Skinny Felton about Mushroomhead’s beef with Slipknot “I’ve heard 20 different versions over the years”

Although Mushroomhead‘s most recent quarrel is an internal legal dispute between current and past members, they appeared to be Slipknot‘s sworn foes for a while in the late 90s and early 2000s. Tensions between the two bands and their fan bases erupted after Slipknot was observed ripping off Mushroomhead‘s mask identity. That resentment reached a boiling point in 1999, when Slipknot performed in Cleveland, Ohio, the birthplace of Mushroomhead. According to the story, Mushroomhead supporters got aggressive with Slipknot during the performance, throwing batteries and other things at the group onstage. Members of Slipknot, incensed by the actions, retaliated by allegedly fighting with the offending concertgoers by leaping into the throng. A portion of that feud persisted for nearly twenty years, as former Mushroomhead frontman Jeffrey “Nothing” Hatrix asserted the following about Slipknot in an interview with the ADHD Podcast back in 2018.

Monte Conner from Roadrunner had a guy shopping us. And at the time we were making more at local shows than they were offering us in advance and they wanted all of our merch; which was like selling crazy already, and the money just didn’t make any sense. And he basically made his own [version of Mushroomhead] when we said no. And what’s really funny is that I have a friend that would end up backstage at all these festivals, he became friends with Corey and Corey said, to quote him, ‘Was I supposed to turn down a million dollars?’ So that’s what that was. As far as what I know, I believe Shawn and Joey were the only ones from Des Moines. They had Anders —I forget what his last name is—he was the singer. And they wanted someone more commercial so they got Corey. I just heard a lot of stories. It’s like… Linkin Park was Hybrid Theory with the other guy rapping and until they brought in Chester they didn’t do anything, but they were made. They were made and some people thought that it was from our model. Jeffrey “Nothing” Hatrix

Steve “Skinny” Felton, the drummer for Mushroomhead, expressed sorrow about the feud in 2020, saying, “We spent a lot of time complaining about them for nothing.” Felton reiterated his admiration for Slipknot in a recent interview with Metal Hammer, saying that he has helped the band grow in the years since they put their tumultuous history behind them. 

Slipknot, man, amazing. One of the biggest heavy metal bands in the world. Holy shit, it’s gigantically huge and what they have done is amazing. And I think it opens the doors for other bands as well as my own. People like this masked metal. They like theatrics. A bit of it over time has been inflated. I wasn’t there personally and I’ve heard 20 different versions over the years. And let’s not forget that it was popular in that era to have beefs in bands and stack people against each other. It was huge with the West Coast and East Coast rappers. The media fuelled it and fans bought into it. There were lots of people signing lots of bands in the day. It wasn’t like we got the exact same offer by the same guy who signed Slipknot. And I have a lot of compassion for them, because they’ve put up with a lot of bullshit just to make music and art, and they’ve lost good people. I commend them for everything they do and it just goes to show that I wasn’t that far off many years ago that this type of thing was going to be bigger than we even knew. I wasn’t wrong. It just wasn’t my band. Steve “Skinny” Felton