If you build it, they will come. It’s the Costner-coined catchphrase that put Iowa on the map for a few years in the early ’90s. Now a crop of local musicians have taken that advice from the ballpark to the moshpit and built a music scene that is luring major label record execs to the Heartland.

The hardcore field of dreams is rooted in the success of two bands: The nine-member metal outfit Slipknot and the fierce Ames fivesome 35″ Mudder. Both units formed about the same time three years ago and were the first non-folk bands to draw major crowds to clubs.

“From day one, we have always been about hard work,” says Slipknot percussionist Shawan Crahan. “We’ve blown off girlfriends. Quit jobs. I did business stuff for the band every day until we got signed.”

Slipknot and 35″ Mudder played a few shows together until separate radio stations got behind each band and feuds broke out. The climax was a run-in at Crahan’s Safari Club, where the bands exchanged harsh words after a Mudder show.

The dueling died down soon after, when programmers from both stations left town.

Now, the same bands that let a “my station hates your station” mentality come between them are ironically battling on a different territory — national record charts.

The Hype

This summer, 35″ Mudder and Slipknot were scaling the same aggressive rock charts in such national trade magazines as CMJ, Hits and The Album Network.

“For two bands from Des Moines to make it this far is saying something,” says Sean Elliot, program director for KAZR, who hosted both bands at this summer’s Lazer Luau. “I mean, this is only a town of 400,000. That’s pretty fucking cool.”

Elliot is among a swarm of radio programmers psyched about the Iowa bands. In fact, the New Jersey-based radio promotions company The Syndicate declared an Iowa Week in midsummer and encouraged stations to play both bands and do Iowa-themed shows.

“It took a few days, but people really got into it,” The Syndicate’s Dave Ciancio says. “It was amazing. We had stations calling meetings to tell their jocks. They were spinning Mudder and Slipknot every hour and digging up everything they could on Iowa.”

Tom The Wiz, a famed metal DJ at WKLQ in Grand Rapids, Mich., added both bands to his playlist and managed to catch Slipknot live.

“I looked up and saw nine guys in the band, and I thought, ‘These guys wanted to get the hell out of Iowa as soon as possible,” The Wiz jokes. “I was amazed by how heavy it is. And it seems very genuine.”

If getting out of Iowa is a way to measure success, both bands are well on their way to stardom.

Slipknot spent the summer on the hugely popular metal tour, Ozzfest, while 35″ Mudder made trips to New York City and Los Angeles to play record label showcases.

“What Slipknot and 35″ Mudder have done already is amazing,” says Mudder bassist Chad Calek. “We’re making history. Iowa’s never been put on the map musically.”

The Slipknot Story

While 35″ Mudder is expected to sign a major label deal this month — one of the biggest of the year, according to their management — Slipknot signed with the independent metal label Roadrunner Records nearly a year ago.

Roadrunner, home to such acts as Type O Negative and Coal Chamber, usually supplies about half of the Ozzfest lineup each year, as well as the Lazer Luau.

Slipknot’s self-titled debut, which hit stores in early July, was officially released as the first record on rap-rock pioneering producer Ross Robinson’s Roadrunner imprint I Am.

Robinson, known for his work with Deftones, Korn and Limp Bizkit, darted to Des Moines last winter to scout Slipknot.

“All the bands I’ve found came out of weird, mysterious, spiritual trips,” Robinson says. “So my eyes were wide open going into Des Moines. I wasn’t shocked, really, because I came from the desert, and there’s nothing to do there either.”

Robinson heard about Slipknot from his manager, who was buddies with Sophia John, former KKDM music director and Slipknot manager. He went to its rehearsal and discovered a major connection.

“They are a wolf pack of Beavises,” Robinson says. “For me, it’s always instantaneous. ‘Yep. OK, you have a record deal.'”

Slipknot’s Crahan recalls, “He drove into the driveway, and I remember thinking, ‘Don’t be nervous, he’s not here to do anything but see Slipknot.’ When he heard us, he started freaking out. He became the 10th member of Slipknot that day.”

Robinson’s support was a major break for Slipknot, but they still had to play for an actual record company in order to ink a deal. Convincing labels to fly to the middle of nowhere was such a challenge, the band used money from their own pockets to buy plane tickets.

“I like to look at it as if we were throwing ourselves in front of moving cars,” Crahan says. “It was ruthless, but it was the only way to get the right people to see us.”

Slipknot finally convinced Roadrunner Vice President Monte Conner to catch a show — in Chicago, of course — and a record deal was offered soon after.

Robinson invited the band to spend the normally frigid Iowa winter in the sunny confines of his Indigo Ranch Studios in Malibu, Calif.

“I had a vision. A full-on, out-of-control commitment,” Robinson remembers. “Certain people can open up. Some can and some can’t. Slipknot is a band that can.”

Robinson, the brave soul who took on Vanilla Ice’s hardcore comeback, is notorious for working with anti-radio, anti-label bands. Again, Slipknot fit the mold.

“They have integrity,” Robinson adds. “Anyone that thinks this kind of music is about making a hit record can just fuck off. It’s about full-on, peer destruction — the 100 percent opposite of ‘Nookie.'”

The result of the Malibu sessions is a 13-song collage of everything irate. Pure intensity pulls together a wide plateau of guitar and percussion work and, as their first singles screams, “spits it out.”

“Slipknot” is the “Blair Witch” of the music industry — new, addictively different, and not something you want to feed your mind before bedtime.

The record also sold 15,000 copies the week it was released.

“I attribute that to two factors,” Crahan explains. “We’ve done a lot of leg work, telling mass amounts of people about the album. And we have a Web site that gets 60,000 hits a month. That’s us promoting our band.”

Streetwise Concepts, a primarily underground promotion company, runs the street teams for both Slipknot and Mudder. Its motto — “Bringing you the sickest new shit first” — is played out by thousands of kids who distribute sampler tapes and fliers at metal shows around the country.

“It is a good feeling for us, seeing these bands that are close to home doing well,” says Brand Gunnarson of the Minneapolis division of Streetwise. “When this scene grows, it gives us something to do.”

The Mudder Story

Meanwhile, 35″ Mudder has trucked down a different path.

Sharing the stage on nearly every major metal show that has stopped in Iowa, they have established a mass following of fans and, more importantly, connections.

Record labels have been looking at Mudder for months, creating a snowball effect that crashed smack into the Ankeny Airfields on Aug. 1. Six majors flew in to catch the band’s performance on the Lazer Luau second stage, including high-profile A & R reps George Drakoulias (American) and Tony Furgeson (Interscope).

“I’m a big fan of everything outside of New York and Los Angeles,” says Drakoulias, who has produced the Black Crowes. “Probably my favorite period in music is Memphis soul. There are always these great pockets of music all over the country, where musicians are only playing to support themselves.”

Drakoulias was not impressed with the Des Moines nightlife (“I don’t see how you put up with paying to see these bad cover bands”), but says he’s looking forward to coming back.

“Only there’s no direct flights,” he laughs. “That’s the only thing keeping it from becoming the next Seattle. Direct flights.”

Another industry player who made it to Iowa this summer is former Tears For Fears frontman Curtis Smith, who inked a deal to manage Mudder in May.

“I found the whole place quite fascinating, really,” Smith says. “I thought I was there on a Sunday because it seemed like such a ghost town, but we were actually there on a Wednesday. Then I go to this club at night and see all these rabid young people listening to rock music.”

The Sound

Outsiders’ first reaction to Iowa has spawned questions of where this mammoth rapcore scene came from and where it is going.

Metal has not traditionally been big in the primarily folk rock state, and local rap has gone unheard of.

“I know there’s not a lot to do there, so the aggression is coming from being bored, and they channel it into the music,” explains Sean McEneely, music director at WSOU in New Jersey, considered the top metal station in the country. “They’re playing with a lot of heart. It’s shocking a lot of people, what’s going on out there.”

KAZR, which replaced the adult alternative KFMG around the time Slipknot and Mudder were forming, also has played a key role in hatching a hardcore scene.

“The Des Moines market just wants to fucking rock,” Elliot declares. “If you’re not metal, get the fuck out.”

Calek says the aggressive rock scene comes from lack of diversity in live music. “Heavy bands don’t stop by Iowa, so if you want to see this type of music live, you have to do it yourself. And the more bands that do it, the better the scene gets.”

Geographically, Iowa is at the epicenter of the ultra-hot East and West coast hardcore scenes. And although unique forms of heavy rock are spawning from the state, most of the bands mix equal flavors from both.

“It doesn’t sound like all the nu-metal bands out right now. It’s got an edge to it,” says Streetwise’s Gunnarson. “What I hear from these bands is the good production you hear on West Coast hardcore albums, mixed with the intense energy characteristic of the East Coast.”

Both 35″ Mudder and Slipknot say they wouldn’t trade their Iowa origin for anything.

“Bands coming out of the coasts are rooted in those scenes,” Calek says. “We have an advantage in that we are the connoisseurs of Midwestern hardcore. We don’t have to sound a certain way. But, we’re here, so we don’t get to see the music spreading. When we step back and look at it, it’s like, ‘Wow, we do have our own sound.'”

Crahan credits the good ol’-fashioned Midwestern work ethic. “Our parents are work-a-holics. We get it from them.”

The Future

Will Iowa join the ranks of Seattle, Athens or Sacramento? Those involved are hesitant to predict. But the potential is definitely there. The Iowa Hardcore Web site lists over 50 bands, most of which play regularly at venues like Hairy Mary’s and Supertoad.

“It’s not a coincidence that two good bands are coming from the same place at the same time,” Ciancio says. “The music industry just tends to ignore it because it’s not in-your-face like a New York band would be.”

Those who have been to Iowa have even stronger opinions.

Smith, who flew into Iowa earlier in the summer to entertain Capitol’s Perry Watts Russel (who signed Radiohead and Everclear), agrees. “There is no doubt there is a scene there. I think there is plenty to be found in that part of the country because music seems to be their only entertainment.”

Smith was introduced to Mudder by former Kiss manager Mark Adelman, his partner at MBA management in L.A.

“After Slipknot and Mudder, labels will be on the Iowa scene like white on rice,” Adelman predicts. “I was working for Prince during the whole Minneapolis thing, so I’ve seen this happen.”

Adelman says a scene is created by labels, but points out that A & R guys don’t discover trends out of nowhere. “They see trends from what comes across their desk,” he explains. “If they come across 10 heavy metal-sounding bands from Iowa in the same month, they sign a lot of them and hope one or two break.

“But you can’t sign bands that sound like the hot sound today. You have to look at the future. And 35″ Mudder is at the next step as far as aggressive rock goes.”

35″ Mudder uses its Iowa roots to useful advantage when talking to labels, expressing just how marketable a Korn from the corn capitol of the world might be.

“When 35″ Mudder signs, the label will try and create an event out of it,” Adelman says. “We’ll use it for marketing if it helps them. But the music is something that has been happening. Who knows? Next year it could be Montana.”

Calek says the Iowa tag has been unavoidable, and at times, entertaining.

“The rest of America thinks Iowa is full of corn farmers and hillbillies,” he says. “We hear all kinds of shit. ‘I thought all you had were potatoes there.’ People think it’s Idaho.”

Slipknot has not been as kind to the Iowa scene, reminding national and local press of the days of the 35″ Mudder clashes.

In a recent Cityview article, singer Corey Taylor said the Iowa scene didn’t deserve the national attention it was getting.

“We’re from Iowa and proud of it,” Crahan says. “But I don’t see a scene there. If there is something going on because of originality and creativity — great. If they’re trying to milk Slipknot and what we’ve done — that’s sad.”

Crahan says the scene has always been plagued by backstabbers and shittalkers.

“I would love it if bands started backing each other,” he adds. “That’s the way it should be. People shouldn’t be jealous of Slipknot because we worked our asses off for everything, and it wasn’t easy.”

Slipknot and 35″ Mudder. They built it and the national attention came. But the miracles are far from over.

As the Ozzfest showstealer’s hype explodes, and the “full scale war” over 35″ Mudder boils, the field will only grow.

Is this Iowa? No, it’s hardcore heaven.