During an appearance this past Wednesday (August 12) on SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation Virtual Invasion”, Corey Taylor was asked when he will know that it’s time for him to walk away from SLIPKNOT due to the physical cost of performing with the band for so many years. He responded: “That’s a good question. The honest answer is I don’t know. And honestly, it’s because I really try to keep myself healthy, I try to keep myself clean.
“I’m still as into extreme music as I’ve always been,” he continued. “That’s just a side of me that I’ve always been into. It’ never hard enough; it’s never crazy enough. And sometimes the band has to calm me down when it comes to the stuff that I write. [Laughs]
“I don’t know, man. I’ve always said that the second that I’m doing this for reasons other than my absolute passion for doing it, as soon as that changes, that’s when I’ll know. And that’s honestly why I’ve always followed my passions and followed my interests, and I’ve never allowed myself to do anything for money, for a cheap pop, cheap fame — I’ve never done any of that. I’m not gonna say I’m proud of it, because that’s just who I am.
“But needless to say, if I get to the age where that choice makes more and more sense, I think there’s a part of me that will absolutely rein myself in and be, like, ‘No. No. This isn’t who you are. This isn’t what you wanna do. You need to walk,'” he added. “And I think at that point, I’ll have accomplished enough that I’ll be okay with it. It won’t mean that I’ll stop making music. It just means I’ll stop making a certain type of music. For me, I think I’ll have the honesty to know and hopefully the courage to do it, because sometimes it’s scary.”
Back in May 2019, Taylor underwent surgery on both knees and recovered in time to appear with SLIPKNOT on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” He also played a solo show two days later in Garden Grove, California. The following month, SLIPKNOT played its first full concert in two and a half years at Rockfest in Hyvinkää, Finland.
“Honestly, it was hard enough when I had my knee surgeries,” Corey told “Trunk Nation Virtual Invasion”. “Just going out on the road and doing that was tough enough. I was, like, ‘Oh, I should be fine.’ Then I got out there and I was just, like, ‘This was a bad idea.’ [Laughs] And they only scraped the scar tissue — they didn’t really get in there get in there.
“So, yeah, if I start to get a little too broken, I’m gonna hang up the mask.”
Taylor will release his debut solo album, “CMFT”, on October 2 via Roadrunner Records. Taylor recorded the effort with his band consisting of Jason Christopher on bass, Dustin Schoenhofer on drums, and Zach Throne and Christian Martucci (STONE SOUR) on guitar. The LP was completed at Kevin Churko‘s The Hideout Recording Studio in Las Vegas with producer Jay Ruston, who has previously worked with ANTHRAX, STEEL PANTHER and STONE SOUR, among others.
