COREY TAYLOR: STONE SOUR's 'Audio Secrecy' Is 'a Deceptively Straightforward Album'

ARTISTdirect.com editor Rick Florino recently conducted an interview with STONE SOUR/SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

ARTISTdirect.com: It's easy to find something new on every listen to [the new STONE SOUR album] "Audio Secrecy".

Corey: There's a lot going on. It's a deceptively straightforward album, and yet there are so many levels to it. I'm still hearing things and going, "Where the hell did that come from? Who did this and with what instrument?" It's got so many unique textures but, at the same time, the songs are so damn good. It's a powerhouse.

ARTISTdirect.com: "Audio Secrecy" is genuinely boundless. In that respect, it's very reminiscent of a '60s or '70s rock album. There are no parameters to it at all.

Corey: Exactly! We went off the hook with it. They let us off the leash, and they let us do what we wanted [Laughs]. Then again, that's a reflection of what we've been trying to do anyway. We've never tried to be any kind of genre-specific band. We've always tried to simply be a hard rock band. That really does tie in with that old school way of thinking. If you write a song and it's an awesome song, why not record the damn thing? Why get all weird and ask, "Are the fans going to get it and blah, blah, blah?" Sometimes, you have to take it out of the fans' hands and say, "This is us. This is who we are. This is a part of who we are, and you're either with us or you're not." To me, that's a whole different type of courage that I think is lost in this industry. Too many people are so terrified of doing anything that will make the audience think. You've got the audience, challenge the listener! Challenge what they think about your band. Have the balls to put it out there and back it one-hundred and ten percent. I think that's the one thing that really separates us from the rest of the pack. We've never tried to cater to anyone. We've always written from the standpoint that this is our music, this is what we want to do and this is how we're going to do it. You're either with us, or you're not.

ARTISTdirect.com: Even though it's extremely catchy, "Audio Secrecy" is still very dangerous record in terms of the places that you go.

Corey: Yeah, there's a whole litany of songs that we're doing on "Audio Secrecy" that people might not get, straight-up. They might listen to it and say, "What the hell?!" [Laughs] At the same time, risk is everything. If you're not risking everything for your art and your music, then what the hell is the point? You're spinning your wheels in the mud. I'd rather grab some traction and move forward no matter where that takes me than worry about how things are going to play out. I think people are going to hear it, and it's going to be such a shock to the system in a positive way that it's going take this band into realms that we never even imagined.

ARTISTdirect.com: Was there a special reason why you dropped "Say You'll Haunt Me" first?

Corey: That song really showed its face in the studio. It became a whole different monster when we recorded it, which really made me extremely happy because of the subject matter. The song lyrically is about my new wife and how passionate I am about her. It's a very positive song. It's got that urgency about it that she brings out of me. I love how everything came together, and it's almost like we didn't even realize we had that song. When we were demoing it, practicing it and watching it take shape, we didn't realize what we had. We went in the studio, recorded it and it became a wholly different monster. It has taken off. I'm just really happy that song has risen to where I wanted it to be musically because it's such a special and important song to me.

ARTISTdirect.com: You've grown so much as a writer in a short span of time

Corey: I'm extremely lucky. I really am. I feel like I haven't peaked yet. It's like I'm going through this crazy metamorphosis and things are just getting better and better. It's a crazy thing to think about. At the same time, I don't think I've ever felt more confident about my talent in my entire life, to be honest. To be eleven years in professionally and feel this way is such a surge of energy. It's such a boost for me. I feel like there's nothing I can't do and nowhere I won't go. I feel lucky because we have such wonderful fans that allow us to do that. We have a fan base that is so diverse and so loyal it's insane to think about. If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be able to do this. We'd still simply be making songs for ourselves. We're blessed because of it.

Read the entire interview from ARTISTdirect.com.