Why Slipknot's Shawn 'Clown' Crahan Left Iowa + Moved to Palm Springs

Iowa is integral to Slipknot’s history (in terms of both the location and the album); yet, percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan recently revealed that he and his wife have left Iowa and moved to Palm Springs, Calif. for a variety of relatable and endearing reasons.

Why Clown Moved to Palm Springs

Crahan was a guest on the Kennedy Saves the World podcast (episode uploaded to YouTube on March 4), and before long, host/former MTV VJ Lisa Kennedy Montgomery asked if he still lives in Iowa.

“No, we moved to Palm Springs,” Crahan said about himself and his wife, adding:

There's some health things, you know, and the sun is always out here. It is always blue skies. The energy is incredible, and it's just better for what my wife and I are doing now in our life, which is trying to be stress-free as much as possible and appreciate each other. All the kids are out of the house, so, it's been a long haul dedicating to art and life. So, we moved to Palm Springs to take a load off and get a different energy and have blue skies [and] warm weather that just feels good all day, every day.

He then reflected on life in Iowa:

I have a really good friend [who was] born and raised in New York, and when he would drive with me in the middle of nowhere in Iowa – we’d be going to a studio – and it’d just be cornfields and soybean fields and then farmhouses a block off the road, surrounded by trees. He would just tap the window and be like, “That’s ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ [laughs]. I would try to bring it into reality to him, you know? I’d be like, “Listen, man. Listen. What do you do when it’s -80°F with the windchill and your car breaks down right here and that house has a light on?” He’s like, “I’d stay in my car,” and I said, “No, you will die. You will die.

Then, Montgomery mentioned that people “from big cities” think places like that are “creepy” because “they don’t have a mass of people to run to and corral if they’re in deep yogurt.”

Crahan responded:

A couple things with that. One – so, I grew up in the woods. A lot of people would think, “Oh, you’re one of those scary people. You grew up with the manure and the trees.” I live in the desert now, and I’m trying to bring it full circle with you to say, “Yes, there’s a lot of weird stuff that happens in the desert, and it’s different. The desert’s different. It’s definitely different. We could go into it.
But, the other thing I was gonna say with that was – I always wondered, like, the real zombie apocalypse is when the grid is pulled and humans are going after humans who have water or batteries or whatever it is. I don’t know. I always admire people who live in tight situations with people. Unfortunately, tragedies can happen or what have you. The ability of the human condition to stick together and pull through has always been a wonderful thing to see. I say this because I’m still stuck in the woods, but in the desert now. It’s quite a [conundrum].
You know, New York closed in on me. I used to love New York. I used to follow trails of gum, you know, and just think about conversations of people. Just people and gum. Like, who is this guy? Who is this lady? We’d make chords out of it on music sheets, and I’d just get really deep with – the stuff on the street told such a story, and it always led me to a good restaurant or a fascinating place to shoot. The people in New York would always – in my opinion – look at your once and wouldn’t look at you again, whereas in the West Coat (in L.A.), someone might be like, “What are you looking at?” It might continue for a while.
Anyway, it just closed in on me one day. I felt like I was in a soup can and the lid was shut. It’s not necessarily New York’s fault. I’ve always admired – I’m an only child, so that’s probably what it was – but I’ve always admired groups of people just propelling through life together. Making it work.

Finally, Montgomery asked Crahan if he “feel[s] at peace,” and he’s visibly rattled as he replied:

Man. Well, you know, I'm not trying to turn this, 'cause you asked the question. I gotta be always honest. I don't lie, cheat, or steal. It’s like – we lost a family member, and in the Midwest – anywhere with great people. Anywhere with good people around – they're always gonna be there for you, and it's hard for my wife and I to be in the situation we were in, and so many good people around. Like I always say, a lot of people will go home to dinner, and we're kind of stuck in it anyway. So, yeah, a lot of peace here in Palm Springs. Different energy.

Crahan was almost certainly referring to the 2019 passing of his daughter, Gabrielle, at the age of 22.

He continued:

My wife was ill, and we came here a couple of times and her spirits got really – a lot – I mean, just her spirits and her health and everything just went up. One day, it was 120°F and we were laying out in the pool, looking at these little mountains just, like, “Whoa, are we here?” She's, like, “I could live here.” So, we're here. So, that's it. She just had to say that, and honestly, yeah, we've got a lot of peace. It's nice to change your situation, get out of the woods [and] get in the desert.
The band I’m in, we played out here at a small club called Pappy & Harriet's [in 2024] with our new drummer [Eloy Casagrande] when he joined. . . . we did our first show [with him] there, and I think we all thought that maybe there’d be less people, so people squeezed in. We hadn’t done anything like that in a long time. Could be two decades. Could’ve been literally before we were signed. It’s just been up ever since. It’s always one more person at the show. It’s never been less.

You can watch the entire interview below:

Shawn “Clown” Crahan Talks about Palm Springs + More on ‘Kennedy Saves the World’ (March 4, 2026)

Other Slipknot News

This past January – and as Billboard previously reported [via Loudwire] – Slipknot were suing “an alleged cybersquatter who's been using the URL slipknot.com to advertise counterfeit merchandise for nearly a quarter-century.”

However, at the end that month, Loudwire wrote about Slipknot “voluntarily dismiss[ing] their lawsuit against the domain name for slipknot.com,” with “lawyers for the domain name fil[ing] a motion to dismiss the suit, stating that the band had not served as the registrant for the name in the time required.”

Loudwire continued: “The following day, the group filed a notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice, which would allow them the right to revisit the matter legally at another time should they choose.”

More recently, we learned that the band’s enigmatic and highly anticipated lost album, Look Outside Your Window, will finally be coming out. However, it’ll be under the name Look Outside Your Window rather than Slipknot, and it’s being released on April 18, 2026 (on Record Store Day).

The official Record Story Date website states:

Look Outside Your Window is Corey Taylor, Jim Root, Sid Wilson, and Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan, who in the downtime during recording sessions for Slipknot's 2008 album All Hope Is Gone, began to freely create songs for themselves, exploring new directions with no outside expectations. Over the years, the existence of this project has seen coverage in outlets including Vice, Revolver, NME, Kerrang!, and countless others, and the fans have only grown louder in their demand to hear this album.
[N]ow over 15 years later, the fans will finally get to experience it for themselves. Splatter vinyl with a die-cut jacket, purple foil on the front of the jacket, purple flood inside the jacket, and embossed text on the back of the jacket.

Keep in mind, too, that Look Outside Your Window will apparently be limited to 2,300 copies. The cover and full (10-song) track list have been revealed, and understandably, fans were initially in disbelief that the record is coming out.

While you wait for Look Outside Your Window, why not take a look at our official timeline regarding everything we know about it?

Have you ever visited (or lived in) Palm Springs? Let us know!