Corey Taylor is a man who likes to stay busy. He just released his solo album this week, and with having extra downtime due to touring still not being feasible for the foreseeable future, it looks like he's begun thinking about his other projects as well, namely Slipknot.
Speaking to That Jamieson Show, singer Corey Taylor revealed that he and his fellow maggots are already thinking about the follow up to 2019's We Are Not Your Kind, an album for which they still haven't done much in the way of touring, especially in the States.
Taylor told host Don Jamieson “I was just talking to Clown the other day about what we should… ‘Cause we’re obviously thinking about what the next album could be like. And he’s in this trippy place, dude, which is rad. I love it when he’s in this crazy mindset, because I know I’m gonna hear stuff that I’ve never heard before. He’s so goddamn creative, and that inspires Jim [Root]. And all the tumblers really start to fall. So it’s pretty rad. I can’t wait.”
Taylor isn't the first to talk about new music. Back in April, guitarist Jim Root told Loudwire the band has begun discussing new music, while Root also hinted that whatever he writes that doesn't fit the Slipknot vibe, he would use for a potential side project.
“Now that we have this bananas insane pandemic thing going on I’ve been trying to force myself to write. I’ve had a lot of people ask me about doing a solo project. I think now I have a little bit of extra time to dedicate to that, so I’ve been writing some stuff that maybe wouldn’t slide in with the Slipknot world. But like I said I’ve got kind of a bit of a writer’s block thing going on right now. I would like to [start a solo project] just because I need to stay busy. You know, I didn’t start a family, I never got married, I didn’t do any of that stuff. I know Corey wants to do a solo project that’s outside of Stone Sour; he’s mentioned that.
“Unless I’m writing for Slipknot I wouldn’t know what to do with my time. There’s a lot of different philosophies and ideas and things we’re throwing around with Slipknot for another record, things like that. It’s easy for me to write Slipknot arrangements and ideas. They come kinda naturally to me just because I spent so much time with Paul. As much as I’ve written on the last two records I don’t have to think about that too much.
“For a solo project, I’m gonna overthink that until I’m insane and it may never ever come out. What direction do I go? Do I even think about a direction? Do I just let it naturally come out? Do I use things that I’ve written intended for Slipknot that maybe Slipknot didn’t gravitate towards? Or maybe Slipknot was just like ‘That’s not really very Slipknot,’ not that there’s any rules on what is or is not Slipknot. A good song’s a good song whether it’s for this or that or the other thing. Like Don Henley said for that Eagles thing, he stepped back and took a drink of his beer and introspectively said ‘shit don’t flow.’ So if I make some shit that doesn’t flow maybe that’ll be my side project.
“Obviously, Slipknot is my priority and it’s what I’m always gonna have as a priority and that’s gonna be the main thing that I always focus on as long as I can or as long that we’re viable or as long as we want to continue to do that. What I do as a solo project, what direction do I take, I want to get all that out. With all the arrangements I’ve written for the last couple of Slipknot records, I don’t know that I need another outlet, but I’m going to try. Set a goal, maybe see if I can achieve it. We’ve got time on our hands now.”
Which is to say, Slipknot will have plenty of ideas going into writing this next album. Meanwhile, while Taylor is out promoting his solo album, on more than one occasion, he's mentioned how difficult it was writing albums with his other bands. Speaking to Forbes, he recently said of writing his solo album “I can sum it up like this. It was the first time in years that I was surrounded by people, every one of those people were just as hungry as I was again. Does that make sense?
“That’s me being very diplomatic, that’s me not trying to throw any of my brothers under the bus, but it’s the first time in a long time that I was surrounded by people who wanted to make music for the same reason that I did, and that was just to make incredible music, being excited about the opportunity to make something massive.
“Being so fucking energized and stoked that you can feel it in a recording, you can hear it in the music, you can see it when we’re playing it.
“It’s been a long, long, long time since I was surrounded by people who were just as geeked to make music, fuck selling it, fuck playing it, fuck any of that, making music because it gives us so much joy. I haven’t felt that in a very, very long time.
“So that’s what I meant. I don’t give a shit about any of that stuff man, I make music for me first, then I share it with people. If I’m not into it, I don’t put it out there. I never will.
“That’s the only reason to do it righteously; if I happen to make money, that’s awesome too. I can pay my bills, take care of my people, but I don’t have a Lamborghini, I don’t have a solid-gold toilet, I don’t give a shit about any of that stuff.
“The only thing that matters to me is making music that I want to fucking hear back. I can’t say that about a lot of the people that I’m in a band with. Either band. But I can say that about this band. There it is.”
In a separate interview, with Kaaos TV, Taylor echoed those sentiments, saying “So every day was just another chance to laugh; every day was just another chance to hang out with your bros and just have a good time making music. We didn’t hold anything back, we were just so stoked and so excited about making a big rock album that we just got into it. So in a way, it was a complete 180 from an experience that I really haven’t had since the first Slipknot album [1999’s self-titled].
“It was so enjoyable and so positive that it really kind of set the tone for me as like, ‘You know what? This is the only way I want to make music from now on. I don’t want to waste my time with people who are fucking miserable anymore. I want to make music with people who are as stoked as I am about what we get to do for our lives, and yeah, that really pulled great energy out of it.’”
He later added "It’s like, ‘Fuck man, what do you have to be unhappy about? We’re living our dream, it’s been over 20 years now, and we still get to do this,’ you know?" [..] “And you know, it’s just one of those cases where sometimes you just grow apart, people just change, and you wake up one day and somebody you’ve known for 20 years you have very little in common with. It’s not to say that you don’t still make good music together, but it’s different.”
