Machine Gun Kelly Says He Rejected “F*cking Terrible” Guest Verse by Corey Taylor

The Slipknot/Machine Gun Kelly feud has heated up faster than a frozen Lean Cuisine meal.

To review: earlier this year, ‘Knot frontman Corey Taylor told an interviewer that “I [hate] the artists who failed in one genre and decided to go rock – and I think he knows who he is,” which people hipper than me say was a veiled reference to Machine Gun Kelly (né Semi-Automatic Koplowitz).

Then, at Chicago’s Riot Fest on Sunday, when Kelly and Slipknot were simultaneously performing on different stages within the festival grounds, Kelly told the crowd:

“Hey, you wanna know what I’m really happy that I’m not doing? Being 50 years old wearing a fucking weird mask on a fucking stage. Fucking shit… Turn the lights up. Let me see who chose to be here instead of with all the old weird dudes with masks.”

Which might have been the end of it, except Kelly apparently decided he needed to stick up for himself after Maggots started getting pissy. So he took to Twitter, where he wrote…

“very odd that when an artist talks shit, and i respond, i’m the bad guy.

“corey did a verse for a song on tickets to my downfall album, it was fucking terrible, so i didn’t use it. he got mad about it, and talked shit to a magazine about the same album he was almost on. yalls stories are all off. just admit he’s bitter.”

Well, obviously Corey Taylor wasn’t gonna take that shit lying down. So then he went on Twitter, where he shared an e-mail exchange between himself and Blink-182’s Travis Barker, who was apparently the go-between for the Slipknot singer and MGK, along with this message:

“I don’t like people airing private shit like a child. So this is all I’ll say: I didn’t do the track because I don’t like when people try to ‘write’ for me. I said NO to THEM. So without further ado…. #receipts This is all I’m going to say about it.”

And here are those e-mails between Taylor and Barker:

So then Kelly jumped back in:

“basically, your verse was really bad. respectfully, i was just telling you to rewrite it because it was really bad. respectfully. ???? but let’s do a britney spears song cover together ????????”

The Britney Spears thing is over my head, but then, so is the appeal of Machine Gun Kelly.

In any case, the part of the e-mail that I think is most notable is this bit of Kelly’s reply (and not just because it’s inadvertently hilarious):

“I’ve been watching the news lately about the war and the state of everything and it made me look at the song a different way, like soldiers need a song to survive to. a song to fight too.”

I’m totally guessing here, but I’d bet this is the reason Taylor didn’t wanna do the track. Remember, in 2005, back when Dubya was still in office, Taylor once collaborated with Machine Head’s Robb Flynn on a song called “The Rich Man,” featuring these lyrics:

Sinners and hypocrites
Burning in the desert for a rich man
Liars and lunatics
Lead us to the slaughter for our last stand
Killers and idiots
Dying in the desert for a rich man
Sinners and hypocrites
Gather us together for the master plan

So I don’t see Taylor being stoked on writing a song for soldiers “to fight too.” Just my hunch.

ANYWAY, Taylor has yet to fire back, and I suspect that he either won’t or won’t until someone asks him about the drama in an interview (i.e., he’s not going to continue this tête-à-tête via social media). Honestly, I hope it never comes up again, because between this and The Dirt, I have now spent too much of my existence thinking about this 11-year-old string bean with a bad haircut and worse tattoos.

“Can’t Look Back,” the song on which Taylor declined to appear, is embedded below if you’re curious.

Upcoming Slipknot live dates:

Sep. 25 – Des Moines, IA – National Balloon Classic Field (Knotfest Iowa) [tickets]
Sep. 28 – Tinley Park, IL – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre [tickets]
Sep. 29 – Milwaukee, WI – American Family Insurance Amphitheater [tickets]
Oct. 01 – Noblesville, IN – Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center [tickets]
Oct. 02 – Clarkston, MI – DTE Energy Music Theatre [tickets]
Oct. 03 – Darien Center, NY – Darien Lake Amphitheater [tickets]
Oct. 05 – Syracuse, NY – Lakeview Amphitheater – Syracuse [tickets]
Oct. 08 – Mansfield, MA – Xfinity Center [tickets]
Oct. 09 – Hartford, CT – XFINITY Theatre [tickets]
Oct. 10 – Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center [tickets]
Oct. 12 – Camden, NJ – BB&T Pavilion [tickets]
Oct. 13 – Bristow, VA – Jiffy Lube Live [tickets]
Oct. 15 – Burgettstown, PA – S&T Bank Music Park [tickets]
Oct. 17 – Charlotte, NC – PNC Music Pavilion [tickets]
Oct. 19 – Tampa, FL – MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre [tickets]
Oct. 20 – West Palm Beach, FL – iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre [tickets]
Oct. 22 – Raleigh, NC – Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek [tickets]
Oct. 23 – Alpharetta, GA – Ameris Bank Amphitheatre [tickets]
Oct. 24 – Pelham, AL – Oak Mountain Amphitheatre [tickets]
Oct. 26 – Rogers, AR – Walmart AMP [tickets]
Oct. 28 – Del Valle, TX – Germania Insurance Amphitheater [tickets]
Oct. 29 – The Woodlands, TX – Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion (no Code Orange) [tickets]
Oct. 30 – Dallas, TX – Dos Equis Pavilion [tickets]
Nov. 01 – Albuquerque, NM – Isleta Amphitheater [tickets]
Nov. 02 – Phoenix, AZ – Ak-Chin Pavilion [tickets]
Nov. 05 – Los Angeles, CA — Banc of California Stadium (Knotfest Los Angeles)

[via The PRP]