Watch: Corey Taylor talks to Kerrang! Radio about Slipknot's incredible career
Loz Guest also inducts Slipknot into the Kerrang! Radio Hall of Fame
Last updated 12th Feb 2020
Kerrang! Radio’s Loz Guest recently caught up with Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor backstage at Birmingham Arena for a wide-ranging chat about of the Iowan masked metallers’ fabled career.
The ever-genial Corey spoke candidly about the highs and lows of Slipknot’s 20+ years in the limelight, from their breakthrough with their self-titled debut opus ‘Slipknot’ through to ‘We Are Not Your Kind’ and their future plans for 2020.
Among the subjects Corey touched upon was his relief at not walking away from Slipknot, his painful gout diagnosis, Slipknot’s viral 5-year-old superfan Caleb Hayes, the chaos of Slipknot’s embryonic days, how Clown has shaped the band's aesthetic vision, his undying love for UK fans, the band’s plans for Knotfest UK, and much, much more.
At the end of the interview, Loz also formally inducted Slipknot into the Kerrang! Radio Hall of Fame for their services to music – an award that truly meant a lot to Corey.
You can watch the interview with Corey right here, and check out the full transcript below:
Loz: It’s been a decent start to 2020 so far with these UK tour dates?
Corey: “Absolutely. Yeah, every show has been rammed dude. Now, when you do as many shows as we are on such a small (geographic) area, you don’t expect every show to be sold out but Good Lord, dude, it’s been rammed every night! For us it’s such a treat because obviously (we’ve been coming to the UK for) over 20 years now. We were just talking about coming over for the first Kerrang! week when we did The Astoria – the one show that now 150,000 people say they’ve been to. Just slightly over the capacity of the old Astoria!
“I say this every night on stage actually, this country was really one of the first places to understand us and believe in us. Really, it helped us take off and we’ve never forgotten that. So, coming back over here after this many years and it is still rammed! This is stuff for bands like (Iron) Maiden. Not us! A bunch of jackassers from Iowa!”
You’re underselling yourselves!
“I appreciate that. But at the same time, it’s a wonderful feeling. It’s one that honestly, we try not to take for granted. The UK is really a second home. Absolutely.”
The reaction has been amazing on social media…
“I actually got off social media six months ago. I’ve been off now since probably last August.”
You have a social media manager, I believe?
“I do. I have someone manages my madness. It had really gotten to the point where I needed (a break). I was so over the ugliness; I just can’t deal with it anymore. I would share stuff and it would just be this war in my comments. You get on Twitter and maybe try and clean your palette and it’s just all of this noise. It’s like trying to have a conversation in a laundromat, there’s so much… insane cacophony and the din that you’re just like ‘why am I here?!’ It’s tough.”
I’ve been seeing a lot of good reviews (for the UK tour) on Twitter and one common theme that runs through the reviews is the energy each night. It’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t been to a Slipknot show, but I’ve always felt that there’s just like this insane energy transfer – almost a deal between you and the crowd. It creates this insane atmosphere.
“It’s always felt very symbiotic that energy. We’ve talked about it before, it’s like we’re giving it to the audience and they’re feeding it back to us. That to me is the kind of show I want to have. That’s the kind of show I want to be at, it’s the kind of show I want to put on and that’s the kind of show I want to represent us. The fact that we still have that after this time… obviously, it’s changed. We’re not kicking the crap out of each other; we’re not setting each other on fire that much! Although our set tries to set us on fire once in a while! But it’s good to know that after all these years we have been able to evolve and become something that still has energy and yet is still a spectacle and it’s different and the kids are still into it. That’s what’s important.”
Does it feel like 20 years?
“Yeah, it does! (laughs). At least physically it does! It kind of feels like I’ve blinked and yesterday was 2008. 10 years in a heartbeat are gone – or 12 even. The thing that marks my passage of time now is not so much the albums but my kids. That’s what keeps it in perspective for me is the fact that when the first album (1999’s ‘Slipknot’) came out, my oldest was six maybe. This is my oldest daughter, Angeline. Griffin (Corey’s 17-year-old son) wasn’t even an itch in my pants at that time. It’s crazy to think that it’s been over 20 years. That the band has never been bigger – it’s insane!”
Did you expect that back in 1999? Could you envisage where you are now?
“No. None of us did. I can remember conversations when we first started were that – and this is putting it in context – if we could be a band where we sold 125,000 (album) copies that would at least allow us to tour. Obviously, the only person who had family in the band at the time was Clown. All he wanted to do was make enough money to take care of his family. And be able to just be that classic Roadrunner (Records) band that could go out, tour, kill it, make great albums, give us the opportunity to be a working band. None of this (where Slipknot are now) was even thought of, and we were all on the same page. When we really exploded, we had serious talks about breaking up and pulling a Sex Pistols and be like put a massive album out and then say, ‘screw you, we’re outta here.’ Those were real conversations! I feel like we’ve failed everyone by making ‘Iowa’ (laughs). It was such a great thing to think about. None of this was expected, man. Just on paper we shouldn’t have made it and yet here we are! It’s a weird feeling still.”
You’ve become more of a cultural movement than just a band.
“It’s good that we haven’t allowed that to colour our approach to music. A lot of bands in our position, for better or for worse, would probably look at this and go ‘you know what, all we need to do is put and product now and we can coast.’ We’ve never done that. Even when we take musical swings and we miss sometimes – and God knows the fans have let us know when we have.”
Slipknots masks through the years:
Slipknot in 2000
Slipknot wearing trademark white boiler suits and their horrorshow masks in 2000
Those are few and far between though…
“Exactly. It’s one of those things like we at least, we try. We risk. We still risk musically. All you have to do is listen to ‘My Pain’ on this album (‘We Are Not Your Kind’) and people at first didn’t understand what that was. And when you listen to it all in perspective, you realise that it is such a massive piece of the musical process on that album. To me, it’s honestly one of my proudest moments on it. Clown put together something so beautiful and theatrical that the people who didn’t understand now do. For us, the fact that we’re getting the best of all these different worlds is a major boost for us.”
The evolution of the band must be something that you’re very proud to look at. I remember seeing you in 1999, the debut. I was sitting there with my mates and I said at the time ‘we’ll be lucky to get two albums out of these guys.’ I just couldn’t see how you could maintain that level of intensity – physically and mentally - for that time. You deserve a medal.
“We probably deserve a CT scan! I tell you what every time I step on stage (my knees) hurt. I figured out what my problem was – I have gout. Really bad! From my feet to my knees, and I’m like ‘ah, that’s one more thing I’ve got to deal with!’
“It feels good to know that we have evolved with our sound, let’s put it that way. Because we’re also very realistic. We knew that once we got into our mid-40s, we wouldn’t be able to do a lot of the crazy stuff that even we did on ‘Vol. 3’ and ‘All Hope Is Gone’. We knew that we had to change and if we didn’t, we were going to look like that caricature that you always see when you go see a band that hasn’t allowed itself to become what it could be. We didn’t want to do that. So, being able to do that, and having the fans allow us to do that in a lot of ways, has really helped us.”
Has that come naturally? If you look at the show you put on now, even down to the outfits you wear on stage – the masks – you almost look quite classy. It’s like the sentiment and feeling is coming across but you seem to be growing old in this very graceful and intense manner.
“It’s cool. There’s a dignity there. A dignified look. We’re not the 70-year-olds out there in codpieces, which you can get dangerously close to sometimes. I give a lot of credit to Clown. His imagination, his vision in a lot of ways has helped shaped this for so many years. Obviously, we contribute and do our part but his unifying vision in a lot of ways has helped us maintain that risk, that look, that attention to detail. So even when we do big things like a reveal on the internet for new outfits, new masks and stuff, it’s still a big deal. Because we started from day one knowing we had to evolve, knowing that we had to stay relevant and one of the things we knew we had to do was find ways to look like a unit and do it in a way that didn’t feel forced.”
You can really see that in videos such as ‘Nero Forte.’ That’s killer because it’s stripped back, and you just look like you’re jamming almost because you’re just there and you’ve got your stack behind you and you’re going for it.
“It’s probably one of my favourite (videos) that we’ve done in a while. It was almost like throwing it back to when we jam in a rehearsal room. It’s just all of us pointed at each other – ‘Corey, I can’t hear you!’ – it’s that kind of vibe that is really captured in that. We were all feeling it, you can tell, dude. You can see it on stage, it really comes across. That’s worth its weight in anything, the fact that you can still see the comradery even after all these years. We just had a show in Cardiff, probably one of the best ones we’ve had in a while, and that audience is so insane. When they’re into it they let you know. We were looking around at each other like it was our first opening gig, just having such a great time. And it really reminded me that we’re lucky. We are very, very lucky!”
You once told me that if you have a good show on stage, it’s like the breath of God.
“Absolutely. And this is coming from somebody who is the consummate perfectionist almost to a fault. I’ll remember every negative thing in a show before I remember all the good stuff because I want it to be perfect. And perfect doesn’t have to be pitch perfect, it just has to be perfect vibe-wise; the audience, performance. There’s always this unobtainable thing that every performer will tell you they’re looking for if they mean it, that sometimes you achieve, sometimes you don’t. It’s never the same thing but if you blow it you will just suffer for just days. You will go over stuff in your head over and over and over. I remember the one dude that does not dig it and not the 21,000 people around him losing their minds. I’ve lit up people before on stage because of it, because I’m a maniac but that’s how much we care. That’s how much we love doing it and that’s how much we just try to go above and beyond for everything. It’s a miracle you can achieve every once in a while.”
You mentioned earlier about the brotherhood in the band. You are a band of brothers. Is that’s what’s carried you through the past 20 years, because from an outside looking in it looks like it’s intense being in your band?
“There have definitely been more tense moments than good ones. We’re all frenetic, we all come from different backgrounds musically, environmentally, culturally. It’s been tough sometimes. But the thing that I have noticed as we’ve gone on and we’re still doing this, we have allowed ourselves to recognise how good we really are. We’ve allowed ourselves to step away from the stoicism that comes from being from the Midwest and we’ve embraced each other. Especially the ones that are still here. We recognise that it takes work to be in this band and when we’re all going for it there’s an appreciation that maybe before we felt we couldn’t show, and the more that we all show that the better it feels as a brotherhood.
"There have been moments where I’ve come so close to walking away from this and I’m really glad that I didn’t to be honest. The payoff has been fantastic, especially now that we’re in this really great place and we are performing at a level that is still top notch. And writing music that is still really good and connecting with a whole new generation, which is insane. I don’t think we could have done it with anybody else to be honest.”
Your body of work is extensive now. Your Astoria show in ‘99, I looked back on the setlist and I think you had 10 songs that night. There are videos and I think your voice was four octaves higher.
“Back then we were doing so many shows that I would just blow my voice like nobody’s business but then miraculously ‘oh, I guess I can sing tonight, we’ll see what happens.’ You’re living on a wing and a prayer back then. It’s kind of cool to look back at that stuff and, my God, we were so young man.”
You don’t punch each other in the face pre-gig anymore?
“Let’s just say that when we do, people have it coming!”
Picking the setlist must be fun nowadays with a massive arsenal of tunes?
“It’s been interesting. Obviously, you’re dealing with the audience, you’re dealing with these wonderful curmudgeons that I’m in a band with – beating them into condition is always fun! Especially this setlist, me and Clown were talking about this even before we came over here and we hit everybody up about it to make sure that everybody was into it. We don’t just put it together. We send it out to everybody and say, ‘how do you feel about this?’ It seemed like everybody got excited about it and I think that’s one of the reasons why it translates live. Not only did we completely restructure (the setlist), we took a bunch of stuff out, we put a lot of stuff we hadn’t played for a while back in, and we’re really into it. Because of that, the audience gets into it and it’s just that symbiotic process again where you’re feeding them, and they’re feeding you. That’s what keeps this monster going.”
People who were around in ’99, a lot of them will be at the gig tonight and now they’re passing it down to their kids. You must have seen that video on Twitter (The viral video of 5-year-old Caleb Hayes drumming along to Slipknot at Newcastle Utilita Arena)…
“Yeah, he’s here! We just had a little mini meet & greet with him. His parents did not believe us when we told them we were passing that video around and freaking out watching this kid play. So, we reached out to them and said, ‘you’ve got to bring him down (to our show)’. They didn’t really tell him that he was going to be able to meet all of us and he was just like walking – he’s in full gear again, full make-up. He’s got his coveralls on, he’s got a black wig on, he’s got his sticks and his sister’s with him and she’s like walking him around, and he’s just in awe. That to me is better than any Grammy, it’s better than any album award, it’s better than so much because that kid is going to tell everybody what this means to him. The fact that we can pass that down to this kid.
“I was talking about this the other day, we’ve gone beyond people bringing their kids now – that was 10 years ago! Now, it’s a whole generation of kids who were born after the first album (‘Slipknot’) came out so they’re discovering us through the new album (‘We Are Not Your Kind’) before they even realised what we were all about, so they’ve got this whole history to check out. That’s completely new to us. I do this thing in the audience where I ask how many people were alive when the first album came out and there’s like a handful of crusty dudes. And I’m like ‘what has happened?’ It’s insane, right?! That is such a gratifying feeling; there’s nothing that comes close, there’s nothing that will ever touch the fact that we are passing this down to another generation. It is not just people who have been listening to us for a while, it’s people who are finding us on their own. So, it’s the band are passing it down. It’s killer.”
Well, I’ve got something that might match that feeling – it might. You talk about Grammys, you talk about awards and stuff, so I would to induct you into the Kerrang! Radio Hall of Fame.
“(Speechless and fighting back the tears) Are you serious?! Goddamn it, Loz. Is this real?!”
It’s real. It’s for you and the band – 20 years, man!
“(Still speechless) I still have the ‘K’ (Kerrang! Award) that was on the table when we won Best Band in the World in 2000 when we went to the awards. We had the Best Single for ‘Wait and Bleed’, it was on the table and when we won Best Band we threw the f----ing thing and it landed and it broke part of the K off. So, I picked it up and I taped a piece of cardboard to it, this janky piece of s---. I don’t know what to say!”
You don’t have to say anything. It’s just a little thank you from us, the radio station and the UK. You’re going to set me off in a minute!
“I’m trying to stop (crying). I guess ‘thank you’ is in order. Wow, I’m kind of stunned. I can’t wait to show the guys (in Slipknot). They’re gonna f---ing s---. It’s like I said, this country really understood us first. It wasn’t until we came back from that first European run after everything had blown up for us here and went home and people were like ‘ooh’. It was like this whole momentous thing and it’s almost like rediscovered us through you guys.”
What’s next?
“We’re going be touring a lot. We’ve got Knotfest UK, which we’ve been able to figure out. The great thing is that we were really able to work out how to do it working with the people who we’ve worked with over the years. The fans were asking about it right out of the gate. When we did the first couple (in North America), (the UK fans) were like ‘when do we get one?!’ And it’s like ‘hold on a second, there are people who we’ve worked with for 15 years that we’re not just gonna bring it over here and step on their toes.’ To us, the respectful thing was to try and find a way to do it with the people we worked with. Once we were able to do that, we’re like ‘ok, now we can do it!’ Now being able to bring it over – and we’re starting really put the bands together and stuff – it’s exciting. We’re really, really excited.”