Chris Fehn doesn’t sound creepy. He doesn’t have a low, growly voice, or use the f-word a whole bunch like one might expect after listening to a Slipknot album, or even just glancing at an album cover.

These guys are scary on stage. There’s no two ways around it. Each of the nine band members wears a unique horror mask and jumpsuit, more frightening than Freddy and Jason and Michael Myers put together.

But off stage, they’re just regular guys. Fehn was even a jock in school, having been a kicker on the Wayne State University football team. He also plays golf. Doesn’t get out as much as he likes, so his handicap is about 10, but there’s plenty of guys out there who’d take that.

... This is probably not the kind of thing one might expect to read in an article about Slipknot. Because the band’s persona is so much a part of the package. And that persona — the one that involves the group calling their fans maggots because they once saw maggots on a dead deer that looked like their moshing fans — leads a person to picture them doing much more sinister things in their free time than golfing.

Fehn is careful when he talks about the costuming. The mask is not who he is sitting in a hotel room hanging out between gigs. But it’s not just an image to sell records, either.

“Live, it’s definitely who I am,” said Fehn, a percussionist in the band, which performs at the Alltel Center Wednesday. “(The masks) are a complement. It’s a whole package.”

Fehn’s mask is leathery with a long nose and rivets. Like the other band members, he has a bunch of variations of the mask, but all of them are pretty similar. Fehn didn’t design the mask himself. It was already in the band’s stash when he came on board in 1997. And that was fine with him.

“I was just so stoked to be in the band. I was like, ‘Yeah man, I’ll wear whatever,’” he said.

Some people say the masks are a gimmick. Fehn says four platinum records and a No. 1 album speak for themselves. Scary masks don’t make people buy albums.

“The way I think of it is like, you can only go so far with an image,” he said. “I personally feel the music is foremost in what we do. If it wasn’t, we’d just be a small poster on some kid’s wall and then we’d be forgotten.”

The band originated in Iowa, having formed in 1995, and has released four albums. Fehn replaced a drummer a couple of years after the band formed and was pretty excited about the opportunity.

Metal music had always been his escape. He got good grades in school and played sports growing up in Iowa. But his musical outlet was Metallica, Slayer, Sepultura and the like.

“It was sort of a contest to find the sickest, heaviest records that you could,” he said.

Getting the opportunity to perform the kind of music he loves, and giving that outlet to the band’s fans, has been a dream come true. Night after night, it’s not even a challenge to work up the energy to perform, which involves an absolute explosion of aggression. If he’s feeling rundown or not in the mood, all it takes is the first few riffs of a song and he’s into it.

“I love the music, I love the band, I love the fans,” he said. “I’m not an aggressive person in my real life. But music’s always been that way to me. Inside, there’s a lot of angst.”

The same is true for Slipknot’s fans, he says. People might not think of good, wholesome Midwestern kids as being the moshing kind, but they go nuts at Slipknot concerts.

“It’s almost like it’s better because they’re so starved for good music — good heavy music,” he said. “When I was growing up in Iowa, we hardly ever got concerts. When one of our favorite bands would come to town, you had to get it all out because you never knew when another would come.”

Slipknot will do their best to make sure that happens in Mankato, Fehn said. It’ll be a show filled with pure energy, just like always, he said.

“We never have backed off,” he said. “We’re a little older, a little wiser now. But the guys are in better shape, it’s weird. ... We’re a frickin’ army, man. We’re stronger than ever.”



If You Go
What
Slipknot
When
7 p.m. Wednesday at the Alltel Center
Tickets
$39.75, available at the Alltel Center ticket office and all Ticketmaster locations. Charge by phone at 800-745-3000 or online at www.ticketmaster.com.