Slipknot Launches New Knotfest.com Media Platform With Streamed Event Friday

To celebrate the launch on what would have been the kickoff weekend of the highly anticipated Knotfest Roadshow U.S. tour, Knotfest.com will host a streaming event starting this Friday at 3 p.m. PDT, featuring exclusive concert streams and interviews with Slipknot and would-be tourmates Underoath and Code Orange. 

Slipknot will stream its 2019 headline set from Graspop Festival in Belgium, filmed shortly before the band’s latest album, We Are Not Your Kind, was released. It will preview with an exclusive interview with the band’s Clown conducted by Ryan J Downey.

The streamed event will be hosted by noted rock and metal multimedia journalist and interviewer Terry “Beez” Bezer, who will also host a weekly “Mosh Talks” series on Knotfest.com. Other new series on the platform include the Electric Theater interview series with band co-founder and drummer Clown, who in the first episode interviews Code Orange frotnman Jami Morgan.

A limited Slipknot Knotfest Roadshow merch drop will be available for 72 hours starting Friday morning, featuring the tour merch collection that would have been sold this summer.

The newly re-imagined Knotfest.com will be a fan-centered platform, created by artists for their fans. Dedicated to expanding the rock and metal genres and providing a one-stop destination showcasing the very best the culture has to offer from emerging bands you need to hear, right through to the biggest and most established artists. 

The Knotfest Roadshow had evolved as a touring version of the influential metal band’s standalone Knotfest festivals that have played across the globe, with last year’s summer trek moving 405,591 tickets and grossing just shy of $16.8 million according to manager Cory Brennan, who at the time said the band’s road business “has never been bigger. They’re averaging I’d say 15,000 tickets per market, as a headliner.”

That momentum was carrying into 2020 with the album release and a strong package for this year’s Roadshow, including metal upstarts Code Orange, whom frontman Corey Taylor had taken a liking to and handpicked to join the band on tour.  

Code Orange’s album release party turned into a media event, with the early-March hometown Pittsburgh show being called off due to the coronavirus pandemic but not before all the wheels were in motion to do the show. The band elected to do it anyway, with full production and broadcast live, making the most of what was surely still a disappointing situation. 

While not that similar sonically, Code Orange’s Jami Morgan says there are similarities between his band and the counter-culture heroes from Iowa.

“The energy is super similar, we have that fire, we play fucking heavy music and are probably inspired by a lot of the same things, and we’re inspired by them, especially in terms of the energy, presence, and the theatricality. 

 

“I think for us, just the honor of knowing we’re on the tour just because they wanted us to be on it, that meant a lot in itself.”