Corey Taylor's mask for Slipknot's We Are Not Your Kind album cycle wasn't exactly the most well-received of his masks. The mask was designed by horror effects legend Tom Savini, who said he liked the mask but was aware that the reception was very mixed. Now Taylor himself has commented on the mask in an interview during Texas Frightmare Weekend 2021, saying in retrospect it certainly wasn't his favorite.
"I spent three months designing that specifically. Cause the last one was — it was cool but it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do. So this time around, I started early. I actually started designing this before the end of the We Are Not Your Kind cycle, just to make sure that I was ahead of the game and making sure I could dial in all the details and whatnot.
"And I actually did it with a young man named Conor Deless, who's super cool. And he flew out. I walked him through everything that I wanted to have on it. And he was able to mock something up really quick, man. And he really got to the essence of what I was trying to configure. It was almost immediate. And then, really, it was just a matter of waiting for him to build the damn thing… We did the mold. We built it right to my face, so it fits like a glove. And it's hot as balls, but it's so rad on stage; it just looks really, really cool. I'm calling it the smiling skull mask."
You can check out more of Deless' work here, and you can check out the newest Slipknot song "Chapeltown Rag" here. Oh, and if you're wondering what Savini was referring to when he said "Someone even fastened a milk carton to their face and posted a side-by-side and said, 'Nailed it!'" about the previous mask, here you go.
