In a new interview with The Ringer, SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor was asked about the negative pushback he has received from some of his fans for the anti-Donald Trump comments he has made on Twitter and through various media outlets.
Asked if that tension is still a problem at all, Taylor responded: “I don’t know, to be honest. There’s a whole lot of Trump supporters who are very vocal when they’re, like, ‘Keep your f*cking politics to yourself.’ But they don’t say that to people who agree with them. They don’t say that to artists who are conservative and may or may not support Trump, but they definitely support what conservatives believe in. So it’s, like, ‘Oh, you just don’t want to hear me because you don’t agree with me.’ Okay, f*ck you.
“That’s not the way this works. The way a dialogue works is sometimes you’re going to hear sh*t that you don’t f*cking like. Sometimes you’re going to hear sh*t that you don’t agree with. That’s why this over-censorship bullsh*t that’s going on is f*cking terrifying. Because that’s not how freedom of speech works… Or some people go, ‘Well, that’s the last album I buy.’
“Well, the last time I checked, people are still buying Nikes, people are still f*cking going to football games, people are still doing 100 f*cking things that other people find offensive. And it’s, like, ‘Well, guess what. The world keeps turning, and I’m going to keep f*cking talking.”
Asked how the political climate affected the making of SLIPKNOT‘s latest album, We Are Not Your Kind, Taylor said: “It really didn’t, because I was coming from such a personal place that, to me, I didn’t want to clog it down too much. I don’t want to say ‘rhetoric,’ because it was — to me, it was more about trying to let go of the things that I’ve been kind of holding on to.
“So I’m hoping that people can listen to this from a personal standpoint, and hopefully, it helps them with situations in their personal life, helps them to stand up for themselves quicker, stronger, helps them get away from situations like that, helps them talk to someone about depression, about something that we’re all seeing really, really kind of come to a head right now.
“And I’ve always been a very, very vocal proponent for mental health and seeking therapy and talking to someone. And that’s kind of what this album is about. It’s more from a personal standpoint than anything politically.”
SLIPKNOT released their sixth studio album, We Are Not Your Kind, on August 9 via Roadrunner Records. Album was once again recorded at a Los Angeles studio with producer Greg Fidelman, who engineered and mixed SLIPKNOT‘s 2004 album Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) and helmed 2014’s .5: The Gray Chapter.
