If you watch any Slipknot cover this week, make it this one: these seven kids’ rendition of ‘The Devil in I’, recorded in a suburban garage.
The video begins with eight-year-old vocalist Taylor Jade Campbell’s ‘father’ greeting the band, who are assembled in the garage and ready to rock. Right before he leaves for work, he tells them one thing: “Absolutely no Slipknot.” Of course, they immediately defy him. As Eli Dykstra, the 17-year-old lead guitarist, breaks into a guitar solo, other kids from the neighbourhood join the party – and mayhem breaks loose. Watch it here:
According to the YouTube description, everyone in the band is under 18. The video was shot in three hours, and no undue damage was done to the house it was set in. The garage door, over which the children spray-paint “OMF” in the video, “was 30 years old and the homeowners already planned to replace it”.
The cover and video were produced by the O’Keefe Music Foundation, an Ohio-based non-profit organisation that supplies children with instruments and equipment to record and film musical performances for free. Some of the Foundation’s other videos, such as their covers of ‘46 and 2’ by Tool, ‘Duality’ by Slipknot and ‘Cowboys from Hell’ by Pantera, have racked up millions of views.
Several YouTube commenters on the ‘The Devil in I’ video are clamouring for Slipknot to acknowledge the cover, but it’s unclear if Corey Taylor and gang have even caught wind of the video. The band just released a thrilling new song, ‘Solway Firth’, ahead of the August 9 release of their sixth studio album, ‘We are Not Your Kind’. They will tour behind the record in Europe next year.