BRING ON THE NOISE DESPITE MASKS AND STAGE NAMES, SLIPKNOT TAKES (LOUD) MUSIC SERIOUSLY.

Byline: Fred Shuster Music Writer

Kids today.

Just when you got over Korn and Kid Rock, now comes a freakish gang called Slipknot dressed in numbered industrial coveralls, surrealistic self-made masks and a musical attack that redefines the words ``brutal,'' ``ugly'' and ``noise.''

Naturally, they're from the middle of nowhere - Des Moines, Iowa, to be exact - and equally unsurprisingly, Slipknot's gold-certified self-titled sophomore disc has been in the albums chart for nearly a year.

Call it speed metal or extreme rock, Slipknot's violent, grating version of music will be unlistenable to anyone over the age of 17, like other bands in the same genre: Korn, Sevendust, Staind, Static-X and System of a Down.

But Slipknot is more extreme - and gimmicky - than most. Think of a nine-headed ``Texas Chainsaw Massacre'' with a soundtrack lifted from a scrap yard. The over-the-top group, which uses single-digit numbers rather than names, features three drummers, two guitars, a DJ and sampler. Song titles include ``Wait and Bleed,'' ``Prosthetics'' and ``Spit It Out.''

They're big in Japan.

``The craziest people live in Des Moines,'' explains Shawn Crahan (No. 6), percussionist, founder and evil Bozo. ``It's so incredibly boring, you either sit around and rot or you figure out how to entertain yourself.''

Slipknot appears tonight at the Hollywood Palladium and Saturday at the Glass House in Pomona.

Like other new metal bands, Slipknot has benefited from word of mouth and the rise of the Internet where bands can develop a strong fan base without help from radio or MTV. Also, a spot on the second stage at Ozzfest '99, Ozzy Osbourne's annual touring festival, quickly made the band one of last summer's hottest new acts.

``Everyone wants to make money, but I'm not gonna let it control my life and have it affect my music,'' Crahan said from a tour stop in Portland, Ore. ``Money only corrupts and pollutes art.''

As for the scary masks and numbers-for-names, Crahan insists they stem from the music, not the other way around.

``The stage show is inspired by the music,'' he said. ``It's not a gimmick. The numbers and masks keep our egos under control. When the coveralls and masks started, they worked for some reason, and we had to stick with it. Now, the masks are an extension of our personalities.''

Crahan and the others formed the band five years ago as an unmasked five-piece, distributing its 1996 debut, ``Mate, Feed, Kill, Repeat,'' themselves. The group was quickly discovered by Korn producer Ross Robinson.

``I started the band with two rules: to play the music we wanted to play and to have a pyramid of drummers. I knew what sound I wanted to create,'' Crahan said.

As modern-rock and mainstream-rock radio moves away from the alterna-pop sound that dominated for the past two years, extreme metal bands like Korn are getting airplay.

Slipknot has been on the road steadily for years, and the band members have been known to walk around the audiences after shows talking to fans or ``maggots,'' as the musicians have affectionately dubbed their followers.

``That was the way to build an audience,'' Crahan says. ``We'd meet them, talk to them, get to know them. And we still talk to them through the Internet.''

Despite his description of his corn-fed hometown as ``excrutiatingly dull,'' Crahan is grateful for having been forced to create his own entertainment there.

``Des Moines taught me how to be responsible,'' he said. ``Because the people you touch there, you touch for real. But I never blamed anyone for my troubles. And as for music - you had to have parents who believed enough in their kids to allow you to practice in the basement.''

It was in Des Moines, too, that Crahan developed not only a work ethic but a sense of what he didn't want to do with his music.

``I used to watch these cover bands do three sets of other people's songs and then apologize for doing their own material,'' the drummer said. ``I felt ashamed for them. See, most music out there has no soul and we're trying to bring that back. That's why we wear bar codes on our coveralls - to make fun of music as a here today, gone tomorrow product.''

The facts

--Who: Slipknot with (hed)pe and Mudvayne.

--Where: Hollywood Palladium, 6215 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood.

--When: 6:30 tonight.

--Tickets: $25.

--Information: [phone].

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Photo: The nine-member rock band, Slipknot, performs tonight at the Hollywood Palladium.