SLIPKNOT's COREY TAYLOR: Heavy Metal Is 'The Last Form Of Music That Really Has No Restraint'

SLIPKNOT members Jim Root (guitar), Corey Taylor (vocals) and Shawn “Clown” Crahan (percussion) took part in a press conference on December 3 in Mexico City ahead of this weekend’s Knotfest Mexico festival. You can now watch the question-and-answer session in three parts below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On how SLIPKNOT‘s music serves as a form of communication and can have a healing influence in these troubled, turbulent times:

Corey: “Yes, the world is a little insane right now, especially in our country, to be honest. All we can do is try to give an outlet to the kids who don’t have one. We try to give a voice to the people who feel like they don’t have a voice. After that, all we can do is try to help the people who ask for help. We’re not very political — we never have been — but we speak up when asked about it. We give our opinions, whether people wanna hear those opinions or not. We try to reach out, we try to do good things for organizations who are trying to do the right thing. So, for us, it’s mainly about trying to give hope through letting people have that outlet to let out their anger, to let out their rage, because of what’s going on around them. Because we see what happens when people try to stifle that emotion. And it kind of goes back to what I said before: our fans are very… They’re more capable of looking at what’s going on right now and being able to process it than fans who listen to music that’s a little more chipper, a little more happy. It’s a shock for them, because they’re not used to it. But because our fans have been able to adjust and use that anger to kind of even themselves out, they can look at it and they can process it. They can go, ‘Okay, now what needs to be done.’ Instead of offering prayers and thoughts, what needs to be done? And I think that’s one of the things that we offer as a band. Because we come with a dose of reality. There’s a lot of art to it, but there’s also a lot of reality. And our fans know that we’re there for them one hundred percent, no matter what. And I think that’s what we do.”

On the inspiration for Corey‘s lyrics:

Corey: “Honestly, it may sound like a cliché, but life — life in general. I mean, coming back to [a previous] question about the world and just how crazy it is, there’s enough out there for me to write volumes. Because, internally, I’m able to channel a lot of my anger into, hopefully, something positive. There’s still so much negative out there, and it’s so foreign to me as a person that that, in turn, channels me into more anger — trying to kind of wrap my head around all these insane things that are going on in the world. So it’s just life in general — whether it’s something local, at home, or something thousands of miles away happening to people who may or may not listen to music that we get to make. So life in general is basically the biggest inspiration you should ever have.”

On where they think heavy metal music is going:

Corey: “I think it’s gonna go wherever it needs to go. I mean, that’s the beautiful thing about metal music. Because there’s no real pressure on metal music, it kind of goes where it wants to go. There’s always pressure on pop music or hip-hop to go one way or the other, but with metal music, because it’s still so underground, it can kind of go wherever it wants to; it has no form. So it can experiment when it wants to, it can go back to a more traditional sound if it wants to, it can go into places that we never expected it to. So I think it’s the last form of music that really has no restraint. If I had to say where it was gonna go specifically, I don’t know. But that’s the exciting thing. Because when you hear it, you’re, like, ‘Oh, that’s fucking amazing!’ So you just never know. You’re kind of looking for the next band to take it and kind of channel their own voice through it with no worries about whether or not it’s going to be popular or not, because metal music has always been the underdog. So I think that’s where it’s gonna go next. I don’t know where, but I think the next band that really takes it and takes it where it needs to go, it’s gonna be exciting.”