Many of us can link a certain album to pivotal moments in our lives. Whether it’s the first record you bought with your own money, the chord you first learnt to play on guitar, the song that soundtracked your first kiss, the album that got you those awkward and painful pubescent years or the one that set off light bulbs in your brain and inspired you to take a big leap of faith into the unknown – music is often the catalyst for change in our lives and can even help shape who we become.
In this Love Letter To A Record series, Music Feeds asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share with us stories about the effect music has had on their lives.
Chris Pritchard, Blood Youth – Slipknot, Iowa (2001)
Growing up, I wasn’t allowed a lot of heavy music, in fact I wasn’t allowed to listen to any band with a parental advisory sticker on or watch Kerrang! Or ANYTHING in that world, and Slipknot were the ones to blame for that.
Once my parents saw Slipknot, that set of a domino effect of censorship across my childhood. During the first days of school, we were told to write a ‘time capsule’ letter to our future selves – on mine was me saying how I wanted to be a guitarist in a band and my favourite band is Slipknot.
Wanting nothing but to listen to Slipknot growing up, the day I was finally allowed to listen freely to them was the greatest day, I walked down to the record store, bought the bastard and Iowa took me to a whole other planet, and is 110% the reason I do what I do.
Every single song on this record is untouchable, perfect and RAW like nothing else. Nothing has eve, ever, ever come close to what this album has. I know everything about this record and the fact I wasn’t even allowed it as a young kid made that attraction even greater.
Fast forward years later to when Blood Youth toured UK/EU with Stone Sour, I brought my first edition Iowa CD along with me and managed to have a long and incredible conversation about everything Iowa with the man himself, Corey Taylor. We spoke about so much interesting shit that hasn’t been said in any interviews I’ve heard before, and I got him to sign the record that I wasn’t allowed as a kid. Truly an honour.
If you would’ve told me growing up that in the future I’d be touring with the man behind that record, the reason I do what I do – I would never believe it in a million years. Never underestimate where you can find yourself with a bit of hard work and time.
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Blood Youth are a UK act who’ve just unleashed a hard-hitting new track, entitled ‘Body Of Wire’. LIsten below!
