Slipknot's Corey Taylor: We Are Not Your Kind's success is a shot in the arm for the mainstream

Listen to his Kerrang! Radio interview

Slipknot's Corey Taylor

Author: Scott ColothanPublished 16th Aug 2019
Last updated 16th Aug 2019

In a brand new interview with Kerrang! Radio, Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor has hailed the success of new album ‘We Are Not Your Kind’ as a “shot in the arm for the mainstream.”

Catching up with Loz Guest ahead of Slipknot’s North American tour date in Virginia Beach on Wednesday (14th August), Loz asked Corey Taylor whether ‘We Are Not Your Kind’ storming into the upper echelons of the charts around the globe is a shot in the arm for heavy metal music.

Corey replied: “I think it’s a shot in the arm for the mainstream, for the zeitgeist. We all know metal has been exciting a lot longer than it’s had the share of the attention.

“Our day in the sun kinda comes and goes – every 10 years it peaks and then we split again, like people turn against us, they’ll push us back into the underground, which is fine as it’s good for our sensibilities. And then it comes. It sort of ebbs and flows; it comes in waves.”

He continued: “I love the reaction of people getting metal, like finding metal for the first time and thinking ‘woah, where has this been my whole life?!’ And knowing that there’s a whole history of metal, not just us but newer bands like Knocked Loose and Code Orange, older bands like Judas Priest and (Black) Sabbath, and everything in-between that made us love (metal) like Metallica and Iron Maiden and Slayer. There’s so much.

“Once you become a metal fan there’s so much to explore that it feels really good to be a cog in that machine. If that’s what we’re doing, which is giving people a peek inside a gigantic world that really is inclusive, but at the same time exclusive, then yeah, let’s do this man!”

Slipknot's 'We Are Not Your Kind'

Commenting on Slipknot’s widespread appeal, Corey told us: “It’s crazy who identifies as a Slipknot fan nowadays, everyone from Ed Sheeran to Rihanna to half the Soundcloud rappers, it’s insane.

“It shows the appeal that this band had, and honestly that we didn’t realise we had. If you’d have told us this 15, even 10 years ago, we’d have probably laughed at you. But it’s pretty gratifying to realise that this music isn’t just genre specific, it reaches out to people and touches different people in totally different walks of life. It’s pretty rad, man.”

Asked what ignited Slipknot’s increased mainstream appeal, Corey commented: “I don’t know, I can’t put my finger on it. I think there’s a subliminal likability to it that maybe we didn’t even realise we had.

“Obviously, the internet has helped with reachability but I also think it’s just the fact that we can write a song, y’know regardless of what you think that song is supposed to sound like. The way we write songs still has very good pop sensibilities to it – at least old school pop, not this digitised waste of crap that you hear these days.

“We still know how to write a song, how to write a hook. We take it way out past the landscape and into the fringe but we still keep it in the framework of a really great song that you can feel. I think maybe that’s a bit of it.”

You can listen to the whole interview with Corey right here (skip to the 2 hours and 26 minutes mark):

Slipknot will tour the UK in 2020 taking in shows in Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Sheffield, Nottingham, Cardiff, Birmingham and London. The exact venues and dates will be released at a later time.

Swipe through to see Slipknot's masks through the years:

Slipknot in 2000

Slipknot wearing trademark white boiler suits and their horrorshow masks in 2000

Slipknot's Corey Taylor: We Are Not Your Kind's success is a shot in the arm for the mainstream

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Slipknot 'Slipknot'

Slipknot on the sleeve of their fearsome, self-titled debut album in June 1999.

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