SLIPKNOT has released the official music video for a new song called “All Out Life”. The track, which was premiered earlier today on “Zane Lowe’s World Record” on Beats 1 on Apple Music, will appear on the band’s upcoming follow-up to 2014’s “.5: The Gray Chapter”album, due next year via Roadrunner. The clip, which was directed by the band’s own M. Shawn Crahan, can be seen below.
SLIPKNOT singer Corey Taylor told host Zane Lowe about the lyrical inspiration for “All Out Life”: “Everybody talks about toxic masculinity and toxic fandom these days. For me, it’s more about this toxic idea that unless something came out 10 minutes ago, it’s not any good, and that bothers me. It’s, like, I love new music, but at the same time, don’t turn your back on the music that’s been. Don’t turn your back on the people that worked to make a platform for you to have a platform in the first place, so for me, it’s really about … It’s a rallying cry for everyone. It’s about all of us getting together and saying, ‘You know what? Let’s not talk about old. Let’s not talk about new. Let’s talk about what is. Let’s talk about what’s good, what’s real, and get behind that and start embracing things that matter because there’s history there and not just because it’s the next best thing.'”
Having hinted in the press about the aggressive nature of the music coming out of the studio, SLIPKNOT delivers “All Out Life” as a statement of intent. At a time when music and culture are becoming increasingly homogenized and the rough edges of creativity are purposely smoothed over, the aggression and message of “All Out Life” stands apart. Crahan elaborated on the track: “Right now is a very exciting time for SLIPKNOT. We’ve been working on new music for the last two years, and ‘All Out Life’, the song and the video, is just one of many concepts in the works. It’s a fitting taste to get you to the next thing. Get ready for what’s to come. We challenge you to All Out Life.”
Taylor went on to call the new album “one of the darkest chapters in SLIPKNOT‘s history — it’s that good. It’s complicated, it’s dark, it’s heavy, it’s melodic, it’s fierce, it’s angry and it’s real, it’s raw as hell and it’s gonna be talking about a lot of things that people are going to need in their life right now.”
According to Corey, SLIPKNOT has managed to come up with some of its strongest music to date this time around. “I’ve gotta give credit to Jim [Root, guitar], Clown [Shawn Crahan, percussion], Alex [Venturella, bass], Jay [Weinberg, drums] — all the guys, man. They… because obviously I’ve been doing my thing [with STONE SOUR], they got together and they just started writing some of the most incredible music that I’ve ever heard. I mean, it’s so good and it was so inspiring to me that I just… I sat right down and wrote. I just… basically, first pass, wrote everything that I was feeling. We went ahead and we retracked and we were actually able to beat the demo, which for us is pretty gnarly, dude.”
Corey said that he and his bandmates approached the making of the new SLIPKNOT with a newfound self-awareness. “What felt different was the amount of positivity that we all had in the room, man,” he said. “It feels like the last couple years, we’ve all really been able to let go of a lot of negative energy, a lot of pessimistic energy, a lot of things that we were holding onto, maybe like that negative, selfish energy, that I had, that everybody in the band had, that was keeping us from coming back together.
“I’m kind of looking at the world through clearer eyes, but I’m also just now starting to make peace with the fact that there are dark pieces in my chapters that I’ve had to relinquish,” he continued. “I’ve had to kind of let go of and be, like, ‘Look, if it wasn’t for all of these dark things happening to me, I wouldn’t be the guy I am right now,’ and so, this has made me have to deal with the fact that I am an addict. It made me deal with the fact that I’m in my 40s, and I’ve got kids, and I need to take care of them. It’s allowed me to get out of my own way and enjoy life. You know, and get out of my own head and enjoy the things that I have. It doesn’t mean that it’s the death of desire or anything like that, but it’s allowed me to really take advantage of the time that I have right now, and like the person who I am.”
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