As Slipknot prepares to hit the road for tours celebrating the 10th
anniversary of the masked Iowa group's first album, frontman Corey
Taylor is making plans to record his first solo album rather than
go back to his other band, Stone Sour, at the end of the
cycle.
"I know I have this album that I need to make," Taylor tells
Billboard.com, "and I'm the kind of guy that if I can't get that
done then it's going to hold me back from all this other stuff I
want to do. I just know I've got to make it or I can't branch
out."
He adds that there are "a lot of songs I've written that don't fit
with either band, really" and describes the material as "kind of a
cross between the Foo Fighters and Social D, with some Johnny Cash
mixed in." Country will be part of the mix -- "Obviously there's a
country background that comes built-in with living in Iowa," Taylor
notes -- but he also promises that "there's a lot of upbeat, just
flat-out hard rock tunes."
"I've never let myself get painted into a corner," Taylor explains.
"I've refused to accept the fact that I can't make any kind of
music I want. I think it took people a minute to understand that,
but now I'm at a point where I can do anything and people will take
it seriously."
But until September, when Slipknot is scheduled to finish touring,
Taylor says he's seriously committed to the group, which is
continuing to tour in support of its fourth album, last year's "All
Hope Is Gone."
The nine-piece group plans to tour the U.S., Canada and the
European festival circuit with a show Taylor says is "getting away
from the pyro and way more visual, video-oriented this time."
And, he acknowledges, it feels good to have a 10-year anniversary
to mark. "It's funny because I've seen so many next-bit-things come
and go in the last 10 years, and I look around and go, 'Wow, we're
still here.' Ever time we've put an album out people would write us
off, but ... we just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger," he
says.
"It not only proves so many people were wrong but that we were
right," he continues. "My dream wasn't just to make it but it was
to stay here and be able to do whatever we want to do, which is
just how it's worked out."
