Photo: AFP
Eloy Casagrande is Slipknot's newest member, and with that comes a new mask. The drummer explained the inspiration behind his mask in a new episode of The Modern Drummer podcast, revealing that it is meant to pay tribute to the late Joey Jordison, his Brazilian culture, and a terrifying encounter he had a couple years ago.
The mask is white with black vertical lines and a bullet hole in the forehead. “The mask was something I did with Clown,” he explained. “The first thing he asked me at the beginning is like, ‘Can we have a white mask for you?’ The first thing to bring back Joey’s memory. Respect his legacy. And I made the suggestion to have, like, these black lines to remember the Brazilian indigenous people."
“You know, so it brings with me the Brazilian people, the Brazilian culture," Casagrande continued. "But my expression, my face expression, this was designed by Clown. He was watching me playing without the mask and he said, like, ‘That’s the way you look when you’re playing Slipknot music. So we’re going to put that in your mask.'”
So what about the most striking part of the mask: the bullet hole? “I came up with the idea of the bullet hole," he said. "Two years ago, I was robbed in São Paulo. I was walking in my neighborhood, it was 9am, I was going to the gym, and two guys on motorcycles stopped me and they put a gun to my head and they asked me to give them my phone and my backpack. That was something that somehow changed a lot inside me. And he decided to not shoot. So I was lucky."
“It’s also from the philosophy that… gives like the feeling of, you’re going to like me, you’re going to love what I do, you’re going to hate what I do, but I have nothing to lose. I’m already dead," Casagrande added. "That’s a way of feeling that gives me some kind of freedom when I go on stage. It’s very inspirational as well.”
Watch the full podcast episode below.