SLIPKNOT Announces Summer 2019 European Tour

SLIPKNOT will embark a month-long tour of Europe next summer. The band will perform at a number of festivals across the continent, including Download, Rock Am Ring, Graspop Metal Meeting and Resurrection.

Speaking to Kerrang! about headlining Download alongside TOOL and DEF LEPPARD, SLIPKNOT's Shawn "Clown" Crahan stated: "If someone chooses to come and see us, they're going to get us. I don't care about the day before, and I don't care about the day after! One thing I know about SLIPKNOT is that it's impossible to not talk about us, so I really don't get caught up in competition — I'm here to kick you in the face and make you remember it. End of story. I don't know what TOOL is doing, and I don't fucking care. I wanna hear their new album, but if I'm out playing, I don't care what they're doing, and they don't care what I'm doing. But I'm gonna kick you in the face."

Crahan added about the progress of the recording sessions for SLIPKNOT's new album: "We've been writing for the last two years. We went to L.A. seven or eight times for two, three, four weeks at a time, and wrote — seriously wrote. It's a wonderful thing, and we're not left with that stress of getting together when Corey's [Taylor, vocals] ready. We just decided to take that pressure off us. We've been doing this for 20 years, and if everyone just shuts the fuck up and lets us do what we do best — which is SLIPKNOT — then we will come through. There's, like, 20 categories of things that need to be taken care of in order to make a SLIPKNOT album, and I'm talking to you today, on October-fucking-whatever, about headlining Download festival 2019. If that isn't enough to make everybody wake the fuck up that we're back, then I don't know what the fuck else is. This is real."

SLIPKNOT tour dates:

Jun. 07-08 - Hyvinkää, Rockfest, Finland
Jun. 07-09 - Nuremburg, Rock Im Park, Germany
Jun. 07-09 - Nürburg, Rock Am Ring, Germany
Jun. 13-15 - Nickelsdorf, Novarock, Austria
Jun. 13-16 - Interlaken, Greenfield, Switzerland
Jun. 14-16 - Derby, Download Festival, UK
Jun. 17 - Leipzig, Arena, Germany
Jun. 18 - Hannover, TUI Arena, Germany
Jun. 19-22 - Copenhagen, Copenhell, Denmark
Jun. 21-23 - Dessel, Graspop, Belgium
Jun. 25-26 - Kraków, Mystic Festival, Poland
Jun. 27 - Bologna, Sonic Park, Italy
Jun. 28-30 - Madrid, Download Festival, Spain
Jul. 01 - Nîmes, Amphitheatre Nîmes, France
Jul. 03-06 - Lisbon, VOA, Portugal
Jul. 04-05 - Viveiro, Resurrection Festival, Spain

As previously reported, SLIPKNOT will perform at the Iowa State Fair Grandstand for the first time ever on August 10, 2019. Tickets for the concert go on sale November 2 at 10 a.m. via IowaStateFair.org, costing $43, $53 or $60 before fees and fair admission. An opening act is yet to be announced.

The Iowa State Fair runs August 8-18, 2019.

Taylor recently told Spain's Resurrection Fest TV that SLIPKNOT's follow-up to 2014's ".5: The Gray Chapter" album will likely arrive next summer.

".5: The Gray Chapter" was released following a six-year hiatus during which founding SLIPKNOT bassist Paul Gray died and drummer Joey Jordison was dismissed.

".5: The Gray Chapter" sold around 132,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 1 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD arrived in stores in October 2014 via Roadrunner.

Gray died in 2010 from a drug overdose, while Jordison was let go in December 2013, just before SLIPKNOT began recording the last album.