PressSlipknot Exclusive: Bloodsucking Freaks In IowaRobyn Doreian, Correspondent Slipknot Vocalist Corey Taylor Opens Up The Wounds And Let The Truth About Success Vs. Misery Gush Out In All Of Its Bloody Gory To understand Slipknot you need to be at one with the (sic)ness. The world where killing is answered by lethal injections administered by sadistic volunteers, where children are molested and abused by their parents and priests, where women pay to have Botulism injected into their faces rather than commit the unforgivable sin of growing old, and where teenagers in complete despair take out their classmates in last gasp shoot-outs. The nine-strong battalion from butt-fuck Iowa have made an art form of the (sic)ness. Creating masks to articulate their inner demons and adopting boiler suits as a uniform, their appearance was designed to confuse, provoke and terrorize. Hence not only have two and a half million people worldwide been able to relate to their brutality, but openly embraced the gaping lyrical wounds of Slipknot. Since the release of their debut album in 1999, the 18-legged hate machine spent two years touring the world, attracting more and more maggots (fans) as they went along. With a punishing schedule including the Ozzfest coupled with extensive tours of Europe, the USA, Japan and Australia, come the final dates of 2000, the troops were nothing short of battle weary. "Because we worked so hard we were really beating each other and ourselves into this dead substance," recalls vocalist Corey Taylor (8). "The only thing we had to look forward to was recording the new album and working on new material. Once it got down to those last eight shows our momentum started to upswing again because we knew after that that we would be able to create again. At the same time we knew that our bodies would be able to take a rest as we were physically and emotionally emaciated. I remember walking off the plane and my legs felt like I had pressure fractures in them from jumping around every night and slamming into shit and bleeding. It was really fucking intense." Despite the Slipknot camp documenting every show on video and Taylor keeping a journal, the endless touring failed to throw up any real inspiration for their second album. The lyrical rot that would end up on Iowa was already firmly etched in Taylor’s brain as a result of his past, present and unforetold future. "As far as a lyrical standpoint, a lot of it has to do with the mindset of touring - the depression that sets in," he says. "I don’t care what anyone says, touring is fucking hard. You can only booze and whore so often," he laughs. "It’s the same thing no matter where you go. There are extremities and a lot of what I was writing about is a reflection on what happened. There are a few songs about touring, a few songs about my past but a lot has to do with the bullshit that came out after we emerged. All of the bands that wanted to take potshots at us and the bands who still do." Like who? "I don’t want to talk about them, man," he states. "If I did an interview about them it would be giving them credit and publicity, so they can fuck off." Why do you think they attack Slipknot with such venom? "A lot of it is jealousy," says Taylor matter or factly. "I am not tooting my own horn here but we are really popular and we are a really good fucking band, and I think it threatens a lot of the old guard. We have done it our own way and haven’t sold our fucking souls to the industry bullshit, we haven’t sucked the money cock, we haven’t turned our backs on our fucking fans, and it scares the hell out of a lot of people." The band has also suffered constant criticism from those who have neither the imagination or interest to try to understand what Slipknot are trying to achieve. Because the ninefold are so radically different from anything on the music scene, their individuality has bred both contempt and ridicule, something that clearly pisses the vocalist off. "We have always said from the beginning that the masks were a by-product of the music," he says for the squillionth time. "We didn’t put our masks on so people would listen to our music, the music always came first. The masks were a way for us to really get into what we were doing. They were a way for us to become a piece of the music, a way for us to really immerse ourselves in it." "If music was water, we would run it all over ourselves and soak our hair in it and drink the shit. It is just becoming that much closer to the expression we are striving for and nobody gets that. Nobody understands that. It comes from a completely different mindset than what fits in with the fucking music industry. Everything in the music business is driven towards a marketing or poster idea, and bands are set up for a franchise without even having any fucking music. We are totally against all that fucking bullshit and people just want to go for the first thing they see and that is our image. Fuck off. I don’t care." When we approach the topic of Slipknot being accused of being all show and no substance, Taylor becomes noticeably agitated. "I will kick their fucking ass because they know it is bullshit," he barks. "It is the only way that they can get to us but the proof is in the fucking pudding. If we had put out a mediocre record no one would be waiting for this second album. I get emails from kids all the time who are salivating for this thing. I am salivating for this goddamn thing!" "It is darker, deeper, stronger, more dangerous and the melodies aren’t happy - they are fucking haunting, and I love it. It is a completely fucking different direction than what most people expect us to take. That is another thing that scares the fuck out of people, the fact that they can’t predict what we are going to do next." How do you react to the accusation that amongst the nine band members, some of them are in fact hired hands? "Whoever said that has obviously not been to one of our practices when we all get into an argument," he says angrily. "Hired hands are people who really don’t believe in it, man. Anybody who thinks this band is not a band can fuck straight off! I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks because when we are out on the road playing we are a unit and we all unite together and do this thing, and it is a really good feeling to know that you have eight other people watching your back." The recording of Iowa commenced in January 2001 at Sound City Studios, Los Angeles, reaching completion some two and a half months later. With manic producer and technical guru Ross Robinson once again at the helm, Taylor was encouraged by the armchair therapist to unlock some firmly closed doors to his psyche in order to re-acquaint himself with and relive past pains. When it comes to deciding which song written is most personal to the lyricist, he is spoilt for choice. "Oh Jesus," he laughs, "it depends on what topic you are talking about. There is a song called ‘Metabolic’ which is basically ‘Diluted’ Part II that is about my dad. It is about being so enraged yet being so impotent because there is nothing you can do about it. "It is about that time of the morning when you are sitting in bed and you are crying uncontrollably, and you are trying not to feel but all you can do is feel because every time you shut your eyes it’s there. It is probably one of the most personal songs I have ever written just for the fact that even though I never knew my father and even though I have never met him, I feel like I am turning into him. I have no mental picture of what he is supposed to be, but sometimes I wonder if I am doing the things he used to do. It’s definitely a pissed off, heavy, fuck you, I don’t give a shit because nobody told me who I was because I had to figure it out for myself song." "Then there is another called ‘Everything Ends’ which is about the last time I tried to commit suicide, and more to the point, the first day I figured out what life was all about. It’s about the last day in a life I don’t want to remember and about the first day in a life that I am living right now." Why did you want to kill yourself? "Why does any 17-year-old guy want to kill themselves?" he replies. "A chick of course! I thought she was the be and end all of everything and when you are that age, those emotions won’t let you fucking consider reality. I was in a really, really painful place. I put 31 slashes on my arm and I took a bottle of pills and a friend found me and took me to hospital. Luckily the cuts weren’t too deep but I still have the scars. They pumped my stomach, which was a completely fucking horrific experience, one that I don’t wish on anyone. They make you drink this stuff which tastes like maple syrup, which is why I can’t eat pancakes for the rest of my life, that induces you to vomit uncontrollably. You then spew up everything you have eaten for the past week and then they give you this shit which tastes like liquid charcoal to calm your stomach down again." "That night I was in the worst, lowest fucking place I felt in my whole life. I got home and I was lying on the couch and there was this uncomfortable silence. My grandmother was sitting there and she didn’t know what to do and didn’t know how to control this 17-year-old kid who just wanted to feel something. I looked on the TV and Faith No More were playing the MTV Video Awards. I watched this performance and I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be fucking Mike Patton because he rules above all that does not rule. That is when I knew that not only did I want to sing, but I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write about things that I can fucking feel and that is where I ended up. I am a writer who happens to be able to sing in key. Well, once in while anyway." What is the story behind "New Abortion"? "That is for every fan we have who feels disorientated, especially kids who come from towns like we did," he says. "It’s basically a new definition of abortion for the fact that these kids are born with life but that is basically all they have. They have no chance for a future and have no chance of finding themselves. They have no inside influence that is going to push them in the right direction. They fit and they stagnate, which when I think about it, real abortion is better than that fucking bullshit. These people are born with a life but they still have to endure it. These are the kids you see shooting up schools, losing their minds over sitting in their rooms and not having anywhere to go, so that is my testimony to these kids - that I know where they are coming from." The frontman is quick in offering a solution. "All these kids have to do is take that first fucking step and get out of that soul sucking hellhole that they feel confined to," he says. "You can do anything you want. All you have to do is to want to do it. Nobody has any fucking power over you besides the power you give them." Taylor has vast reservoirs of anger welling up inside him. While he attributes a great deal of it to his past, he can’t single out one particular incident which triggers it, more the culmination of years of incessant chaos. He does however provide a glimpse of what life was like for him as a kid. "My mother was trying to take care of me and my sister without a husband," he recalls, "and she did what she had to do so we could live no matter what the outcome was. My mom got together with an alcoholic cocksucker who uprooted us from a life where we were happy and took us 1500 miles away to Florida." "I was nine-years-old and had this drunken cocksucker beating the shit out of me while he was trying to be my dad. Not only that, but he was a complete fucking loser and kept losing jobs. We lived in a fucking garage behind some Christian cocksucker house and then got kicked out of there because my mom and this asshole got into some midnight brawl where she got beat up really badly, and there was nothing I could do about it. Then we were homeless for two weeks on a beach in the middle of Fort fucking Lauderdale, and that is just one thing that happened. This is the kind of shit I have had to go through and it hasn’t been easy and it hasn’t been right." Clown also seems to be sitting on an abscess of hate just waiting to burst. "I don’t know," he says, "and I don’t want to talk shit about anyone in my band, but the Clown is the Clown and he will be the Clown for the rest of his life. But I think he is too into the concept of being the Clown rather than just being the Clown. I love him to death but sometimes I look at him and go, what are you trying to prove? I could be totally wrong about this, but if he hits me one more time with a cow head, I am going to kick the shit out of him! I don’t care that he is bigger than me." "On the last eight shows moron brought eight frozen cow heads on the road with us. He would bring these fuckers onstage and put them on spikes and they would start to melt under the lights, so you would get these thawing, dead cowheads reeking all over the place. Then when he pulled them off the spikes, skin flew off all over the place. It was pretty fucking nasty to the point where I started chewing on one in front on him and he grabbed it off the spike and hit me in the head with it. I kicked him in the balls and that just pissed him off even more, so he bulldogged me from behind, the little fucker. It just goes to show you that you never know what is going to happen at one of our shows." Alongside playing every crevice on the planet in support of Slipknot, the band appeared on the cover of almost every magazine on newsstands around the world. The Slipknot media machine was on overdrive, with music publications plunging their incisors into the controversial flesh of profanity, boiler suits and masks like a school of sharks in a feeding frenzy. It veered dangerously close to overkill. "Well every band goes through that once they start to get popular," reasons Taylor, "but we were still touring straight ghetto. It didn’t do anything for my wallet, as I still live in a two-bedroom apartment, not some soundproof fucking estate with security guards and fencing in LA." "There are still a lot of people we haven’t been in front of and there are still a lot of people who don’t know who we are and that is our goal. We have always been a band that wanted to get out and play to as many people as possible, and to have as many fans as possible." "I just don’t understand that hardcore mentality. If you are not in this business to get as many fans as possible you are a fucking moron. I am not afraid of being a household name and I am not afraid of the fact that we are starting to get to that point as it is just part of our evolution. I don’t think it is going to stop us, it is going to make us worse. And anybody who wants to say that we sold out can kiss my fucking ass because we have done nothing but keep it real from the fucking beginning." Iowa is Slipknot’s last word in silencing the critics who had them down for a bunch of jokers in boiler suits who struck it lucky in the charts because of their novelty/shock value. "We never wanted to shock anyone anyway," he retorts. "We just wanted people to stand up and take fucking notice. We just want to put the danger back into rock by saying things people aren’t supposed to say, but the things we say, we mean." "With this album we just wanted to do something to shut everyone up. We got saddled with the whole nu metal thing so early on and we are not nu metal - we are metal, that’s all it is. We are good metal, fucking kick ass metal. We are not this pussy fucking shit that seems to be emanating from America’s veins. That’s all bullshit man." "The whole point of this album was to do something no one expected us to do, to write another album full of (sic)ness and fucking anger and feeling. No one wanted us to do that. Our record company didn’t, our management for the most part didn’t, and we were like fuck you, you all work for us. You can kiss my ass. We are going to do what we want to do whether you like it or not, so suck it up and take a number." "Our goal is world domination and after that is universal domination and after that we will go and play on Mars!" Now that rules above all that does not rule. |