The most private and cryptic member of Slipknot, sampler Craig Jones never gets interviews and is never seen in public. On stage he's a demon in the mist, the spikes in his mask making him resemble a tortured deviant from the 'Hellraiser' series. Behind the scenes, he's a phantom.

"We always say that he's just the scariest guy in the band, because you just don't know anything about him," Slipknot percussionist Shawn 'Clown' Crahan told Noisecreep. "He's the guy who wakes up at 8 AM, sets up his computer in a room and starts working on stuff that is very computer-oriented, like deciphering Pi. It's funny, because other bands on tour will come in and start complaining about our band, and they don't know that Craig Jones is sitting in the room."


Realizing what an enigmatic presence Jones is, Crahan had no intention of capturing him in any conventional sense with a camera. So after shooting his brother in harm with a Polaroid during Slipknot's 'Iowa' tour cycle, he went into overdrive with manipulation techniques, destroying the integrity of the photo -- and making that the integrity, as he likes to say. Only this time, he made sure that the photo underwent some major transformation, casting the image with smears, splotches, squiggles and abrasions that look like melting plastic.

"If you look to the right of the shot, it looks like a skull," Crahan said. "I just thought, 'Oh my God, I just destroyed the integrity of this and brought out this human feature under the mask.' You have the mask to the left and the skull to the right. That's like sex to me. When you're searching for inner sanity or salvation through art, and you create something like this, it's very euphoric. You almost cry. You look at it and you're like, 'Oh, my God, how did this happen? It's like magic.' It's like, 'I'm gonna push this picture and pull the trigger and fold this and overexpose it and expose it to light, and here it is, look. Wow, I made his skull appear.' It's beautiful."

More From Noisecreep