Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Unlocking The Secrets Of The KNOTFEST MUSEUM With CAELIN MEREDITH

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Unlocking The Secrets Of The KNOTFEST MUSEUM With CAELIN MEREDITH · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  So thanks for joining Heavy today we're here speaking with Kalin who is the Slipknot
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  Museum Global manager, which of course will be on display at all three Not
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  First Australia shows over March twenty one, twenty three, and twenty four.
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  So welcome, Thank you so much for having me, so excited to be
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  on your show. Thank you my absolute pleasure. So firstly, I guess
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  tell us a bit more about the Slipnot Museum and what it offers. Yeah,
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  so basically for Not Fast, I bring the museum and it's the band's
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  representation at the festival. And basically this year we're bringing a twenty five year
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  retrospective, so we're starting from Iowa nineteen ninety nine and you will basically like
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  walk the album cycles from their beginning to now. And we've pulled pieces that
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  represent each of the albums, so whether it's wardrobe or whether it's musical instruments,
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  we'll also have an opportunity with the fans will to play some of the
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  instruments, so mixed guitar, Jim's guitar, V Man's bass, and they're
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  all the settings are on the quad cortex or to their specification, so as
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  you're playing, you're going to hear it how VMan plays it or hear's it
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  and then yeah, we're just bringing some rad art from Clown and some secret
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  surprises. So yeah, it's for the Slipnop fan, but it's for the
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  not best fan. It's to celebrate. Like I said, they're twenty five
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  year anniversaries, so it's a really big deal and I'm really excited to bring
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  it back to Australia. I bet job. But it must be a massive
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  onitiking getting all that stuff over here and set up from day to day though
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  it is. I've been working out for two weeks just on weights alone,
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  eating everything in sight. I'm going to have my fill of marmite and vegimite
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  when I get there too, to like power carbo load. But yeah,
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  so we have to ship it, so it left actually in January. Wow.
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  So it's odd to pack these things up in December knowing you're not going
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  to see them for three months because then anything you miss then I have to
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  check it in my suitcase. Hey yeah, absolutely, I mean in some
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  of it, I'm sure customs would have some issues with it. No knives
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  or anything, but still some pointy objects that are better left in a container.
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  So yeah, so it is an undertaking, but it's worthwhile. And
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  you know, slipknot fans aren't fans of family and they have high expectations rightfully,
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  so the band delivers and so I feel that I need to do the
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  same thing. So I bring nothing less than the best, because that's what
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  they deserve to be honest. Yeah, now you touched on this a bit
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  before, but like a lot has been made to the fact that Slipbot aren't
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  coming to Australia this year, but you can you can see the marriage behind
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  that, like it's it's uh, it's a chain, I guess not fast.
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  It's not just or slipknot. But but in a way, this museum
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  is a representation, like it's slipknots representation. Because they can't be here physically,
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  this is m signing the fans will have a have a piece of aut
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  heart. You know, I take some of us with you. That is
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  such a beautiful way of putting it. I'm glad you said it that way,
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  because yeah, it's not about it's not about their absence. It's truly
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  about their presence and they still want to deliver to the fans, and like
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  I say, with this museum, this is as close as a slipnot fan
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  can get to the band without actually even being on stage. That's probably the
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  closest you could get is being on stage, and next to that, it's
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  coming to this museum and seeing and experiencing because it's a sensory experience. Like
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  it's tight, it's visceral, it's you know, you walk in, it's
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  dirk. It's kind of confusing. You're looking at flashing lights and then we
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  kind of chew you up and then spit you out and we hope that you
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  leave not knowing what happened to you, but feeling better for it. I
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  mean not to not to sound too crude, but I mean it is.
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  It's it's uh yeah, we want it. We wanted to be in That's
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  right, one of the most incredible experiences you can have with your clothes on.
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  Are you gonna let me get on my thoughts again? Then? So,
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  look, I know you've had a lot to do with it, but
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  how much has a band got to do with what's going in there? Like
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  it? They hands on with everything. Absolutely. I've been doing this for
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  three years. So it started out as a VIP program in North America,
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  and then when Not False went global, so did the museum, and so
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  I'm the global museum manager and everything you know, is selected and curated.
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  So while I pull pieces, the band ultimately has the final say, and
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  especially Clown. You know, the great thing about Slipnot is that it's not
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  just about the music. They haven't been branded, they haven't been working with
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  stylists. Everything has been birthed organically and there has been a parallel of art
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  that has run alongside of this band. So I'm so gifted in that I'm
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  not just bringing your run of the mill studio equipment. I get to bring
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  some of their art. And one of the pieces I'm bringing has never left
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  North America before and Australia will be the first place to see it. And
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  I know that Clown is so excited about this, and again it was important
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  to me because I really wanted that art piece to be represented, and he's
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  done so much art. I mean, we have warehouses full of stuff.
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  I could tour for the next twenty five years and you would probably never see
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  the same things twice. And that special thing you're just talking about that is
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  that one of the secrets from a launces down till we get there or can
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  you can give zaying? Oh no, that one. That one is a
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  an art piece called Patiently Awaiting Jigsaw and it's a seven foot steel cage.
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  And again like it was so gnarly to try and load onto a container and
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  we've had to wrap it in pillows and blankets so that people don't stab their
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  eyes. The surprise that's coming is something that has never been displayed in public
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  before, and it's a personal piece of Clowns and it's several thousand dollars and
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  I'm gonna have to have my own personal guard on it, and I'm nervous
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  as heck to tour with it. But I also wanted to bring a wow
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  factor And again Australia has been so kind to us, and I can't think
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  of a better place to showcase this kind of hidden secret piece from clown aside
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  from his art. So you bring up a good point there, like you'll
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  sort of you're you're in the farm line here, like if anything goes wrong,
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  like they're all over there and you're here. So it's like find don't
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  say that, no, not at all. In fact, it's the opposite.
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  I get to receive all the praise, and I wish I could pass
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  it on to them. So yeah, I just go out there. It's
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  such an honor to bring this and again, especially the Australian fans you know,
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  are so unique in terms of their passion and their love of the band,
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  and it's not lost on any of us. It's truly just an honor
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  to bring anything to Australia. Sure. Now I want to explore a couple
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  of things in a bit more detail here. Like you mentioned the playable guitars,
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  So what is it like? So I suppose we should the one admission
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  fee to get into the museum that covers everything in there, Like you don't
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  have to play play the guitars and no, no, no, not at
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  all. Yeah when when price fits all? So yeah, once you come
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  in, then then you're essentially mine and I get to do whatever I want
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  with you to guide. Well, I feel like I'm more of a ringleader.
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  I feel like it's under a circus tent. So I just am like,
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  you know, playing with everybody like Marionette's No. I yes, you
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  get to play, and this is my thing. I tell people, even
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  if you don't play, pick it up when else are you going to get
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  to touch a musician's actual guitar. And these are not pieces that they've retired.
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  These are instruments that they're still using. Like before it left, we
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  had to have a lot of meetings about because they knew they weren't going to
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  see these instruments for months and there was some recording in there, so we
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  were having to decide what I could put on a shipping container that these guys
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  were comfortable not seeing for the next four or five months. So these are
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  all present, they're in use, they've been on stage, they still are
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  on stage. So yeah, that's that's an incredible, i think unique part
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  of the museum. And then there's also a great photo opportunity, so you
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  can get your photo taken that you can then upload or share with social media.
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  That's really fun with one of the album cover backdrops. Again I don't
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  want to give too much away, but that's always a fun feature too.
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  So yeah, you get quite a bit bang for your buck. As we
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  say, you're really actually like it's not like a normal museum like where you
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  walk in and you've got your little red ropes there and you can't you know,
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  you can't even reach over and that's like you're actually getting to physically interact
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  with some of this stuff. Yes, some of it, you are some
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  of it. There are ropes because you know, I would I would probably
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  go into severe debt if I let any happened to some of the pieces.
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  But yeah, it's that kind of like it's that dichotomy though of like some
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  things you look at and some things you experienced. But it was never meant
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  to be precious. It was never meant to be you know, quiet walk
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  through. It was meant to be, like I said, that tight visceral,
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  that sensory overload that you know slipknot for like when you go to see
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  their show, And I can tell you the first time I ever saw them,
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  the first few seconds they started playing, and I felt like I needed
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  to breathe out of a paper bag. I couldn't actually breathe because I was
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  hit with such tremendous force and I had never experienced anything like that in a
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  live show before. And that's what I hope to bring with the Museum's actually
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  a little bit surreal for me as well, Like I started journalism over twenty
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  years ago and Joey was the second ever interview that I ever did. God,
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  oh my gosh, that that actually brings a little bit of a tear
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  to my eye. That's that's beautiful. That's beautiful. This day, he's
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  still probably one of the most eloquent, well spike and nauseous people that I've
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  spike. And that's incredible. That is so amazing to hear. And and
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  that's it. Like you know, when I first when I first came on
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  tour with them, my family I have family in Kentucky and they had what
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  we call an intervention. I don't know if you guys have those in Australia.
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  For usually it's for drugs. They had a satanic intervention for me because
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  they thought I was going to work for like a satanic band. I know.
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  It was classic they had. They brought me they literally after Easter dinner.
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  They all sat around and they said, Kaylin, we need to talk
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  to you about this band. And they all stood up in read letters and
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  I was like, this is actually insane. But I played them Psychosocial of
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  all the songs, and I especially had them listen to the bridge and listened
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  to Corey's vocal range, and then I talked about meeting them and how incredibly
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  generous and and wonderful humans they are, and that this is truly art.
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  It's a performance, but it's it's actually in tandem with how amazing they are
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  as people. So it might seem like a juxtaposition what you see on stage
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  and how nice they are, but actually the two do come together in a
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  real moment of something singular, which is just being great, great performance,
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  great people said that any bit of myself now as much as you actually can,
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  like running through the museum, like you walk through, you walk through
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  the front of the tent. Then what happens around in a snake? Do
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  you go wherever you want? Like? What what's the first thing we see?
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  Okay, well, first of all, Australian fans are so polite.
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  I guess you call it queuing up, not lining up. You guys stay
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  in your formation. It's unreal. So I'm originally Canadian, and I don't
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  know if it's a Commonwealth thing. I don't know if the BRIT's had us
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  queuing up. But you guys are so polite you can literally go wherever you
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  want. You don't have to do it. I mean, for this one,
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  there is a sequential order in terms of the albums. But once you
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  get in, and again don't want to give too much a way, but
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  once you get in, you'll just be smacked with so much that's just hitting
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  you visually and sonically. Well, you've you've managed to win me over one
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  hundred percent completely. But people who haven't got their tickets for yet, like
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  you can still buy ticket like you don't have to buy them with your actual
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  No Fest SICT. You can have your not first ticket and then purchases later.
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  Yeah, you can even buy them outside the tents, so you can
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  buy them day of or you can buy them online. And yeah, it
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  is a separate ticket. But again for the Slipknot fan, for the Slipknot
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  curious, for the not Fest fan, it's a must do because it's something
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  so unique to any festival that I've ever worked on, and you know sort
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  of who knows who was with the future hold. So I would say,
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  take advantage of it while we're there, and please come and say hi to
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  me. I mean, I know you have a bazillion listeners. I was
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  looking at your stats. You're pretty you're pretty well known over there, So
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  to all the fans, please come and say hi to me. I'd love
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  to seet you and meet you. All right, all came well, Thanks
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  pretty much for your time. I thought I knew everything about the not first
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  museum, but it turns out on new stuff all So thank you and I
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  look forward to meeting you over there.