If you're a Slipknot fan, you better go see them on their upcoming tour with Marilyn Manson, because it might be one of the last chances you get.
Corey Taylor recently guested on the Someone Who Isn’t Me podcast hosted by Daniel P. Carter and had some pretty interesting things to say about his future with the 'knot. Namely that he might step away at some point, and that isn't me inferring what I think he's getting at it here. Taylor 100% says that he isn't sure… and man, as a lifelong Slipknot fan, that hurts a bit. Here's the exact quote after he was asked if he'd ever get tired of touring:
“You know honestly, if you’d have asked me a year ago I would have said no. But just now, I’m just kind of starting to… I’m 42, I’m not young anymore and as willing as my will is, I’m just beat up man. I mean I might as well be 60 in Slipknot years for christ sake. I don’t know if I would retire, I might step away from Slipknot at some point, just because the way the music is, that sense of energy, I don’t know if I could be able to do that into my 50’s. And I would never want the band to feel like I was holding them back because I just couldn’t physically do it. So that means I wouldn’t completely quit music, I would probably just step away from Slipknot.”
“It’s something me and Clown have talked about, me and Clown have talked about that a bit… Where the band is going to go. Because we’ve done it. We’ve done the crazy shit, we’ve done… At some point we’ll have to evolve again. We’ve evolved with every album. At some point it has to mean something other than just the fucking insanity. And I think in a lot of ways it does not, but we’re all still young enough that we can pull it off physically.
It’ll be interesting to see cause I think that in the future we’ll make it less about the angst and the insanity and more about the creativity, because there’s so many creative people in the band, that… I mean fuck man, we could make like twelve albums of crazy, gnarly shit that it wouldn’t have to just be balls out war every time. So it’s definitely something we’re thinking about, but at the same time you just never know.”
Update: Taylor has since tweeted he has no plans to quit Slipknot:
I'M NOT QUITTING SLIPKNOT.
Listen to/read interviews IN CONTEXT not out. I talk about time off. This is why I dislike 'cut n paste' journos.— Corey Taylor (@CoreyTaylorRock) February 25, 2016
As much as it would suck for Taylor to step down, I get it. If you're getting older and you either can't do it anymore or your heart isn't in the music, then it's probably better to just step down. But, he didn't say he's leaving yet, just thinking about it. Taylor certainly has made plenty of money in the last 15 years working with the band, so how much is there left for him to accomplish.
The next question is "who the hell would replace Taylor?" Clown has previously indicated the band have had loose discussions of Slipknot continuing long after the original members aren't able to perform, with new lineups, possibly consisting of their children. I guess we'll find out.
