Despite Stone Sour being Corey Taylor's first band, and despite the fact that they've been pretty successful over the years, Taylor thinks the band will never quite get out of the shadow of Slipknot.
In an interview with Steve-O’s Wild Ride (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar), Taylor adds that Stone Sour ultimately became popular thanks to his joining Slipknot and that Stone Sour ended up being pretty great. It's just that everyone knows Taylor as the guy from Slipknot first and foremost.
When you were in Stone Sour before Slipknot, the band hadn’t really reached a certain sort of stardom?
“No. We were just kind of a – I don’t want to say a basic rock band, we were a lot of fun, a lot of people loved coming and seeing us – but it was weird because Stone Sour and Slipknot were the two biggest bands in town.
“And at the time, I was the best singer in Des Moines, and they were the bigger band in Des Moines, and they wanted that extra tool, that extra bullet, and the gun, I’m not really sure.”
“Yeah, and I’ve never had that feeling before. If they hadn’t asked me to join, I would have done Stone Sour ’til the cows come home. I would have eventually done something that would have gotten the attention of whatever because we were shopping just like everybody else in Des Moines.
I saw that you were at Slipknot’s very first show in the audience, and you were like, ‘Fuck, I’m gonna be the singer of this band.’
“When I watched that first show, I was right in front, they came through the audience, scared the hell out of it, everybody! Because they’re in full masks, they weren’t wearing the coveralls yet, but they were just in these crazy outfits.
“And they opened with – I want to say it was like three minutes of just noise and blast beats. It was like being in a fucking Melvins concert! I can’t believe it, it was so gnarly. And for some reason, I was so attracted to it and drawn in by it.
“I just was like, ‘I’m gonna be the singer in this band someday.’ And I’ve never had that thought in a million years for anybody else. And a year later, they asked me. It’s crazy.”
Did Stone Sour have a record deal before you got into Slipknot?
“No. That definitely helped, being in Slipknot. At the same time, we sounded different enough that we were able to… and we wanted to differentiate ourselves right away, which is one of the reasons why we never did any Slipknot music on stage, we never did anything except our own stuff.
“And I think as time went by that helped us become our own band. We were always going to be in the shadow of Slipknot, anything I do is going to be in the shadow of that. All I can do is try to get a couple of rays of light to kind of pop here and there. It’s a good problem to have, it could be way worse.”
Right, like Sixx:A.M.
“Exactly, those guys can go and do their thing and it rules but it’s always going to be in the shadow of Motley Crue. And it’s a good problem to have.
“It means that you made your mark in musical history, and so many people love you for that, that no matter what they’re gonna give you a chance on this other thing. It’s really good.”
Stone Sour is currently on hiatus and Slipknot is maybe in the studio right now.
