The band has stated that his main influences include Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Judas Priest, Korn, AC / DC, Kiss and Beastie Boys. Death metal, black metal and heavy metal have been mentioned as a major influence on the band's musical direction alongside nu metal, as is the category of the band usually has this genre. They also said they are influenced by industrial bands like Head of David, Godflesh and Skinny Puppy as well as Neurosis and jungle music like Roni Size.
They can be compared with groups such as Pantera, Machine Head, Biohazard, Life of Agony, and Prong, are also known to be chaotic and energy in live shows. Robert Cherry of Rolling Stone called the sound of Slipknot's sound "a threshing machine devouring a military body.." In more recent work, the style of "vocal scandalous" is still there, but now includes more melodic. The lyrics generally follow a very aggressive tone and feature themes such as darkness, nihilism, anger, indifference, hatred, misanthropy, knockout and psychosis. Rick Anderson of Allmusic regards the group's lyrics as "not generally quotable on a family site." There was controversy surrounding the lyrics Slipknot, including a case in which a pair of young killers blamed the song "Disasterpiece" as a vicious crime, one case in 2006 in which lyrics from the song "Surfacing" were found at the site of a grave. In 2008 a 18 year old murderer a classmate in South Africa. The murderer had wielded a sword and a mask similar to that of Joey Jordison, Slipknot of, several witnesses told authorities. "We know that the wrong music and drugs give bad results. The young need to be informed about the effects of satanic music" argues Pierre Efsteen, director of an institution to support estudantes.Já the South African police have a different opinion: "Whenever there is a murder people jump to conclusions, and always think that it was God or the Devil who had kill the killers", says the head of the psychology department at the local police. The band has not commented on the incident.