“Everything sucks and I can prove it”. Of the many, many bitter, twisted and downright nihilistic lyrics that proliferate on Slipknot’s new album, Iowa, that line from ‘I Am Hated’ sums it all up. With songs titled ‘People = Shit’, ‘My Plague’, ‘Disasterpiece’ and ‘New Abortion’, Iowa is a dense, dark and desolate record. ‘Take That And Party’ it is not, more take that and shove it.

Slipknot are something of a modern day phenomenon. A nine man sonic and visual whirlwind, they strike a balance between anonymity (matching boilersuits, dehumanising numbers instead of names) and extreme comic book personae, enhanced by gruesome, nightmarish masks. Their rise to infamy has been helped in no uncertain terms by their memorable live show – a brash, violent and disturbing spectacle. It certainly all proved a little too much for National Council of Irish Parents, who kicked up enough of a fuss to help prevent the band visiting the Point last year.

In truth, Slipknot would probably be vying with Marilyn Manson and Eminem for Public Enemy No.1 if were not for the fact that their music is way too wilfully uncommercial to break out of its own metal ghetto, a sub-Sepultura rumble that sounds not unlike Venom (hapless Geordies who gave themselves names like Cronos and released an album called At War With Satan). Not that Slipknot aren’t trying, throwing in suggestions of devil worship and violent imagery, as well as making the most of their rare mainstream media appearances (witness a memorably chaotic performance of ‘Wait And Bleed’ on Chris ‘I’ve always liked metal, honest’ Evans’ T.F.I. Friday).

If any one man could be held responsible for the Slipknot vision, it’s probably percussionist Shawn Crahan AKA #6. Credited with the band’s ‘creative direction’, he seems as good a person as any to question about the Slipknot ethos. So, we wonder, should the people of Iowa be proud or dismayed that the band have named their album after them?

“That’s where I’m from, so you can look at it as a good or a bad thing” he replies, tight-lipped.

Would the band have sounded any different if they’d come from LA or New York? The lips tighten even further.

“100%”.

“We got together and we’re just doing the best we can”, he finally relents. “There’s no big secret about where we’re from or how it’s working, we’re just from Iowa, we’re proud to be from Iowa and that’s the way it is.” It transpires that any attempts to delve into the formative Slipknot years are going to be met with little more than indifference. Like what bands the young Shawn used to listen to. “All the same bands, the Kisses, the bands that were big back in the day.” Would we find any clues to his current musical persuasion? “Not really. Our whole gig is to become as original as possible, which is pretty hard to do in a world that’s so plugged in. We don’t try to draw from anybody else, just have our own sound.”

One event that you would think had an effect on the young ’Knots occurred in 1982, when Ozzy Osbourne visited their home town of Des Moines and famously bit the head off a live bat. Was Shawn there at the gig? “No, but I heard about it that night. It went around just like it’d go around anywhere else. A public figure does something crazy and everybody’s going to know about it, doesn’t matter if it’s LA or Des Moines, Iowa.” Surely it had some effect? “Dude bit the head off a bat, so what. People are dying every fucking day, what’s so big about that?”

Right, so the past is not the best topic of conversation, how about the present – could the music and the visuals exist without each other? “We don’t plan on trying, I couldn’t give you an answer. This is what we do, it’s the whole gig.”

But surely as society becomes more and more extreme, so artists have to follow suit just to get a reaction?

“No, I don’t think a true artist does anything to get attention, he just does what he does. That’s the funny thing about people’s perceptions. People think that bands or artists do things just to impress them. We do what we do because we feel it. People make it out to be bigger than it is, or worse than it is, or they make a play of words on it. It is what it is, just true living performance. We live out our lives through Slipknot, I spent eight or nine months of the year out on the road, away from my family. The road is my other family, it is my house, it is my playground. I live life through the ’Knot, I get it out as much as possible on stage. That way we stay healthy.”

I persevere, trying to explain my point. Thirty years ago, Alice Cooper seemed to be a threat to civilisation. Watch old footage now and what have you got – some bloke in make-up with a snake. Shawn sort of agrees.

“The world’s advancing, it’s evolving. You have to remember that when you look back, it may not be right now but that’s the way it was. It was the real deal. People lose sight of that, there’s no reason to compare things, we’re all humans, we’re all growing old. People change their views from the time they’re three to the time they’re eighty.”

Does he foresee a point where the band will have taken it as far as they can go?

“I already can’t take it now but I love Slipknot, I love playing on stage and everything else that’s on my mind doesn’t come close to the feeling I get when I’m on stage with my eight other members. Until that love’s gone, and I can’t see that coming relatively soon, then I feel it’s a bond that will last forever. We’re the ’Knot, you know.”

Seeing as he’s mentioned his family, we wonder if he has kids. “Yeah, a couple”. Interesting. See, what I don’t understand is how somebody who sees the world in such bleak and desolate terms would ever consider bringing children into that environment. If you listen very carefully across the Trans-Atlantic phone line, you can hear a cage being rattled.

“People need to understand that it’s not an individual thing. This is all about the world, it’s about being a human on the earth. I don’t want to be singled out as being any more special than anyone else. I don’t want anyone pointing a finger at me for my bleak outlook on life yet being a father because it really doesn’t have any relevance.

“All of you have issues, it’s not really fair to point out a couple of people. We have just been given the opportunity to speak out and people listen. That means they’re interested or we’re helping and they’re learning. My ‘bleak outlook’ isn’t that different from the next guy. You might not be concerned about rock’n’roll, you might be concerned about the political arena and you might be frustrated and angry about things that are going on. Who am I to dictate what you feel about that? You’re an individual.”

Hang on, has a member of the most extreme rock n roll band on the planet just told us that “it’s not really fair” to ask him about his views? How odd. Not aware that we were ‘dictating’ to anybody, we ask about this concept of helping and learning. Are Slipknot opening the eyes of the youth to the way of the world, leading them to break the cycle of society?

“All we can do is try. All we can do is do the best, all day, every day. That’s what I work the hardest on, to be the best Shawn Crahan possible. Isn’t that we’re all trying to do anyway? We’re all trying to make the best for ourselves and the situations that we’re in, even if they’re pretty bleak. We’re all trying to find a healthy outlet to get it out and mine is Slipknot.” He leaves us with a steely statement of intent. “I’m doing the best I can.”

So, what is the deal with Slipknot? Genuine radicals or just nine guys who got lucky, realised that selling misery to teenagers was like shooting fish in a barrel? Depends on your point of view, I suppose. Maybe we just get suspicious when anyone tries to cloak their past (and present) in mystery, annoyed that we won’t be given total access to their lives. Maybe we should just let Slipknot get on with it, leave them to fight, shout and vomit their way around the world. But you do have to wonder just how will we view them in twenty, thirty years time? Dude wore a funny mask and a boiler suit, so what?

Slipknot’s album Iowa is out now on Roadrunner records