Slipknot Made Me Gay: How metal music broke down my closet door

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Slipknot? Not Britney Spears or Lady Gaga or any number of queer icons? And to that, I say: Yes. Of course. Before Britney, Madonna, or Beyonce existed in my little spot in the universe…there was Slipknot.

Growing up in Shepherdsville, Kentucky with a Southern Baptist family during the age of dial up internet, I didn’t have gay role models. We weren’t even allowed to watch Will & Grace. Boys were expected to shoot guns and ride four-wheelers. I’d known I was gay since I was about five. I also knew it was something I shouldn’t talk about because, according to my family and my church, that thing about me was bad.

The kids at school in Bullitt County knew I was gay, too, without me even having to say anything. They called me names. They whispered and laughed. One guy named Justin even put me in a chokehold in the hallway between classes once. I passed out. 

When I hit puberty, things got really wild. I had all of these feelings pent up inside of me, and in Bullitt County they don’t exactly teach men how to express their feelings. I was sad. Incredibly lonely. Disappointed that I was gay because that meant if my family knew, they wouldn’t love me. Furious that God knew, and because of that, God didn’t love me. I felt caught between being the best little boy in the world and wanting to punch holes in my bedroom walls. I had all of these feelings and nowhere to put them.

And then in 2004, I heard a song that gave me that outlet. A song that unlocked my flair for the dramatic. A song that almost felt like my coming out anthem, even though I wouldn’t come out for another four years.

It was “Duality” by Slipknot.

Here was this guy in a Leatherface-looking mask, long hair greased back, screaming about the only way to stop the ache he felt was by pushing his fingers into his eyes. The guitar riffs ate through my angst like chainsaws through flesh. 

The emotion! The drama! The aggression! The MASKS! I listened to the song on repeat. I illegally downloaded their entire discography on Limewire and anxiously awaited the release of their next album. I even made a friend through my love of Slipknot! His name was Corey, and when he stayed the night at my house, we watched MTV2 religiously, just in case they showed the music video, where a bunch of grungy people who looked like us wrecked the absolute shit out of this house where the band hosted a concert.

I related to the masks they wore – the horror of them – probably because I, too, wore a mask. I went to church. I got good grades. I was a leader in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. But under all of that, I longed to caress the faces of all the boys who threatened to beat the shit out of me. At night I dreamed of getting railed by the entire football team. And then I woke up and went to play rhythm guitar for the church worship band.

I started wearing black T-shirts. I started wearing those jelly bracelets that were all the rage. Studded belts. I was not wearing properly-fitting clothes or making any sort of fashion-forward statements, mind you. But dare I say it…I was beginning to accessorize. To pay attention to my clothing choices. My clothes began to match because black matches everything.

All of my spending money went to Hot Topic. I dyed my hair black and I saved for what seemed like ages so I could buy a Slipknot backpack from Spencer’s. I brought my Discman to school and listened to my ripped Slipknot albums. When Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses released I was there at the Wal-Mart, waiting at midnight with my friend Corey for the 3rd shift staff to put the CDs on the shelves. We rode home that night, headbanging and screaming at the top of our lungs with the windows rolled down. 

Despite finding a fellow soul who shared my love for horror, heavy music, and masked men in jumpsuits, I still felt alone. I was still deeply closeted, not even willing to say out loud to myself that I was gay.

A funny thing happened, though. People stopped making fun of me. 

After we graduated from high school in 2007, Corey and I fell out of touch like lots of high school friends do. I came out in 2008 and, the last time I’d heard, Corey was dating some girl named Stephanie.

But when Slipknot announced they were releasing their album .5: The Gray Chapter, and would be traveling on a tour with a stop in Lexington, who did I call? Corey.

The next thing I knew, we were driving to Lexington together. Even though six years had passed, it felt exactly the same, windows rolled down and growling about pushing our fingers into our eyes. We thrashed our way through that concert, throwing back Miller Lites and sweating through our clothes.

On the way home, we reminisced about concerts of yesteryear, how our families never understood us, and just how sick it was in the music video version of Evanescence’s My Immortal when those guitars kicked in. And in all of that, Corey turned to me while I drove us home.

“You remember how I told you I was dating that girl, Stephanie?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Well…Stephanie was a 40-year old man named Bob that I met in the locker room of the Downtown YMCA,” he said with a devilish grin.

It turns out, after all that time, I wasn’t alone. To this day, Corey and I still mosh our way through metal shows together.

And while we love Beyonce and Lady Gaga and all the rest of them, we still pay homage to our forever queer icons: Slipknot.