THE SLIPKNOT CONTROVERSY GETS CONFUSINGER

So all this “We’re making a new album!”/”No we’re not!” back-and-forth between the members of Slipknot — specifically, drummer Joey Jordison (pro-new album) and vocalist Corey Taylor (anti-new album) — was already pretty baffling before the band started announcing tour dates for next summer, especially given that these announcements came roughly 24 hours after Taylor’s latest assertion that there’s no new ‘Knot on the horizon. ‘Cause if the band is booking gigs, then there MUST be at least SOME communication either between the band members or directly or at least via their handlers, which would suggest that someone could either tell Jordison to shut up, or tell Taylor to shut up, or tell them both to shut up.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Over the weekend, Taylor once again took to Twitter to try and clear things up for his fans, and, in doing so, once again only made things muddier:

So I don’t remember Taylor saying in any of the previous interviews/statements that he’d do shows even though he’s unsure if he wants to do an album, but it’s entirely possible that I didn’t read said interviews closely enough. In any case, Taylor clearly has some understanding that fans would naturally assume that with new shows will come a new album. And while I’m sympathetic to the “baby steps” notion — the idea that Taylor can’t possibly know what it will feel like to participate in a Paul Gray-less Slipknot until he does just that, and that he won’t know how he feels about proceeding until that moment — this also makes me kinda grumpy (shock of shocks).

Because, again, it suggests that there IS communication amongst the surviving members of Slipknot, which means that either Jordison is out and out lying (even if it’s in the name of getting Taylor to move his ass and re-join the group), or Taylor is. I know that sound very black and white when this situation is clearly fraught with grey area (no pun intended), but they can’t both be telling the truth: either the band has discussed it and there’s gonna be a new Slipknot album and “everyone’s involved,” as Jordison claimed last week, or that’s not true, as Taylor claimed. It can’t be both.

(Side theory: it also occurs to me that Taylor, as a lead singer, is just a major drama queen, and he’s making Joey/the rest of Slipknot take him out for three full dates at expensive restaurants where he won’t ever even reach for the check before he puts out. That would be pretty sick, but not unheard amongst sufferers of LSD.)

I guess what I’m saying is: the band, as a unit, still owes their fans some explanation of what the fucking fuck has been going on with these two. Yeah, one of these dudes is gonna come out looking pretty silly, but if Slipknot continues to keep their collective mouth shut about why exactly these guys keep contradicting one another, all eight of ’em are gonna come out looking even sillier.

-AR