Corey Taylor Says Slipknot Seek Perfection: 'Good Enough Has Never Been In The Vocabulary'

The Music gets Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor on the phone amid a frantic day during their Knotfest Roadshow tour stateside. “It's chaos and bullshit, and everything that goes with it,” he ponders of the packed schedule.

Chaos – that's a key word to associate with the Iowan metal nonet. It seems like there's always some degree of it surrounding a new Slipknot album, intentional or not. In the lead-up to their new record and sixth overall, We Are Not Your Kind, ex-percussionist Chris Fehn filed a lawsuit against the band for withheld payments, airing his grievances with former bandmates publicly. “I'm not going to talk about that right now,” is Taylor's polite but firm response when quizzed if he regrets the situation being played out via social media.

“You'd be surprised what you grow accustomed to around this camp,” he begins, as The Music steers the interview back to the topic of disorder inevitably existing in and around them. “It seems like we know what adrenaline tastes like at this point. But I think that's part of why we work so well as a unit, because that kind of makes us rise to the occasion even stronger. So by the time we get on stage, we're all nice and amped up and ready to go, and we just turn it into musical integrity and chaos basically.”

Taylor's personal life has been tumultuous lately too. He's had double knee surgery, two decades of high velocity performances with Slipknot and hard rockers Stone Sour having taken their collective toll. The new Slipknot album was also written in the aftermath of his marriage falling apart, inciting him to explore some bleak subject matter.

“I was coming out of a pretty dark time in my life. I was in a fairly toxic relationship for a long time, and the repercussions of that still kind of cling, to be honest. But I was able to draw from that, and really work my way through a lot of those issues, the stuff that was clinging to me even getting out of that relationship, by writing the lyrics for this album. Trying not to lose my mind or lose myself, and trying to make sense of why I stayed as long as I did, why I allowed myself to be put through the stuff that I was put through.

“You tend to make a deal with yourself when you're trying to do the right thing, until it really comes off as there's nothing positive about this situation. So for me, it's more about getting myself out of that headspace and that headfuck, and trying, through the use of this anger, this art, try to find that peace that I've been looking for, for a long time.”

Outside of the studio, Slipknot's shows have been cathartic experiences too – while also being akin to onstage warfare as members set fire to one another and leap off balconies. For various well-documented reasons, the 2019 incarnation features a noticeably different line-up to the one that unleashed their rule-breaking, mega-selling self-titled debut 20 years earlier. Does Taylor feel the band still possesses that gang mentality that so fuelled their formative years? “We definitely have it when we go on stage,” he enthuses.

“As the years have gone on, we've all kind of grown into our respective lives and stuff. But the cool thing about this band is that when it comes time for us to get together, all of that, anything that may have [...] made us different suddenly becomes the stuff that brings us all together. It's the stuff that keeps us cohesive, and it's the stuff that helps us bond. And at the same time, it's the same thing that makes us fans of the music that we play for each other. We all become our greatest, our biggest fans basically. And the cherry on top is the fact that we get to be in a band together. It's that same type of intensity that lends itself to us going on stage as a unit, with that gang mentality. Because we all have that same commitment to excellence that we've all had since we were very young. It's one of those things that drew us together in the first place.”

Slipknot are keeping mum on Fehn's replacement, who Taylor jokingly refers to as “tortilla guy”. In this iPhone-clutching, social media savvy age which eradicates what little mystique still surrounds artists, it's an impressive feat that the new member has remained anonymous. That's especially the case, given the detective work their 'Maggot' fanbase previously undertook to determine the identity of Alessandro Venturella (bass) and Jay Weinberg (drums).

The vocalist says wanting to retain a semblance of mystery wasn't necessarily their intention, but is ultimately “kind of a cool byproduct” of the whole scenario. “We didn't want the emphasis to be on the new guy, we wanted the emphasis to be on the music," he says. "That was what it was always about for us. We didn't want the drama, we didn't want the bullshit, we wanted the attention to be on the fact that we had new music coming out. And as we pushed it even further, it's driven people so fucking crazy... Now, we're like, 'We're never gonna tell now.' It's really fun,” he chuckles.

Regardless of which musicians take to the stage when the Slipknot juggernaut tours Australia's stadiums alongside Metallica, it's their work ethic and constant self-reflection that Taylor insists will never allow the metallers to become complacent.

“I'm definitely the harshest critic of my own performance. And that's one of the things that keeps us committed to being the best. We've never walked on stage and been like, 'Ok, this will be fine, this will be good enough.' Good enough has never been in the vocabulary of this band, and it never will be. It's just that commitment that keeps you wanting to get back on stage, and wanting to top yourself and wanting to put on the best show. It's not a mutual competition, it's a competition against everyone else, including yourself.”