During a recent appearance on “Steve-O’s Wild Ride,” Corey Taylor talked about the years spent in STONE SOUR before he joined SLIPKNOT.
After interviewer noted that STONE SOUR “hadn’t really reached a certain sort of stardom,” Corey said: “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.”
If they hadn’t asked me to join, I would have done STONE SOUR ’til the cows come home,” Corey continued. “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. When I watched that [SLIPKNOT‘s] 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 f*cking 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.”
When asked if STONE SOUR had a record deal before he joined SLIPKNOT, Taylor responded: “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,” he added. “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.”
Corey Taylor is about to embark on his social distanced solo tour. Dates and tickets can be found here.
