you know uh I didn't know what
the hell I was looking at. These incredibly hot woman kneeling
at their feet, this was mixing 2 elements that I think are
definitive of what shock rock is. Violence with something
horrific and ugly with something very sexual and beautiful
Sam: Why were parents and the keepers of the morals
of America so wound up about KISS?
Kim Fowley: Let's say you're the hottest guy in your
little town and you meet the hottest girl in your
little town and you work at the Dairy Queen and you
decide to get married, and you have a beautiful little girl.
You don't want her to have sex with Gene Simmons.
* Music *
Larry: I remember one Halloween we started to see kids,
little kids dressed as KISS.
And at that point, we knew we had it.
We tried anything we could do to market this band on any level.
People looked at it as beneath us or beneath the band or not, we did.
Chris: They went absolute bat (beep) crazy with this stuff.
Lunch boxes with (beep) Love Gun on it, you were going to
school with your banana and PB and J and there's
Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons with this giant cod piece.
Ace: The cause of the over-merchandising, little kids
started showing up at the show and the audience
started to change and I remember very clearly having a
conversation with management saying "Hey you know, Ace you
can't go out there and say '(beep)', because there's little
kids in the audience you gotta watch the cursing."
We went from this mysterious hard rock heavy metal
crazy band to like a teeny bopper band.
I didn't want to have to change the way I acted;
I'm trying to (beep) my guitar, and I'm starting to
feel weird because there's young kids in the audience.
Peter: The men behind us became so money crazy and
so money hungry, in realizing we were like a circus
and you can sell us as super heroes.
For christ's sake we put our own blood in a comic book.
I think we were losing all touch of music,
wait a minute we're a rock band man,
you know we're not like the monkeys.
(Host speaking)
* Music *
>> By the end of the 70's, the reign of KISS and Alice Cooper
as heavy metals leading shockers had ended. With KISS on
lunch boxes and Alice sharing the stage with muppets,
middle America was now their fans and not their foes.
So what did it take for metal to up the shock rock ante in the 80's?
* Music *
>> At the close of the 70's, the horror inspired visual styles
of KISS and Alice Cooper had become camp, and shock metal
was effectively dead. But in the early 80's metal bands started
exploitingafigurethat's becomesynonymouswithmetal
itself, Satan. And when I was young the band that I thought
was truly satanic wasn't Iron Maiden, it was Venom.
* Music *
Sam: I remember getting their record "Black Metal" and being
just totally mesmerized, even a little bit scared by the
imagery and the lyrics, and so I've come back to London to
meet with Abaddon the drummer of Venom, he was also
responsible for creating the whole visual style of the band.
I wanna ask him to what extent were they trying to
shock people by creating this anti-christian satanic music.
Abaddon: It was all about being as extreme as possible,
the cult was a great draw, and it was mainly lyrically I think.
We weren't into having vampire teeth or any stuff like
this we just wanted to be an extreme looking metal band.
Because we became so extreme so easily the satanic
thing became like a badge to wear, when I drew the Venom
logo we wanted it to be as in your face as possible.
It was almost daring sorta parents to say
"no you can't have that".
There was a guy he a bishop of somewhere or other.
The government had given him loads of money to buy really
expensive equipment so they could play our
records backwards, and put on Welcome to Hell and
said 'do you agree that that says I worship satan and
I love satan and all this other stuff?'
I went I don't deny that all, do you understand that
it's on an album called 'Welcome to Hell' and it's a
song called 'In a League with Satan' and it's got a
pentagram on the front, I didn't have to hide anything
it's all there in English. You just gotta pick it up and
(beep) read it, it's the same forwards as it is backwards.
* Music *
Dani Filth: Cranoff said when he was young Gene Simmons
was always like 8 foot tall spitting blood
looking like a demon personality, but he was singing
"I was made for lovin' you baby",
and he said Venom we have taken that and we
are the demons, we do what it says on the tin.
Abaddon: If you are going to do it, then do it to the enth degree.
If you're gonna do pyro don't just do pyro, do over the top
pyro go absolutely nuts and see what you can get away with.
When I went to America the first time Metallica were
opening up for us and they had set an explosion off and
when we finished somebody pointed out that we had put a
hole in the stage and we had ruptured the pipes underneath.
It was one of the guys, it was an American guy this
big kind of bouncer big grizzly bear guy and he was like
"you know man I was in nam," and he says "I would go back to
nam but I won't go back on stage with that stupid (beep) band."
We had actually sought out how to be more extreme with every
performance and we were the same with all the imagery,
all the lyrical content, the jackets on the album covers.
Sam: So at the end of the day are you primarily a
performer, an entertainer, a musician...
Abaddon: I never saw us a musicians, I always saw us as
entertainers, I think all we wanted to do was shock,
umm kinda jump in their face and shout boo.
* Music *
>> Besides Venom the one metaler that used to freak
the hell out of me was King Diamond, lead singer of
the speed metal band Merciful Fate. He had an upside down
cross drawn on his forehead, and he also apparently lived
in a castle in Copenhagen, lit exclusively with candles.
* Music *
Sam: So I've come to King Diamonds new home
which is in a leafy suburb in Dallas, Texas
which is not very satanic at all.
So I wanna ask him, was this whole satanic thing actually real?
>> How are you? >> Good, how you doing?
>> I'm Sam, Nice to meet you.
>> Nice to meet you to.
>> Thanks for having us over. >> Of Course.
King Diamond: For me, Satanism is not a religion,
it's a life philosophy, its never been just an image.
I mean uhh It's totally a part of me,
King Diamond and King Peterson, absolutely one in the same.
I mean I would love to wear makeup to the grocery store
just to sneak around an aisle and see the response,
but I'd be arrested in a heartbeat.
Monte Conner: King Diamond was definitely taking things to a
new extreme, you had a self proclaimed Satanist which was
a scary word to popular culture back then singing with this
crazy falsetto voice that no one had ever done before.
Dani: The first time I ever saw him was on the cover of
'Don't Break the Oath', you don't actually see him he's
like a shadow in this gateway that looks like it's leading
to hell, and then we listen to his vocals and stuff like that,
it's like wow this is eerie it's like a ghost, this guys insane.
Diamond: We all like to get scared, it's just the way it is.
For me it's not so much to give them the shock,
more like put 'em in a mood. The listener can make it
much more scary than I can, because he will pull
from all the things he feels most scared about.
* Music *
Sam: Growing up when I was a teenager the thing I heard was
King Diamond lights his entire apartment with candles because
King Diamond is a Satanist he doesn't believe in electricity.
Diamond: I mean seriously I mean, you have no idea the
rumors I've heard you know, on the road there was the crew
that told me you should hear what we told some of the fans,
they said "don't go over to that bus King Diamond is sleeping in
there and he brings his coffin from Denmark and if you
wake him up he's guaranteed gonna kill you".
Ahhhhh!! I scared the hell out of my cats now I'm sure.
* Music *
>> As the 80's wore on, the resistance to satanic imagery
and lyrics in heavy metal grew from a few parents
waving placards to systematic opposition.
The parents music resource centre, a committee of wives
of some of the most powerful men in Washington created a
list of songs deemed corrupting for the youth of America,
called the filthy 15. Their campaign also succeeded in
placing explicit warning labels on records.
Dr. Karen Stermheimer: There was this growing backlash against
what was seen as the permissiveness of the 60's and
the 70's, and the explicit warning labels seem like a
victory for the PMRC they were excited by it they had said
this is all we ever wanted, we just want to know
what kind of music we are buying for our kids.
But for most kids that became kind of an advertisement,
for this is possibly really interesting music.
Abaddon: I mean if I was a kid and I was looking at the
filthy 15 they would be the 15 songs I'd wanna buy.
I wouldn't wanna buy the top ten or the top 20 or whatever,
I'd go straight for those 15 songs
and say they must make a (beep) good album.
Diamond: What they did just had the opposite effect, putting
Merciful Fate on the filthy 15 list, suddenly we were in USA
Today and all kinds of stuff which we would have never been,
so thanks, you know.
* Music *
Sam: By the end of the 80's the whole satanic panic around
metal had dissipated and with the 90's music started to
take a far more serious turn. It's hard to think of the 90's
without thinking of Marilyn Manson who brought a
much more intellectual vibe it seems to shock rock and so I've
come to Fort Lauderdale of all places which is actually where
Marilyn got his start and I'm meeting with the founding
guitarist Daisy Berkowitz, cause I wanna ask him where the whole
philosophy behind Marilyn Manson come from.
Daisy Berkowitz: We weren't going into shock rock with
an idea of here's how we're going to shock people,
I was just happy doing weird music with a concept and theme,
something more artistic and conceptual than other people
were doing in the early 90's nobody had any theatricality,
nobody had a great show. We had a theatrical show
that was not only theatrical and visual but weird.
Alice: When I saw Marilyn of course, I looked at it and said
okay that generation needs an Alice.
That's who Marilyn was, Marilyn was that generations Alice.
The videos with Marilyn were the scariest part,
his videos were truly disturbing,
I mean I was shocked by the videos.
* Music *
Alan Cross: Marilyn Manson took the whole shock rock
thing about as far as it could possibly go
before you have to start arresting people.
The image was just absolutely every parent's worst nightmare.
He was ghoulish, he was scary, he was violent,
he was anti-religious, he was apparently an actual
minister in some sort of Satanist church.
Gavin: You have a guy here who is very sharp,
very smart, very imaginative.
KISS and Alice just wanted people to buy,
they were far more all-American.
Marilyn Manson says what he really wants
the kids to do is to think.
Marilyn Manson: I like to experiment with peoples fears,
see what motivates them, what scares them.
At the same time I also mock the whole sensationalism of it
in many ways, sometimes it seems like I'm trying to be shocking
but I'm mocking the fact that people take it so shocking.
The shock point has never been the point and hopefully
people who like our music can learn from that, that's the
most I can try and do you know is to make people think.
Donny: Marilyn was a lot more vocal off stage against his
opposition of church and religion and he has his ideas
and he's not afraid to use them. I think in the past
shock rockers were nuisances to the right but I think
Marilyn Manson was one of the first real challenges.
* Music *
Sam: The tearing up of the bible became part of the show,
how were people reacting to that?
Daisy: It's offensive, sure it's offensive we know that
but it's just a book. If there was any message in doing it
that was it and to point out that truly nothing
is sacred and morality is ambiguous.
Gavin: Marilyn Manson appreciated that the best kind
of publicity he could get particularly amongst
rebellious teens were these protesters.
These protesters were as much a part of what Marilyn Manson
was about as the kids inside the venue.
Karen: It fuels the careers of shock rock performers to have
people criticizing them, that's where their music starts in
them feeling like outcasts in feeling like outsiders
and connecting with people who also feel like outsiders
because they say look I'm famous I have this great job
as a rock star but I'm just like you, I'm misunderstood.
Daisy: Goth culture was really big in the early 90's
because kids that liked the music satan's hide they were
the ostracized kids, the kids that didn't have clubs,
and Marilyn Manson feels like more of a club house vibe.
I get it, I know what's going on and you get it too,
and we're laughing at people who think it's awful
and terrible cause' they don't get it, so there's a
stronger following there's like a psychic following.
* Music *
>> Despite the controversy surrounding Marilyn Mansons
music and performance, by the late 90's he had sold over
20 million records, made a huge international fan base and
received wide spread critical acclaim, but then there was one
controversy that came along that even Marilyn couldn't handle
Marilyn: I was watching the news, CNN at the time and
I joked at first thinking I would get blamed for it,
and who knew it would be so ridiculous the initial reports
they said these kids were wearing make-up and
were dressed like me that was like their first report.
Gavin: It was almost you know like the breaking news,
then there would be a picture of Marilyn Manson for no obvious
reason with shock rocker Marilyn Mason and then there would be
"were they Goths?" It's like he was being put in the dark
for being responsible for this appalling Columbine tragedy.
Karen: One of the reasons that Manson became a target was
he was already visible in the media, so people could
point to him and a broad swath of the audience would
know exactly who they were talking about.
Marilyn: I'm not surprised that I was blamed because I have an
image that isn't altogether pleasant but I think the
saddest most disgusting part of the whole event was the media
coverage documenting the grief and filming the funerals.
Then they turn around and start indicting entertainment.
I think the most gruesome entertainment I seen was their coverage.
Daisy: The problem, Brian said,
was don't look at me it's the media.
I thought you were the anti-christ of rock and roll?
I thought you were scary, I thought you were big and bad?
Now he's complaining people are coming to him, he should of said
something like yeah see how influential I can be?
If he's gonna be vilified, why should he say oh don't look at
me like that, don't make me a scape goat.
You're Marilyn Manson you're supposed to be.
Gavin: I don't think he prepared himself for the visceral
cynicism and hatred that was unleashed by the scape-goating.
This you know, I think really shook him
and he just sort of disappeared.
* Music *
>> After the Columbine tragedy, Marilyn Manson retreated
from the public eye and then in the early 2000's
another band emerged that actually
terrified me the first time I saw them live.
That band was Slipknot.
* Music *
Sam: And so I've come all the way to Des Moines, Iowa
which is the home of Slipknot to meet with
the mastermind behind the band because I wanna ask him
is Slipknot about shock rock or is it something much more real?
Clown: I didn't set out to be KISS,
I certainly didn't set out to be Alice Cooper.
I'm not putting on a (beep) show,
those other bands no disrespect like I said,
all great bands but I don't care.
I came up with wearing the mask because I didn't want people
to see my real pain, I wanted to share my own fear
behind the mask that way you the fan could adjust
to the symbolism of what I represented, I am clown I have
this sadistic way about me that is very unpredictable,
very violent, very dangerous and very in your face.
Sam: It's almost like creating some sense of shock wasn't enough.
Clown: War. War. That's what we are. We're war.
* Music *
Joey Jordison: One thing I always said about Slipknot
is when people say why do you wear masks,
I'm like what are you talking about? We don't.
My mask is a reflection of the guy you're talking to right now.
We were a band from the middle of nowhere, we're all complete
misfits, pretty much outcasts with a lot of personal demons.
It's like no we don't wear masks, that's us.
Clown: I grew up in an alcoholic family so I had built up a lot
of rage and a lot of anger but I know that when I get on stage
I get to live out that pain. We were forcing ourselves to
recognize our pain and our anger and pushing ourselves
to limits that no other band could ever think about.
Monte: Clown had a decomposing crow, and he would inhale
this stuff just to feel the evil and feel the death.
Sometimes he'd throw up, sometimes he'd throw up right
into his mask and he's playing with vomit right in his face
in his mask and smelling it that drove his show.
Clown: We're here to make the live experience as real
as it possibly can be. Things are being thrown,
things are made out of metal. There's not a member
in slipknot that will tell you they don't have a fear of
receiving some sort of major injury or potentially death.
* Music *
Sam: As extreme and dangerous as Slipknot appears, you are
creating something that is resonating with all these kids.
Clown: Because we are a product of the society.
We represent kids that have had backs turned to them forever.
I came up with the term maggots. Our kids are like maggots,
they're feeding off of our disgusting way of thinking,
our violent nature but it goes deeper than that.
If you know anything about a maggot, you know that
a maggot turns into a fly, and a fly grows wings,
it can leave the death and fly anywhere it wants
to a place of beauty, to a place of peace.
I'm trying to give you a revelation,
I'm trying to make an epiphany go off in your head,
this is salvation through the pain that we have and
that's what I've been trying to do this whole time was
to find my own salvation through my own anger.
* Music *
>> With Slipknot and Marilyn Manson,
shockrockreached a new levelof darkness and the
showmanship of Alice Cooper and KISS was gone.
However, a new band out of Germany;
Rammstein has brought the circus sideshow back to shock
and have become one of the biggest bands in the world.
So I've come to meet them in Quebec City on their only
North American tour date to discuss shock rock and for
this interview I'm pretty sure I'm gonna need a translator.
[Speaking German]
Oderus: What they do is so crazy with the industrial,
and the mechanical stuff and the fire.
A band that just doesn't give a (beep).
Sam: A lot of dildos and...
Oderus: A lot of foul imagery, a lot of sexual imagery and
it isn't afraid to have fun with it as well there's kind
of a sense of tongue and cheek humor in their music.
[Speaking German]
Sam: Do you seek that negative reaction, is it motivating for you?
[Speaking German]
>> Rammstein broke new ground in the evolution of shock rock
in the late 2000's by releasing their video (beep)
on an internet porn site. Music channels refused to
play the video for its graphic visuals,
and live performances have been banned around the world,
including in their home country Germany.
[Speaking German]
* Music *
[Speaking German]
Sam: What would it take to shock an audience today?
[Speaking German]
Sam: So it seems today with the advent of
video games, CNN and the internet
you can pretty much see scenes of sex and
violence and depravity with the touch of a button.
And so I've come to Phoenix, Arizona the new home of
Alice Cooper the god father of shock rock to talk with him
about where he thinks shock rock is at in the 21st century.
Alice: What can you do to shock an audience,
you'd have to cut your arm off and eat it,
you know and you can only do that twice.
So it became now more entertain the audience.
You can still use shock values and theatrics
but don't expect them to be shocked.
Sam: So do you think people are coming to an Alice Cooper show to...
Alice: To see the show. Almost like Cirque du Soleil.
It's amazing how the bands that this generations
grand parents would never let them see,
are now they're bringing their grandparents.
So it is family entertainment.
* Music *
Sam: So is it possible to shock people today
in the context of music and performance?
Rob: I don't even know if you could anymore.
When you watch the old stuff you think like wow
he just did that and everybody was shocked.
First of all, it would be shocking for even
one second if anybody even cared.
Arthur: I think the kind of shock rocker we've had
is no longer relevant. Everything's out there.
Even at the age of 13 you will be reading stuff
that people never got to.
Chris: Unless you're out there really cutting throats and
executing people live on screen, but even that,
kids if you wanna see that it's out there.
* Music *
Donny: I think it would be an unwise thing to say,
that we've seen it all.
There's some kid in his basement right now formulating
how to come out there and how to blow peoples' minds.
He or she is gonna come out and challenge societies beliefs,
their systems and they're gonna connect with the youth.
As long as there are young people, there will always be
people that are willing to scare the old to entertain the young.
*