SLIPKNOT have released their new single “The Chapeltown Rag” which can be heard below.
The song was produced by Joe Baressi (PALLBEARER, TOOL) and was apparently inspired by frontman Corey Taylor’s reaction to watching a documentary on serial killer Peter Sutcliff and the coverage of the case within the media.
“At that moment, everything was just kind of steering towards violence, or a history of violence,” said the SLIPKNOT singer in a new piece by Knotfest.com. “And it was just such a weird echo of social media. And the fact that social media tries to steer you towards violence or steer you towards the most toxic thing – the most toxic moment. So I looked at it from that standpoint.”
Corey went on to say that the lyrics also deal with the lead detective in Sutcliff’s case ( who at that time had been dubbed the “Yorkshire Ripper”), a man named George Oldfield, who made the mistake of believing that Sutcliff was only targeting prostitutes. This would lead the investigation to center around the “moral behavior and lives of the victims, rather than the criminality of the murderer.”
“They wasted all this time,” said Taylor. “All this money, all these resources – all because they refused to be wrong. Now what does that sound like in this day and age?”
Corey also noted that the track deals with distortions of the mass media and echo chambers of social media.