Slipknot's Corey Taylor seems to have been pondering about the band's longevity during recent times. He recently reflected about how the years of touring have had a taxing effect on his body, and even conjectured about finding a replacement for himself in the band if he wanted to stop and everyone else wanted to continue. But fear not, the Iowa guys aren't going anywhere, anytime soon.
In a new interview with Tom Power, host of "Q" on Canada's CBC Radio One, Taylor elaborated about the secret sauce that has kept the iconic band alive and thriving for over two and a half decades: "I think it's a couple of different things. I think it's the fact that we all still have that fire in our belly to make music, to get on stage and push it as far as we can. Even though obviously with age and injury, it's slowed us a little bit, but there's still that urge to do it."
But there's more to the story than just a burning desire to rock. Taylor continued "It's also the fact that we're all fans of each other's writing, playing, performing. We love the music that we create together and there's still so much that we haven't done. There's still so many things musically that we could still kind of lean into".
However, what truly sets Slipknot apart is their collective mentality. Taylor emphasized, "I think we know that we're not done yet, let's put it that way. I think the consensus is that we know we're not done yet. And maybe when the time comes that we all look at each other and go, 'You know what? I think we've done it. We've achieved what we need to achieve,' that'll be the time where we kind of put our tools down and back out of the garage."
"But till then, man, I mean, we're still very lucky to be able to do this. We're still very lucky to have the size of the audience that we do. We captured something in the zeitgeist that is very rare. And it's very rare for a band of our age and our genre to stay modern and current. So, I don't know if I really even have the answer for that. All I know is that we are trying to take advantage of it as much as possible because there's really no roadmap for it — other than maybe a handful of other bands; Metallica, obviously. Other than that, there's really no roadmap for us to follow. We're just kind of cutting the road as we go." Taylor added.
The camaraderie in the band seems to be another ingredient in their success formula, with guitarist Jim Root stressing the importance of unity in an interview with Guitar World last year: "We're getting to that point in our career where we're all in this together. We all want to do the best we can for the role we play in this band, and when that becomes the priority, that's when you put ego aside, put all that bullshit aside, and work together to make something great."
