Slipknot Releases First New Song in Two Years,”The Chapeltown Rag,” Inspired by Serial Killers

On Friday (November 5), inspired by the Netflix documentary The Ripper, Iowa-born band Slipknot released its first new song in two years, “The Chapeltown Rag.”

“It’s a punisher man. It’s classic Slipknot,” said frontman Corey Taylor of the new single. “And it’s frenetic. But lyrically, it’s coming from a point of talking about the various manipulations that can happen when social media meets media itself. And the different ways that these manipulations can try to pull us in different directions, in the fact that we’re all becoming addicts to it, which is very, very dangerous.”

“‘The Chapeltown Rag’ facilitates a sort of mindset that you’re going to like: it’s along the barnburner side of things,” added M. Shawn Crahan, better known as Clown from Slipknot.

The Ripper documentary covers the crimes, killings, and arrest of the Yorkshire Ripper serial killer, who killed 13 women in Leeds, England in the 1970s. The case then was famously botched as the authorities thought the killer was only targeting prostitutes.

Slipknot’s frontman, Corey Taylor, talked about how he sees parallels between that and the social media mob mentality these days while talking with Knotfest.com, a website dedicated to the band and its upcoming livestream L.A. show.

“At that moment, everything was just kind of steering towards violence or a history of violence,” Taylor told the site. “And it was just such a weird echo of social media. And the fact that social media tries to steer you towards violence or steer you towards the most toxic thing—the most toxic moment. So I looked at it from that standpoint.

“They wasted all this time,” adds Corey. “All this money, all these resources—all because they refused to be wrong. Now, what does that sound like in this day and age?”

Everything is God online, and it’s as evil as it gets / This is not a fuckin’ trick, either follow or repent (No choice) / Get infected by a vertical event / Check the meter, check your watch / Are they ever gonna stop? / Runnin’ out of daylight, nighttime’s better / But we know how to handle the truth, motherfucker / Scandalous know-it-all, feedback chamber / Nobody wants the proof they want a number, Taylor sings, kicking off the frenetic tune.

To celebrate the single’s release, the band will perform “The Chapeltown Rag” live for the first time ever at SLIPKNOT’s KNOTFEST LOS ANGELES on Nov. 5. The event will be live-streamed. Tickets for the livestream are currently available here. 

Last month, Taylor said he and the band were about “eighty percent done” with their new album.

Earlier this year, Taylor and the band were in the news due to a public argument between the frontman and pop-punk musician, Machine Gun Kelly.

PHOTO CREDIT: ALEXANDER GAY