In a recent interview on The Break Down With Nath & Johnny, Slipknot percussionist M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan dives into the challenging topic of personal sacrifice. Additionally, he opens up about the sacrifices his wife has made over the years. Meanwhile, Crahan clarifies any possible misconceptions on the original three Slipknot members and the band’s formation. The percussionist expressed that the late Paul Gray (bassist), former vocalist Anders Colsefni (Andy Rouw), and himself are the original three. This inevitably makes Clown the only original Slipknot member. Gray passed away in 2010, Colsefni left the band in 1997, and Corey Taylor took over vocals ever since. 

Crahan expressed his sacrifice while revealing the original trio:

“It’s hard to talk about the sacrifice like my wife has put in. We had an agreement and the agreement was, ‘Go ahead and do this thing you think you’re gonna do, whatever that is, and as long as it doesn’t go backwards…’ I was married three years before I started Slipknot with Paul and Andy.

There’s all these real misunderstandings about who started the band or whatever. And the bottom line is it was Andy Rouw, the original singer, myself and Paul. But Andy ended up leaving really early in the game. And so once we were signed, it was just basically Paul and I… I’m here to tell you my friend Paul Gray was at my wedding three years prior, he and I and Andy started the band. And that’s that. And so I had a family. I had two kids at that moment.

When Paul came to the wedding, we were eight months pregnant walking down the aisle. He had L.A. County Jail pants on, peroxide hair, pack of Marlboros, totally the realest person at my wedding besides close, close family. But you skip forward and then we start the band and then a year or so after starting the band, we get pregnant and have our third child, and we have that child before we’re signed. So, we have three children and lots of work raising children. And I’ve been married now for five, six, seven years — three years before we even started the band, so everybody needs to kind of figure it out about the reality of what sacrifice really is.”

Check out the interview in the below video: