SLIPKNOT's SHAWN CRAHAN: 'I'm An Only Child So I'm Very Territorial'

Ana Anguiano of College Times recently conducted an interview with SLIPKNOT percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

College Times: What makes you pick up your camera and snap a photo?

Crahan: There's a lot of different things that make me want to take photos. A lot of it is, for a long time I've been obsessed with the thought of time travel with my camera. It finally occurred to me that I can take a picture today and I could then have it in the future, and then in the future I can bring people back to today. I don't really care about capturing a moment as much as I care about what the moment is to me. I'm very random. I'm not drawn to people that much unless there's a really serious energy happening, but I'll take a lot of pictures of trees or I'm always staring at the ground. I'll see an oil stain that looks like something out of “Lord of the Rings” or something and that's what kind of calls to me … I'm drawn to that aspect of photography. It's all around me. I'd rather shoot that.

College Times: In [your new book of photography, "The Apocalyptic Nightmare Journey"], you mention you always separate your family from your work life. Why did you include them in this?

Crahan: There's several things in my life as of, I would say, maybe the last five years I've been working on. I've been working on the way my originality, my body, my face, my original form is perceived by me. I worry a lot about what I think about myself, which makes me then worry about what you might think about me. I've been really working on that, trying to accept who I am. That has gotten me to get out more and connect more and be a little more at peace. Same thing with my family. I celebrated my 19th anniversary with my wife about three days ago, and I've got four kids. I'm an only child so I'm very territorial and I've [been] very protective. I forced myself to have a big family because I never had a big family. It's not that I don't want to share my family with anyone or I'm scared, they're just innocent to me [and] to who I am. Sometimes I'm afraid of how they're going to be perceived. To be the true artist that I want to be in this journey, I think it's important to let go for the idea of what I'm trying to accomplish. What I'm trying to accomplish in my lifetime is to be remembered, and I can't hold it all back. Just to show a picture of my wife is almost impossible for me to do. It's not an insecure thing. It's just she's my queen and I never want to hurt her — same thing with my children. Believe me, it was a very tough decision to include my family in my book.

Read the entire interview from College Times.