Slipknot Announce Knotfest: Deftones, Lamb of God, Serj Tankian + More to Play Two-Day Festival

Like Motley Crue with Crue Fest or Metallica with Orion, the masked men of Slipknot are getting ready to launch their own festival. The inaugural Knotfest will take place Aug. 17 and 18 and feature such artists as the Deftones, Lamb of God, Serj Tankian, Cannibal Corpse, Deathlok and the Dillinger Escape Plan, Rolling Stone reports.

Fresh from a string of Australian dates, Slipknot will also perform, and fans who head to the band's home state of Iowa for the first day or the town of Somerset, Wisc., for the second can expect plenty more than just music.

The band is promising a "dark carnival experience," according to Rolling Stone, including circus tents, rides, burlesque performances, grafitti walls and "drums circles made of junkyard cars." There will also be art installations and a Slipknot museum.

"When everyone leaves their senses [will be] overloaded, and I'm talking about smells, sights, hearing, your body, everything is overloaded with stimulation, because that's what Slipknot does," Shawn "Clown" Crahan told the magazine.

Knotfest is likely to become a regular event, and according to Crahan, it's something the band has been considering for a long time.

"Now, after 15 years, things feel right, things feel complete, things feel like we can accomplish anything," he said. "And I love challenges."

The founding percussionist also revealed that Slipknot's next album -- their first since 2008 -- will be out "sooner than anybody knows."

Knotfest dates:

Fri 8/17 Council Bluffs, IA Mid America Motorplex

Sat 8/18 Somerset, WI/Minneapolis, MN Somerset Amphitheater