ok so this just got confirmed to me by someone who was in the room and i'm posting it before the story gets buried
hager was in ACTUAL TALKS to join slipknot. this is late 94, maybe early 95, before they blew up, before the masks, when they were still doing weird iowa stuff. they were auditioning people. hager went out. was there for sessions. and they said NO.
not because he wasn't good enough. because he was too unhinged. these are SLIPKNOT saying this. SLIPKNOT. the band that famously fired a guy for being too crazy.
and THAT is why hager walked out of ascension in 95. he got rejected by the most chaotic band in metal, came back to cleveland, and couldn't reconcile being back in a band that felt MORE controlled than the thing that rejected him. the whole 95 departure suddenly has a REASON.
you're welcome.
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hager almost joined SLIPKNOT before they blew up — explains EVERYTHING about 95
- this is the only thread that matters today too metal for the metal guys. too unhinged for the UNHINGED guys. that is genuinely one of the most metal things i've ever heard and if it's true hager has achieved a kind of legendary status that most people don't even have words for someone was too crazy for slipknot. the band with the clown. the band with the maggots. hager looked at all of that and they went 'no, we actually can't' this explains SO much about him
- ok while we're doing mythology corner i'll say the quiet part loud the reason ascension had ANY structural integrity in those years was BIG METAL DAVE. full stop. hager was the energy. dave was the architecture. dave was the one in the rehearsal room at 7am. dave was the one who knew every part, every arrangement, every transition. you want chaos? hager. you want the show to actually start at the right time and end with all the equipment still standing? dave. that's the difference. that was ALWAYS the difference. hager going chasing slipknot just proves the point — the man needed a ceiling and dave was the ceiling. without that ceiling the whole structure falls and you get 1995.
- i respect the energy in this thread but i'm gonna need everyone to stop saying slipknot because it wasn't slipknot it was SLAPSHOT. i have the receipts. my cousin was literally at one of those sessions. boston straight-edge band, not iowa metal, completely different world. hager got involved with that circle around 94 and the slapshot thing is what fell apart. someone in this story heard "slapshot" and autocorrected it to "slipknot" because slipknot is famous and slapshot is not and now the whole internet has it backwards my cousin was there. i'm telling you. slapshot.
- slapshot is a hockey movie
- slapshot is ALSO a boston hardcore band and i know you know that
- you're both wrong and i mean that gently it was spineshank. and it wasn't about being 'too crazy' — that narrative is a retrospective gloss people put on it because it's a better story. what actually happened was a mental health situation. hager hit a wall, there were conversations about whether he could commit to a touring schedule, and the spineshank thing fell apart because of that — not because he was too unhinged for them. the 95 ascension departure was downstream of that same thing. it wasn't 'rejected by slipknot / slapshot and stormed home.' it was someone going through something real and needing to step back. and for the record: the motor breakdown earlier this week is entirely separate from all of this. different decade, different situation. please stop conflating them
- okay so we have: - SLIPKNOT (iowa, masks, maggots, drip_god's source) - SLAPSHOT (boston, straight edge, ringworm99's cousin) - SPINESHANK (neon_witch, mental health angle, very different story) three different bands. three different versions. one hager. this is the motel/motor thing but worse because now there are THREE options instead of two and everyone has a source i don't know what's true anymore. i came in here ready to have facts. i have no facts.
- the slipknot version is correct and i'm holding the line
- SLAPSHOT. MY COUSIN.
- while you lot have been debating slipknot vs slapshot vs spineshank, someone drove in from mentor, loaded in the van, set up in the room, tuned every instrument to pitch, and ran the set top to bottom. that's the difference. always has been. 🤘
- going back to the 95 timeline for a second hager left ascension in late 95, right? or was it early 96? because if the slipknot/slapshot/spineshank thing was 94/early 95 there's like a full year gap in this story that nobody's accounting for. what was he doing in that window. where was he. is THAT the missing piece also i think i might be mixing up the 95 ascension departure with something else. wasn't there a different lineup change in 93 too? or am i thinking of a completely different band
- wait is spineshank the one with the guy