Slipknot have confirmed the sale of a majority stake in their back catalogue to HarbourView Equity Partners, marking one of the most significant catalogue acquisitions involving a metal act in recent years. The agreement covers publishing and master recording royalties across the band’s official releases since their 1999 self-titled debut album, a landmark record that reshaped modern metal through its ferocity, precision, and theatrical identity. Neither party has revealed financial terms, although long-running industry reports placed the value at close to $120 million, a figure consistent with the group’s enduring commercial strength.
The deal includes the rights to major Slipknot staples such as Before I Forget, Wait And Bleed, Spit It Out, Duality, and Psychosocial, songs that helped define the sonic and visual brutality of late-1990s and early-2000s heavy music. The agreement, however, excludes any future recordings, with the band retaining ownership and creative control over what comes next.
HarbourView Founder and CEO Sherrese Clarke said the company is honoured to work with a catalogue that, in her view, permanently shifted the cultural vocabulary of heavy music. Clarke highlighted the group’s impact across generations of listeners, noting that Slipknot’s reach has remained steady from their breakthrough period in the late 1990s through to their current position as arena and festival headliners worldwide.
The company emphasised that its investment model centres on long-term cultural relevance rather than short-term monetisation, and Slipknot’s catalogue, with more than 30 million albums sold, over 7 billion YouTube views, and consistent streaming strength, fits that strategy. HarbourView has accelerated its music holdings in recent years, adding catalogues from Christine McVie, T-Pain, Pat Benatar, Nelly, Wiz Khalifa, Kane Brown, George Benson, and others. The Slipknot deal arrives only months after the company secured more than $1 billion in debt financing across two rounds to support ongoing acquisitions.
Slipknot co-founder and percussionist M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan said the partnership represents a milestone in the band’s 25-year campaign to navigate the music industry on their own terms. He stated that HarbourView aims to expand the reach of the band’s existing work rather than repurpose it, positioning the company as a collaborator in maintaining Slipknot’s legacy.
Slipknot formed in Des Moines, Iowa in 1995, developing an aggressive musical identity built around complex percussion, down-tuned guitars, and a nine-member masked ensemble that drew as much from performance art as from thrash metal. Their 1999 debut album reached triple-platinum status and remains one of the highest-impact metal releases of the modern era. Their second album Iowa arrived in 2001 and debuted at number three on the Billboard 200, cementing the group’s presence in the global arena circuit. By the time they released All Hope Is Gone in 2008, the band had achieved their first number one in the United States, a feat they later repeated with .5: The Gray Chapter in 2014 and We Are Not Your Kind in 2019.
Across their career the band has accrued 11 Grammy nominations and won the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance for Before I Forget. Their catalogue now spans seven studio albums plus a series of live recordings, compilations, and side-project contributions from individual members, including singer Corey Taylor. Several of Slipknot’s albums continue to generate strong streaming results each year, with Billboard estimating combined annual revenue of more than $15 million for masters and more than $5 million from publishing.
HarbourView described Slipknot as a defining force in heavy culture, citing the band’s position as a headline act at major global rock and metal festivals and their consistent ability to sell out arenas across Europe, North America, South America, and Asia. The catalogue, which includes some of the most recognisable metal singles of the past 25 years, remains a cornerstone of their economic value and cultural influence.
Slipknot’s legal representation for the transaction was handled by Scott Legal Group, while HarbourView was represented by Fox Rothschild. The company’s acquisition continues a wider trend in the music industry where established acts with sustained streaming metrics are negotiating large-scale catalogue agreements with private equity groups and institutional investors.
Kelly Clarkson, whose catalogue is also represented by HarbourView, recently completed a separate agreement with the firm. Slipknot’s deal adds a high-profile metal catalogue to the company’s growing portfolio, reinforcing HarbourView’s stated ambition to work across genres with long-term commercial reliability.
Slipknot have not disclosed any plans for upcoming releases, although the band continues to work independently on new material following recent lineup changes. Future projects will remain outside the scope of the HarbourView agreement.
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