Mick Thompson

Interview: Exclusive Interview: A Perverted Conversation With Mic Thompson (a.k.a. Number 7)

"Slipknot is not going away. They are the most real people in the world. All you fuckers out there that feel they are hiding behind their masks can fuck off. I'd like to see you shit yourselves trying to claim this to Mic or James or any of the members. Vancouver shows suck ass right now. I went to see Slipknot, dressed up and all (I've never seen another female dressed like the band) but the security was so tight - they were ID'ing everyone. After Cory and Joey both tried to get us in to see the show and failed, we resorted to standing in the back alley in the pouring rain with our heads pressed against the building walls, feeling the energy surge out to even us. Not only are the true fans devoted to Slipknot, they are just as devoted to their fans." - Raven ranting on the 5/12/00 Passion has always defined metal.
The artists who've bled, sweat and cried to make the music find such elements of devotion reflected back to them in the fans who love them. During the current, magnificent resurgence of the pure rock genre, one band stands apart from the crowd. This band is Slipknot, a revolution numbering nine whose neo-metal assault on the planet and platinum success is as much a freak of nature as each of the band members themselves. Born and bred in the eternal butt of America's greatest joke, Des Moines, Iowa, Slipknot has spread like a virus, their infection now a metallic epidemic that threatens each and every living, breathing, human incarnation who crave the volume, violence, damage, release and escape that personifies rock taken to the extreme. When I was 13 years old, Stanley Kubrick's seminal, futuristic celluloid mind fuck, A Clockwork Orange was released. It was rated X, so my friends and I couldn't see it. But I had one savant buddy named Ron Meyers, who was reading Ulysses when he was 11, and he talked his mom into taking us to the drive-in (we hid in the trunk) to see the film.
Over 30 years later, I recall the evening with crystal clarity. The images on the screen for the tender eyes of a near pre-teen were electrifying. It was sex and violence like I'd never witnessed in an artistic presentation. For weeks, we talked about Alex and the strange language and the rape scene and those haunting white outfits that now dot umpteen city streets across the country each and every Halloween. Kubrick's masterpiece was decades ahead of its time. However one spins the success of Slipknot, there is an undeniable connection to A Clockwork Orange that transcends the subliminal for the simple fact the image of the masked madman in a white coat is indelibly etched on the psyche of post modern pop culture. Slipknot's true genius as artists has been their ability to build on the Clockwork "hook" a fortress of intelligent, angry, brutally honest songs and equally compelling performance that reinvents "ultra-violence" for you, the fearless next generation of music fans. When Alex was out of his evil coat and mask, he was a charming, polite, almost adorable young fellow who had no problem enchanting women or conniving authority. A few weeks back, I had the opportunity of meeting an unmasked Slipknot prior to their performance at the Rock Im Park music festival in Nuremberg, Germany.
As the scorecard reads, each band member has a number. They are 0: DJ Sid Wilson, 1: drummer Joey Jordison, 2: bassist Paul Gray, 3: percussionist Chris Fehn, 4: guitarist James Root, 5: sampler Craig Jones, 6: percussionist Shawn Crahan, 7: guitarist Mic Thompson and 8: vocalist Corey Taylor. Their stage show is part hardcore train wreck, part metal ballet, part psycho theater. Out of costume, they are nine extremely affable, forthcoming gentlemen who all blew my mind when they told me how much RI P magazine meant to them when they were "kids." But when the human form dons it's alter ego as show time nears, all bets are off. Stay the fuck away! You are very libel to get hurt either by a flailing shoulder in the chest or become target to some manner of flying debris. These guys don't get psyched up - they get psychoed up.
Standing a couple inches north of six feet, Number 7's (given name, Mic Thompson) possesses baritone voice, muscular build and wicked sense of humor. He reminded me so much of a young Hetfield. I liked him instantly, grabbed him aside and let the tape recorder run for a spontaneous conversation that in other places would be off the record - but not here! The rap rarely strays from sex, which I guess means, next time, we've got lots of other subjects to tackle, not to mention other Slipknot band members, all of whom possess their own unique brand of wit and wisdom. They truly define all that is dangerous and exciting about the heavy music of now. So go to the kitchen, grab a moloko plus and enjoy some special moments between two semi-perverts. Well, at least ONE semi-pervert!
KNAC.COM: I've been hanging out with Eddie from One Minute Silence. Amazing guy. So smart. He's a buddy of yours, huh?
MIC: Yeah, we were talking about Scientology, 'cause I guess he was deep into Scientology for like four years. He told me some whacked out shit. Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to get pneumonia and die in like two days because he told me these rules of religion. I learned things faster than I was supposed to and if you learn the knowledge that we come from some fuckin'' spaceship from 76 billion years ago, or something like that, from whatever planet yada yada yada...if you learn that ahead of learning other stuff about Scientology you'll get pneumonia and die in two days, so, now there's evidence. So if I get pneumonia and die there's something to it, in fact I'm gonna act like I'm gonna die in a couple of days, that would be a lotta fun. If you lived your every fuckin'g day like you're about to dieâ€¦
KNAC.COM: That's what you're supposed to do according to the scriptures and older doctrines: live every day like it's your last.
MIC: Yeah, but you get locked up in everyday bullshit. In Australia, there was this warning thing that goes off on the plane, we were like 1/2 hour late for landing and all of a sudden its like "ryeep! ryeep! ryeep!" and I'm like instantly frozen. 'Cause I don't like to fuckin' fly anyway, but when you got like a siren going off that doesn't mean that we're out of pretzels. (laughs) So, uh, that one just doesn't go off when you're out of pretzels, so I'm fuckin' like shittin' my pants and I was thinking about what I've always said...if I knew I was fuckin' gonna die, something is gettin' fucked up. I don't care what it is, but I ain't going down alone.
KNAC.COM: So your death wish is not a solo project?
MIC: No way. I'm the John Madden of fuckin' guitar players. it's like you know what, keep my ass on a fuckin' bus. I don't give a fuck, I'll wreck the bus, "Shit ow! I broke my leg!" When the bus breaks down, which it has, aw, shit stuck on the side of a fuckin'g road. When a plane goes down, you know, you'll break anything the minute you start plummeting towards earth. And like in a jet, the way they're fuckin'g designed unless they've got like massive propulsion, they don't glide. You're like "pzzzeewwww!!" and I can do a lot of things, I can control a lot of things but when I'm in the little fuckin'g deathtube hurling through space at 600 miles per hour, that's all out of my hands. No fuckin'g way.
KNAC.COM: Have you ever had a near death experience? Or maybe a close call with a psychotic female?
MIC: Yeah, fuckin', with my girlfriend one of the first times I was with her I wasn't accustomed to various things like, for instance, her immense smallness. That's a bit of a contradiction but, uh, you know her immense smallness...I'm uh, 14 inches taller than she is and you know fuckin' eight years older and I didn't know they made them like that. But, uh, see I wasn't accustomed to that and I remember one of the first times I came so hard I farted. and I was like god I hope she didn't hear that, but at the same time, what a fuckin' compliment. I mean, if I was eatin some fuckin' box and she was buckin like a fuckin' horse and shit the bed I would think I was the fuckin' man! You know what I mean. I mean you can say what you want, man that was the greatest, whatever! You say that to all the guys, but you shit the bed.
KNAC.COM: My guess is you love porn. Is porn big in Iowa?
MIC: You know, it's funny because I used to work at the post office. Ha! So, a lot of the porno, you know you have all the god stuff coming from North and South Carolina. You've got your God stuff and you got your porn coming from the same zip code!
KNAC.COM: Did you ever open any of the P.O. boxes?
MIC: Opening it would be a federal offense and I'd go to prison. But sometimes I would be fortunate enough and would break open and I would see what was open and I would get to see what was inside that plain brown wrapper and, oh my god, its a double dong and it's 18 " long and fuck...here's what's funny is they used to have all these Nordic track videos and on the slide and its a wonder that anything every ends up where it needs to go.
KNAC.COM: When was your first time for porn?
MIC: Video? I was probably about 10.
KNAC.COM: (laughing) 10?
MIC: I had a friend of mine in school, his older brother worked at a video place and, uh, back in the dinosaur days when they had your name on an index card and you'd go up and they'd go, "What's your name...oh yeah, well what's your phone number" and if you could match a name with a phone number they'd give you videos. At least in Iowa. Yeah, so we used to go in there, me and this friend of mine, who had a VCR because I still didn't even have one. We'd go in there like, 'Hey Steve, what's up?' He'd go "You guys are terrible," and just go back there and grab a couple of things off the shelf, not check them out or anything, just give them to us. We'd bring 'em back in a couple of days, go back and get some more. It was always a little awkward because I'd go back and spend the night at my friends house and he'd be like, "I'm gonna go for a walk," and I'd run down to the basement and turn on the VCR and "wa wa wawa" and like duh, he'd know what I was doing, he'd do the same thing, uh, "Hey dude look over there!" I didn't give a fuck, just don't do it in front of me. Private time. That's what I don't understand, there will be all these dudes sitting there on the bus watching some guy jackin' on a girl and I'm like, "You guys are wrong!" We need to get this set up because in our last bus we had TV's in the bunks, we had like virtual reality goggles in the bunk. I'm like, "That's awesome." We got the fuckin'g roaming satellite you fire up the porno channel you retire to your bunk you pull the curtain. KNAC.COM: I've always thought masturbation was a spiritual thing... MIC: Yeah, but like my first 15 years I was kinda like guilty.
KNAC.COM: You felt guilty?
MIC: For a while. Shit, you've gotta understand I was about seven when I discovered that rubbing Mr. Winkers fuckin' made it feel good! I remember the first time something came out I was like "Whoa!!" I quit growin' when I was 14. I was my size and shit. So it's like I grew up quick. I had like pubic hair in forth grade. (laughing) I remember getting into seventh grade and you have kids with little fuckin'' tiny wieners in the shower and no hair I'm like lookin' like their dad, going "Oh shit!" I'm sure they were contemplating suicide or I'm never gonna get laid.
KNAC.COM: You messed up a lot of kids heads in high school, did you?
MIC: I hope so. I hope so. Fucking pricks. I didn't realize that at the time. I've been headfucked by certain things in my life and then as you grow older you realize there's no reason for that.
KNAC.COM: Were you ostracized?
MIC: Nobody every really knew. Except I had this thing...like in fifth or sixth grade, I had this thing with wearing sweatpants in school and I mean, shit, forth, fifth and sixth grade is when you're like getting school wood where you can't go up and write on the chalkboard and stuff....so, uh, school wood and sweatpants was a pretty rude kinda thing. I was always a few years ahead of everybody with like vocabulary and stuff so I'd be talking about shit and nobody would know what it was. My name's Michael, but I've always been called Mic and I remember when I was a little kid my mom called me Mickey, so kids would say "Mickey's got a hicky on his dicky" I'm like, "Yeah, motherfucker it was your mom, what the fuck." And they're like "Haha cooties" and I'm like, "What the fuck are you talkin' about there're worse things to have than a hicky on your fuckin''..." I don't get it. I've never understood that and I guarantee that those kids who've grown up since, hopefully, if they remember doing that, they'd be like, "God, I was stupid because right now I've gotta pay bitches to do that shit."
KNAC.COM: When did music become as important as sex?
Mic: I don't know man. I mean like you said, one of 'em is sorta spiritual. I don't do drugs, never have. But I mean that in itself is a drug. I mean, if I couldn't get off three times a day, shit; it's the ultimate stress reliever. I mean, no matter how pissed off you are, whatever, you kinda retire away to wherever you need to retire to and fuckin' rub one out and you're good to go. It's like it really squashes out the urge to kill and a lot of other things, so, I don't need to hurt anybody now, I'm just gonna take a nap. And it's a lot cheaper, too. I mean obviously it can get expensive, but if you know the various places to go on the Internet and you know how to rip people's passwords off, I mean you've got that. I'll admit, I'll go to a truck stop on the rare occasion we stop at a truck stop that sells porno, you know, not a "family" truck stop where you just fuck your little kids or something, I don't know. I'll just drop like 60 bucks on like Barely Legal, Lollipop Girl, you know young stuff.
KNAC.COM: But moving pictures are always better than stills, don't ya think?
MIC: Oh definitely, definitely. And, uh, it's better when you've got the little wraparound fuckin'g jack sleeve thing. A little lube in that fucker...holy shit dude! It's like, where've you been all my life. That's what I told my guitar tech, I just got one on the last us tour, I told him, "Stop what you're doing and go to that porn store that's two blocks away and its the best 26 dollars you'll ever spend." I'm telling ya. It's like, you know, when it's like all ticklish too, you can't move. When I used to teach guitar I used to have kids from 10-18 and still there are 18 year olds who don't admit that shit, but you know they're doing it. So I'd love to embarrass them at the same time and also show them that they can grow up a little bit. I remember I lied. I had a girlfriend for five years, from 16 -21 who never knew that I fuckin' yanked it once. And I've since moved on and fuckin'' whatever I talked to her about a year ago and was like, "Oh yeah by the way, after you had to go home to your parents house, after I had tagged you twice, you know I busted out a fuckin' Swank and rubbed one out." And she's like, "What?" And I'm like, "Sorry. You know, I mean, if I fuckin' pounded your ass as much as I wanted to, you'd never walk you know." She was like, "Whoa, well you should've said something." I'm like "Please!"
KNAC.COM: And there's no guilt? No disease?
MIC: Absolutely. No disease. It's fuckin' no judgment. That's what I was telling this asshole. My guitar tech, in fuckin' Amsterdam was contemplating the window shopping thing and I'm like, "You know how many dicks have been in that?" "Well, they get tested every week." "I don't give a fuck! You know the holes in the rubber are big enough to let certain diseases go right the fuck through it. Here, I'll give you the fuckin'g money to go buy a copy of Seventeen, which I'm kinda partial to, and fuckin' take care of it because as soon as you take care of it you'll be like hookers? I don't need a fuckin' hooker!' Just get the cum off the brain and you're okay."
KNAC.COM: The women in Europe are different than the States, both physically and emotionally. They're a bit more free here, huh?
MIC: You know what's cool? If you look, like at the girls here in Germany. You can say, "Hey, lemme see those and, in a second, there they are. In your face. And they say, "See if you can spell dirty words with all the varicose veins that are running through them." I've seen a lot of really marbled ones, walking around today. They're like white with the blue veins going through them. Kinda like if you have alphabet soup and you're playing, "Hey, mine spelled cum." In England, for some reason, they are stacked. And they usually have a little ass to boot, but you know, I'd rather have somebody 10 pounds too heavy, than 10 pounds too light. It's all personal taste. Australia, ever been to Australia? Same thing there, girls got a little bit of a gut and a rack!
KNAC.COM: How are Iowa girls?
MIC: See, at the airport, at the little gate, all I see is the obesity, you know? It's like, girls my age or getting my age, I'm 26 now, and I remember all the debutante little bitches in high school got big mom butts and they're looking all dumpy with double chins and I'm like "BA HA! You fuckin' stupid bitch." The little hot cheerleader who thought she was all fuckin' neat I wouldn't fuck you with a stolen dick, how's that? You're real neat, now. Aren't you? Yeah, I'm holding some resentment I think.
KNAC.COM: Now that you're enjoying some success, do you have any perverted, artistic side projects in mind?
MIC: I want to make a gay pirate movie. Me and my dad are talking about writing a pirate movie. Do you know what a peg boy is? Pirates, because women were bad luck at sea, they would steal 12-13 yr old boys and they'd keep them on a chair with a big ol' peg on it to keep their assholes dilated for fuckin' butt love. And so, me and my dad wanna write a movie about this peg boy who gets killed in the line of duty and comes back and kills motherfuckers and shit...we don't want it to a ridiculous kinda gory thing but it would be the resurrection of Peg boy Crabshaw. He'd get his vengeance in lots of nasty ways, we'd show a lot of throat cutting and buttfuckin' and all that. It would be like everything....you know movies come out everyday, you go see a movie and you're still left to want....I want to do something that would cover everything that I would want to see, and nobody really does that. And that would be awesome, the freedom to do your own movie. And if it sucked, well it would be my own fuckin' fault. You know what? I shoulda put in more buttfuckin'g, godamn, what was I thinking??
KNAC.COM: Are you like a lone wolf in the band?
MIC: Yeah, well I play really tight for a white guy but yeah, obviously, just because you're in a band doesn't mean you have the same personality.
KNAC.COM: A pretty popular band, so there's obviously chemistry.
MIC: There's absolute chemisty! There has to be differences. At least the core of us that write all the stuff, if we weren't who we were, we wouldn't do what we do for the reasons we do it. We all have our reasons why we do it. We all have our different reasons. Of course mine are the best, you know. Go ask that guy what his reasons for things are and he'll tell you his are the best, too. Be your own god, you know what I mean. And jerk off a lot. I'm an 1/8th German, so that's probably where my bloodthirst comes from. But I'm 1/2 Norwegian, though, so that's why I always wanna chop people up and set things on fire, fuck stuff. See, I know a lot of people who are Irish, I'm an 1/8 Irish, and they're like 'yeah, I'm an alcoholic because I'm Irish' I'm like you don't see me chopping people up with Broad swords do ya? Oh, that's my Viking blood, come on! Here's where this comes from. I'm a cold puss. If it gets remotely cool my fingers get all fuckin' stiff and cold and shit. And I'm like godamn its cold in here.