Stone Sour and Slipknot singer Corey Taylor tells Undercover that he is “tentative” and "uncertain" about the future of Slipknot following the death of bassist Paul Gray last year.
We sat down with the remarkably frank Taylor, and spoke about Stone Sour as his first love.
During the conversation, Taylor began referring to Slipknot in the past tense, saying “With Slipknot, I mean, I'm very proud of what I did with Slipknot. And obviously, I'm close with those guys, but it's completely different. It was a band that joined later and I, honestly, in a lot of ways, never really felt connected to it for whatever reason; it might have been me, it might have been them. I cast no aspersions on anyone but that's just the dynamic.”
When questioned about the way he was talking about Slipknot in the past tense, he asserted, “It's not the same, obviously, is it? I mean, it's never gonna be the same, so there's no way I can look at it any differently than that.”
We asked how much forthcoming Stone Sour and Slipknot music will be affected by Gray’s passing, he clearly noted: “If it happens… if it happens.”
He confirmed, “There'll definitely be new Stone Sour music,” but with Slipknot, he says, “there's such a huge piece missing now - a piece that the fans can't even understand.
“Honestly, it drives me nuts trying to explain it to them," he says. "I mean, Paul always was that unconscious, almost lynchpin that held everything together and he had such a great mind for the music that we created that without him, I don't see it happening very soon, let's put it that way.
“If we do, it's gonna be way down the line, and it's gonna be when everyone's ready. Because there are other things in the band that are affecting things right now."
Corey specified that the uncertainty of Slipknot’s future isn’t necessarily solely about the greiving process.
He said, “It's not even about that. It's individual issues, let's put it that way, and that's all I'll say about it.”
“Obviously, we're doing these shows in the summer at Sonisphere and that's pretty much gonna be us dipping a toe in the water to see what happens. To me, it's baby steps. I think everybody's racing ahead without realising that we kind of have to pick ourselves up first.
“Everyone needs to be realistic about it and it seems like I'm the only one who's being realistic. And it's a heavy responsibility to be the guy who is kind of coming off as the doomsayer But at the end of the day, that's respect. I'm not just racing right ahead and going, ‘Oh yeah, we're gonna go!’ I lost my brother last year, and people need to understand that and respect it before I start getting all 'hip, hip hooray' about everything.”
Taylor has been strong and positive in other recent interviews about Gray’s death, but he confirms that his feelings fluctuate “a little bit”.
“I mean, it's always going to, y’know” he says, “There's not a part of me that's very happy about jumping up on stage without Paul; it's gonna be very, very weird.
“If I'm cautious, it's because I respect what we've done, and I respect him and I respect his memory. I think too many people are just ready for us to kind of rush past that, and that's not how the healing process works, and it's never a good thing to do that. I'm tentative. I'm hoping it goes well. But I'm also gonna be realistic, I'm gonna be pragmatic and that's just the way I am.”
Check out the entire interview below.
