Breaking news: the world is finally getting a book about Slipknot, and we’re all just thrilled 🤩🎉. I mean, who wouldn’t want to read about a bunch of masked men screaming and playing heavy music? 🤘 It’s not like we have better things to do, like laundry or taxes 📊. Anyway, Little, Brown Book Group, a division of Hachette UK, has set an August 6, 2026 publication date for “Somewhere Between Screaming And Crying: Slipknot, Nu Metal And 9/11” from author Dan Franklin. Because, you know, the world was just missing a book about Slipknot and nu metal 🤷♀️.
So, what if one album could capture the moment the world changed? 🌎 Well, apparently, Slipknot’s “Iowa” album is that album 🤯. This is the gripping inside story of Slipknot’s “Iowa” album — 25 years on from its release — and how it became the sound of a generation on the brink 🌊. I mean, who wouldn’t want to read about a bunch of dudes from Des Moines, Iowa, who became one of the most controversial and culturally significant acts of their time? 🤔 It’s not like they’re just a bunch of guys in masks playing music or anything 🎭.
“Somewhere Between Screaming And Crying” is the first book to fully unpack the rise of Slipknot and the creation of their landmark 2001 album “Iowa” — a record that revolutionized heavy metal, and came to define not just a band, but the emotional atmosphere of the early 21st century 📆. Published to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the album’s release, this is a gripping deep dive into how nine masked maniacs from Des Moines, Iowa, became one of the most controversial and culturally significant acts of their time 🔍. I mean, it’s not like we already know the story of Slipknot or anything 🙄.
Drawing on original interviews, first-hand reporting, and extensive research, Franklin tells the inside story of a band on the brink — capturing the chaos of the studio, the extremity of their live shows, and the intense personal toll of fame, addiction, and creative pressures 🚀. Crucially, the book also expands outward, placing Slipknot within a wider cultural moment — tracing the rise of nu metal alongside the collapse of late-’90s optimism, from Woodstock ’99 to the aftermath of 9/11, and explores how their music became a vessel for a generation’s anger, alienation, and identity crisis 🌪️. Because, you know, nu metal is so relevant today 🙄.
At its heart, “Somewhere Between Screaming And Crying” asks a bigger, more troubling question: what happens when art doesn’t just reflect chaos — but seems to generate it? 🤔 Well, I guess we’ll just have to read the book to find out 📖. “Iowa” went on to become a huge international success, spawning hits including “Disasterpiece”, “The Heretic Anthem”, “People = Shit”, and “Left Behind” 🎶. And, of course, who could forget the iconic album cover 📸?
Regarding what Slipknot was trying to achieve with “Iowa”, frontman Corey Taylor told Metal Hammer that the band did not want to put out a rehash of its 1999 self-titled debut and the LP’s hit single “Wait And Bleed” 🙅♂️. “Everyone and their mom was trying to get us to write ten more ‘Wait And Bleed’s, but fuck you, we’ve already done that,” he said 🖕. “Why would we want to do it again?” Well, I guess that’s a good question 🤔.
Taylor believes Slipknot more than accomplished its goal with “Iowa” 🎉. He told Metal Hammer: “You can hear the bile in it, you can hear the frenetic passion for what we were trying to do 🤯. I think we overshot it… I think we bypassed what we were trying to do and achieved something completely different, which was to create the heaviest album that would be picked up by a popular audience who didn’t really know what they were getting themselves into” 🤣.
Dan Franklin is a heavy-music writer, and author of “Heavy: How Metal Changes The Way We See The World” (Constable/Little, Brown, 2020) and “Come My Fanatics: A Journey Into The World Of Electric Wizard” (White Rabbit/Orion, 2023) 📚. “Somewhere Between Screaming and Crying” is the third instalment in this loose trilogy about heavy music 🤘. Because, you know, the world really needs more books about heavy music 🙄. Anyway, if you’re a fan of Slipknot or nu metal, you’ll probably want to read this book 📖. But if you’re not, well, there are probably better things you could be doing with your time 🤷♀️. Like watching paint dry, for example 🎨.
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