Slipknot were building up to release a new album and with this they were planning on releasing the new version of their masks. Having been off the radar for several months the excitment was building. Metal Hammer were invited to photograph the band for the big reveal in 2014, at a seccret location. We enlisted the photography skills of Travis Shinn once again and started brainstorming concepts and ideas.
Having been told very little about what we were going to get at the shoot, who was coming or even what the band were going to be looking like we had to keep things simple so we could move things around last minute. Fortunately they had started sneaking out trailers of a new video which aided us in getting a vibe to work with. The imagery was dark, almost horror based, so using inspiration from the likes of Saw, You're Next and Purge I had a fair idea of how I'd like it to all come together, both in feature and cover.
Fortunately the photographer took some incredible images for us to use, which makes our job much easier. I wanted to keep these images as large and impactful as possible. It's the first time the band would be seen in the new masks after all so wanted that focus to be on them.
