When you think of Sid Wilson, it’s likely you’ll think of the unsettling gas masks he sports on stage as Slipknot‘s DJ. You’ll likely think of Wilson’s disorienting scratch and drum effects, or of his signature mullet and tattoos. You likely won’t think of the Geto Boys and Bushwick Bill.
It’s admittedly hard to picture at first. When Billboard chats with Wilson via Zoom, he sits in his studio wearing a leopard print jacket, a chain-linked necklace and dark-tinted sunglasses in what is essentially the signature starter kit for any successful metal star. He is holding a large Chucky doll with ski goggles placed around its head. It is almost Halloween after all, but Wilson says he brought it to our interview in the spirit of Bushwick Bill — the Geto Boys rapper who passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2019.
“I’m gonna put him back here so he can keep an eye on things,” Wilson says before placing Chucky on his keyboard. “He’s here for quality assurance.”
Wilson started his record label Vomit Face earlier this year, and announced the first big release would be a debut album by Lil Bushwick, who is late rappers son. The album drops on Oct. 31, but a closer look at Vomit Face’s roster shows that it’s actually all rappers at this moment. Wilson notes that this was a very intentional decision, but that the most important thing is that each artist here learns how to become multifaceted.
“We don’t gatekeep here,” Wilson says. “I want you to know the secrets behind the curtain of the Wizard of Oz. Like, when you go to film school, they make you take a class that’s called “respect for acting.” A lot of people don’t wanna take that class cause they wanna be a director! But when they take that class, they understand what’s it like to be in the actor’s shoes when a director is pushing the artist to do the things they need to do… That’s the thing about teaching the secrets of the industry. This way we can work together and be a family.”
Below, Sid Wilson talks about what it’s like being a label head, his relationship with Bushwick Bill, and why he prioritized hip-hop for his new label venture.
How’s being a label head?
Oh, I love it. This time around I was just producing so many different things and different people and quite a few of them were independent, so it was kinda like we’d finish a project and we’d be like, “Ok, who are we gonna shop this to? How many things do we gotta come up with to entice a label?” It was kind of a pain in the butt to sell yourself with someone, especially when you’re an artist who already believes in yourself.
So I just started accumulating all of these projects and didn’t have anywhere to release it, and I just did not wanna deal with these labels having to finagle different things out of them. “We want the artist to keep his masters,” and all this f—king bulls—t you gotta argue about with them about, when they don’t even know the blood, sweat and tears it took to create the stuff. That just seemed unfair to me, for the artist to not have total control of their art.
Like, we [Slipknot] just finished our contract with Roadrunner Records. Seven albums, I’m 48 years old now. We signed that when I was like 20 years old. Over half of my life, and it took that long to get free of it. Like, the amount of money the band could make off of one album could be more than potentially the entire career of the band, and that’s not fair to me.
And the name Vomit Face Records just kinda came to you?
I grew up in Chicago doing a lot of warehouse parties, and out there it was called the “ugly face.” Like when you hear something really good, like a good beat or track. Way before that when I was young they had the “gas face.” In the Bay area they had the “thizz face.” So when I was doing the Lil Bushwick album, the beat just dropped and I was like, “ewwww!” Like that’s the “vomit face,” you know? Like the pinnacle of faces. What’s the craziest of the faces when the beat drops? The vomit face, its so gnarly it gives you face paralysis. Everything from then on just kinda maintained that format.
Your debut roster here is mostly rappers, which considering your background with Slipknot feels surprising. How intentional was that?
Yeah, Vomit Face was more directed to hip-hop but with a punk rock edge. There’s a couple hip-hop groups on the label but bands are a very in depth process. I still produce bands, but generally I’ll shop them out to another label. There’s a lot of logistics involved. With a group you have more than one persons life happening. There’s a lot of logistics involved outside the group. How many people are in the group, how many of those people have families, how many of those people have kids, how many of those people are living in the same city together or spread out? What’s their capability of being able to practice together on a daily basis?
There’s a psychological side to it where you have to get to know them on a more personal level, and talk to them about more than just music. Dealing in hip-hop, there’s a lot less logistics, even if it’s a hip-hop group. Traditionally they won’t have a drummer, a guitarist, a DJ. There’s not a whole surroundings of each person’s instruments and what it takes to capture those instruments.
I’m not saying hip-hop is easier, there’s just a lot less logistics to focus on so you can really grind a lot harder with the individual and spend more time with the individual than with a band.
Do you find the psychological aspect easier to manage with rappers?
I don’t know if it’s easier. Maybe that’s a whole other thing to. The work flow from hip-hop can be vastly different from artist to artist. You’ll hear music that comes out that’ll be like, “Oh, this was recorded seven years ago,” or, “We just did this last night!”
You just never know what you’re getting into and you’re talking to a lot of people who come from street life too so you’re not gonna know what’s going on in their lives, or where they’re at, or what their availability is going to be. Some people just drop off the face of the earth for a minute, and don’t get back until later. Some of them because of the street aspect are very hungry, and are kicking your door down every day. It’s vastly different from artist to artist, but then having less logistics to deal with makes it easier to get it done.
What was your relationship to The Geto Boys and Bushwick Bill, specifically?
Obviously, the Geto Boys are iconic, and I met Bill through my buddy’s skate shop “Brooklyn Projects” here in L.A. The owner’s from New York, and a lot of different artists and entertainers will come through this place just because of the skate culture. So I met him through that shop and we decided, “Yo, let’s make some music! Like Bushwick Bill and Slipknot? C’mon!” Logistically, we just couldn’t get it locked down — and we both being entertainers were just traveling a lot and unfortunately not knowing he was ill, I don’t think anybody really knew, so when he passed away it was like, “What?”
That was a hard lesson for me. I would have moved some mountains around if I had known, and it’s terrible to say that because that shouldn’t be the reason to get work done with someone you click with. I felt really bad about that.
What was your last interaction like with him?
It was at the shop, actually. I had an Irish wolf hound named Fred and he was dying of cancer. He had [three kinds] of cancer and we were fighting it with him. He’d get better from one then another would pop up. He was an amazing dog, and I was going through that with him the last time I saw Bill — and he wanted to come track some stuff, and without explaining what was going on in my life, I was like, “I really can’t today.” I was just trying to get back to my dog, but not realizing Bill himself was… you know.
I should have just been like, “C’mon over man, my dog is sick but it’ll be cool.” We might have had a moment together there, something really special. There would have been a whole magical thing there and we all missed out on it. Then meeting his son and finding out he was an artist and doing music and coming to Slipknot concerts, we just hit it off. I made a promise to Bill’s spirit: “I’m gonna do this with your son and I’m not gonna flop. I’m gonna make sure I get it done.” That was that, flew him out to Wilson Estate in Iowa and recorded the album.
What was your relationship like with Lil Bushwick?
I wanted to be there for him. So when I flew him out, we recorded but we went to do things he would have done with his pops. We went fishing — he had never been fishing before! We got to know each other, on a level beyond artists and doing music. We’re family now, and I’d like to be able to be there for him in that respect.
What was it like fishing with him and bonding with him outside of music?
It was awesome, man! I could hear Bill going: “Hey man, that’s cool. Thanks for doing things like that.” We could have just been at the studio recording but I was like, “Hey, let’s go to the pond and catch some fish. Let’s go ride the four wheelers around.” I’m in no way trying to replace his father but to be able to do things with him it was cool. I can be an uncle!
You can hear Bill [in his music]. He’s like a youthful version of him — that was cool to see, how it gets passed down. His dad was really smart too, man, he had a lot of knowledge on a lot of things, and you can see that passed down to Lil Bushwick. He’s very locked-in spiritually.
Amazing, man — it must feel really good to finally have Vomit Face rockin’ and rollin?
It does, man. I got a great team, a great roster. I look forward to bringing people to this roster. I’ve already gotten a million messages from people wanting to be involved. This is a label for the artist by the artist. Own your own music, own your own stuff. Grow with us!
