Corey Taylor Says Stone Sour Never Made Same Impact as Slipknot

Fans of Stone Sour won’t be happy to hear that Corey Taylor still has no immediate plans for getting back together with the band anytime soon, which he’s confirmed in ongoing intervals since Stone Sour entered an indefinite hiatus in 2020. But what are his reasons for not reuniting the act?

For years, Taylor pulled double duty singing in both Stone Sour and Slipknot. But in part of an interview that emerged this week, the musician said he always knew his work in Stone Sour would never “have the same impact” on listeners as Slipknot.

In fact, Taylor said he only re-launched Stone Sour in the early 2000s — he formed the group a decade before that, before Slipknot came about — because of egotistical reasons sprouting from his perception of his artistic contributions to Slipknot.

READ MORE: Corey Taylor Talks About the Beatles Song That He Thinks Is a ‘Piece of Sh-t’

Now, though, he can look back on it with hindsight.

To Metal Hammer, Taylor says it was “a very selfish thing” when he resurrected Stone Sour during a break from Slipknot back in 2002. But while denying there was ever any creative rivalry between the two outfits, he confessed his awareness — both then and now — of Stone Sour as the underdog.

Stone Sour vs. Slipknot

“I knew we would never have the same impact,” Taylor explains. “You have one chance at grabbing lightning, and Slipknot was that chance.”

He continues, “When I was young, maybe I wanted to have more credit [for Slipknot] from an ego standpoint. It’s only in retrospect that you can look at it and go, ‘I was actually a very big part of it.'”

However, “I knew that at the time I didn’t write music as good as the guys in Slipknot,” Taylor adds. “I wasn’t confident in my abilities — I contributed that much [makes tiny space between his thumb and index finger]. Reforming Stone Sour meant I got better as a songwriter and was able to contribute music to Slipknot. But it came from a purely selfish place of just wanting to feel like I could do it.”

For now, however, Stone Sour remains dormant. “I’m in no hurry to do it again, let’s put it that way,” Taylor says. “Why? The reasons are nobody’s business.”

Taylor’s solo album CMF2 arrives Sept. 15.

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