Corey Taylor Thinks: New Slipknot Music Coming in 2019

February 15th, 2018 at 9:21am
Axl Rosenberg

I once predicted that, since each Slipknot album has taken longer to come out than its predecessor, the follow-up to 2014’s .5: The Gray Chapter wouldn’t be out any earlier than 2021. But what does Corey Taylor think?

Well, Corey Taylor thinks that the band will “absolutely” finish writing and recording their new album, and “be ready to go on the road,” sometime in 2019 (only a slight contradiction from Shawn “Clown” Crahan’s assertion that they’d be in the studio by November of this year). Which I think means the record could not come out until 2020. But, again, this is not about what I think, this is about what Corey Taylor thinks. In any case, I’d wager we both think that means Slipknot will still beat Tool to ~~record store shelves~~ digital music platforms.

This intel arrives via a new interview with Musik Universe, in which Taylor reveals that he’s heard some of the music on which the other Slipknots are working (which was not the case a few months ago):

“[The music is] awesome. That’s all I’m gonna say about it. It’s everything I wanted it to be. They’ve been sending me stuff here and there. And it’s so funny too, because they’re, like, ‘We don’t wanna send you anything till it’s ready.’ And I’m, like, ‘All right. All right.’ I’ve been very patient. I’ve gotten about six songs now, and they’re really, really good. And just in kind of that demo form. And by ‘demo,’ I mean really just the fact that it’s maybe a little longer than it will end up. Because what you wanna do is you wanna take that idea and extrapolate it to the point where you’ve exhausted every kind of idea. And then you kind of take it and you shorten it and you break it down and you formulate it and you get it to a little more solid, a little more fluid. And that’s where it’s at right now.”

Taylor continued:

“I’m writing lyrics for three of them as we speak. And it’s dark — it’s really dark. It’s probably the most autobiographical I’ve been in years. Just for the fact that I’ve been through a lot the last few years and I’ve been sitting on a lot. So I’m writing from the standpoint of where I am now instead of where I was. Which is so easy to tap into sometimes and it’s so easy to just kind of go there almost on impulse. But now, I’m writing it from the standpoint of a man who’s been through a lot — not just a young man, but an older man — and trying to figure things out.”

Taylor continued his continuance by addressing Clown’s recent profession that this album could be Slipknot’s swan song:

“We all kind of say that. I’ve said it in the past. We’ve always said — and this is not in a negative way — we’ve always said that when we get to the point where we physically can’t do Slipknot the way we want to do it, we’ll stop. And for some of us, the years of being in Slipknot have taken [their] toll. Cold mornings kick my ass. My neck, my knees, my hips… [DJ] Sid [Wilson] has broken every damn bone in his body. Clown, he’s had his share of health issues and whatnot and physicality. We’ve all had an injury in this band — from our necks to our retinas. And honestly, if that was his decision, I wouldn’t do Slipknot without him — absolutely not.
“There’s a certain mentality that goes into Slipknot, and he started it. He’s always been the vision for this band, for Slipknot, and without that, it crumbles. So, yeah, if he left, that would be it for me as well. And I say that, honestly, in a very positive way, because none of us would want to continue doing it from a half-assed point of view. Nobody wants to go fifty percent on a Slipknot album.”

So, in summation, Corey Taylor thinks that Slipknot will complete their new album and be tour-ready by the end of 2019; Corey Taylor also thinks that Clown may not wanna retire after this album, but if he does, that it would mean the end of Slipknot.