Simon Crahan, the son of Slipknot’s Clown, did not grow up to be a metalhead because his dad didn’t want him to.
The Vended drummer and his bandmate Griffin Taylor sat down for a chat with Nik Nocturnal. During the conversation, Crahan explained why his father did not want him to grow up with metal music unlike him. He said:
“Growing up, my dad didn’t want me to listen to metal right away, he wanted me to get used to other things. He wanted me to discover Slipknot by myself. So he’d play songs and be like, ‘This is your dad,’ and see if I liked it or I didn’t.”
As a result, Crahan discovered Slipknot on his own. Well, did he like the band? The drummer answered:
“That’s how I knew I was like a Maggot. I still feel like I’m a fan even though I’m his son. And that’s the crazy feeling… I’ll listen to them all the time just because it makes me feel good.”
What The Father And The Son Listened To Together
Though he later became a Slipknot fan, Crahan and his father listened to many different artists from different genres. In the same interview, he explained what they listened to during their car ride to his school:
“Growing up, my dad was very good about showing me new music every day. He’d show me Skrillex, and then he’d show me Helmet and he’d show me Snot and showed me all these different bands every single day. And I’m really thankful for it, because he got me to love jazz, classical music and all these different genres instead of just liking metal.”
Griffin Taylor’s experience was similar but wasn’t limited to his father’s music taste. Taylor stated that he grew up listening to Gimme Gimmes, Paul Simon, and Cat Stevens because of his mother’s taste. Then he was introduced to hard rock and metal music artists thanks to his father Corey Taylor.
Slipknot Helped Vended Get Big
The two sons of the Slipknot members founded Vended in 2018 and released their first EP in 2021. Slipknot’s help made Vended get big and have a direction on the music they are doing. However, this help did not include writing music for them. In a previous interview with Kerrang, Crahan and Taylor discussed the topic by saying:
“Yeah, we got more help than other bands do and I’m honest about that. I’m not going to say we didn’t because that’s not fair to who our fathers are. They’ve helped us, but they have never, ever, ever, written our music, never showed us how to play, never showed us how to perform onstage, they’ve never done any of that. When people say, ‘Oh, Griffin’s dad’s probably showing him how to scream how he does,’ Griff is learning on his f*cking own.”
You can watch the interview below.