Clown Exposure: 100 Percent Against

Considering all the crazy things Slipknot percussionist Shawn Crahan has done over the years, it's kind of funny to hear him talk about how he was once so opposed to the idea of a friend getting a tattoo on his face that he spent 31 full days trying to convince the dude not to get inked. Then, when he realized his pleas were falling on somewhat deaf ears, not only did he take a Polaroid picture of his friend getting the work done, years later he pulled it for inclusion in Clown Exposure, labeling it '100 Percent Against.'

"The gentleman's name is Satone, and he was my tech for the very first Slipknot record," Crahan tells Noisecreep. "He's a very close friend. And the man tattooing him is Jack Lowe. He owns a tattoo shop in Des Moines, Iowa called Skin Kitchen, and that's where a lot of us in the band get a lot of our ink."

Like many of Crahan's Polaroids, '100 Percent Against' was manipulated so that the integrity of the development process was interrupted and the picture took on an entirely new design. The heart of the picture is intact, but the image now contains wavy lines and scratches -- and the edges feature red, psychedelic smears that almost look like lipstick prints.

After Crahan documented his friend's needle-created facial, he actually forked out the cash to pay the tattoo artist. "That was part of the deal," Crahan says. "I told Satone that if he still wanted to get the tattoo after the 31 days I tried to talk him out of it, I'd pay for it. How could I not pay for something that's gonna go on his face? I gave him a really good explanation, and I thought that I had him stumped. He said, 'Wow, that was the most mature, adult, greatest thing you could have ever told me about tattooing my face. I gotta really think about this.' So he went off, and about an hour later he called back and said, "When can I have the money?'"

Paying for Satone to mutilate his face isn't all Crahan has done for the dude, though. In 2002, he got Satone's band Downthesun signed to Roadrunner and executive produced their self-titled debut. Inadvertently, Crahan and Satone might also have had an impact on the life of boxing legend Mike Tyson.

"Downthesun had a video that was on MTV and Fuse for a second," Crahan says. "We were watching a sports channel once, and they were doing a Tyson interview, and someone asked him why he got a tattoo on his face. And he said he was watching TV and a music video was on. And he saw this guy jumping up and down going crazy, and the guy looked like an animal. So he went, 'I gotta get it done.' A bunch of us saw that, and I have no proof or anything, but if it was Satone, it would be amazing. Satone's an animal like that. He's a killer like that. He's the guy that would always try to outslam the band at our shows. So if he's the one who inspired Tyson, that would be perfect.