Which of the following was said by singer Corey Taylor of Slipknot?
A. "I've been sober for six and a half months now."
B. "I'm really into Tiger Woods Golf."
C. "I want my son to grow up in an environment where it's normal."
D. All of the above.
If you answered D, then you've got more of an open mind about the Iowa metal band than most people. The nine-man group, which broke onto the scene in 1999 at the height of the nu-metal movement with its self-titled debut album, has been categorized as dark, violent and misanthropic (a song on their 2001 album Iowa is called "People = Shit"). With their menacing stage presence, complete with matching jumpsuits and ghoulish masks, their tendency to emerge from live shows bloody and battered, and their confrontational attitude and lyrics, the band is the perfect target for parents who think their children's music is the tool of Satan.
With Slipknot's third album, Vol. 3 (The Subliminal Verses), set for release on May 25, Taylor and his cohorts are likely to offend a few more delicate souls in these FCC-sensitive times.
Not that he cares. "I'm not going to let a bunch of f--king geezers who I've never met in my life dictate how I live mine," the singer says bluntly. "If that many people were really that put off by seeing Janet Jackson's boob, then we're in a very sad f--king state of affairs. It's more offensive to me to watch people being killed on television every day on the news than it is to see a beautiful black woman's breast. Give me a f--king break."
That little rant aside, Taylor's mind is not on what parents or high-ranking government officials will think of his band's new music. On the latest edition of the Jagermeister Music Tour, with fellow metal bands Fear Factory and Chimaira in tow, Slipknot is all about bringing its new music to the fans. "A lot of bands, they'll play new material, and the audience will just kind of tune it out," Taylor says. "But with us, the new material, the people are listening intently and they're really getting into it."
To hear Taylor and some of his bandmates talk only a year ago, though, there was doubt about whether there even would be any new material. After the success of Iowa and the subsequent touring, Slipknot took some well-deserved time off. Many of the members explored side projects, from Taylor and guitarist Jim Root in Stone Sour, and drummer Joey Jordison in Murderdolls, to percussionist Shawn Crahan in To My Surprise. Stone Sour even had a radio hit, "Bother," and spent a good amount of time on tour. Taylor himself was telling interviewers that Slipknot might be through, or at the very least would put out only one more record.
Today, he's singing a much different tune. "If you would have asked me a year ago if this tour was going to be fun, if doing the album was going to be fun, I would have been like, 'F--k no,'" he says. "But now, it feels so good to be out with these guys and to be having a good time and to be playing this music again and just having everybody go ape-shit. It's such a good feeling, especially since we're all getting along again."
He downplays the internal tension, chalking most of it up to rumors and innuendo. "We cleared the air and got rid of a lot of the bullshit that was going on around the band and was forcing a lot of the drama on us," he explains. "It was weird. It was almost like it was superimposing itself on the band. It was kind of pushing us against each other. Once we got rid of that, it was all full-steam ahead."
For Taylor, it's also full-steam ahead with a family (his son, Griffin, was born in 2002), newfound sobriety and a nice house in the band's hometown of Des Moines. After all the controversy, the rumors, and the long process of recording and touring, he just wants to settle down like any other dedicated husband and father. "It's a better way of life there, basically," he says of Iowa. "And I can make what I make and live very comfortably. We're not millionaires by any f--king stretch of the imagination. But we make fairly decent money, and I can take care of my family. And that's all that matters."