Slipknot's Corey Taylor explains what the heavy metal band's terrifying masks do for their artistry

Q31:25Slipknot’s Corey Taylor: Sobriety, his new solo album, and what’s kept the band together for nearly 30 years

Since the mid-'90s, Slipknot's distinct aesthetic has been defined by the terrifying masks they wear on stage and during promotional shoots, along with a sound that mixes tight riffs with the melodic screams of the band's lead singer, Corey Taylor.

But on Taylor's new solo album, CMF2, the heavy metal frontman shows what's behind the mask, revealing himself to be a songwriter who loves pretty much any genre of music (the album's surprising first track, The Box, even features a mandolin).

"I listened to everything," Taylor tells Q's Tom Power about the music that informed his tastes.

"My grandmother had me listening to Elvis, my mom had me listening to Motown and disco, my babysitters had me listening to old school punk stuff…. It wasn't until later in school that I discovered Metallica and Anthrax, and really got into the thrash scene."

So what attracted Taylor to heavy metal music in the first place? "It was fast, it was frenetic, it was in your face," he says.

Slipknot's dark and disturbing image — particularly their masks — were a visual representation of what the music sounded like, but Taylor says it was "never really about being scary."

[The masks were] a way for us to kind of wear the music on us physically.- Corey Taylor

"We were all kind of nuts," he explains. "We were all just kind of these balls of psychosis that were just trying to work out this kind of frenetic energy, this hyperactive intensity, basically. The masks just helped us kind of tap into it a little more. We just wanted to go out and we just wanted it to be, you know, the wildest thing anybody's ever seen….

"It was about being intimidating, obviously, but it was also much more of a creative thing. This was a way for us to kind of wear the music on us physically and create something that was striking."

While Taylor is aware there are plenty of people who don't understand metal music, for fans, it's a way of releasing stress and letting off steam.

"We knew that people were going to come to the show to express themselves just as hard as we were expressing ourselves on stage." he tells Power.

"A show is a celebration of the fact that you're alive and you want to feel something other than constrained. And people who don't understand it will never understand it, you know. And that's a shame because I think a lot of people would be healthier if they did."

The full interview with Corey Taylor is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. He talks more about CMF2, the expectations put on musicians and what's kept Slipknot together for nearly 30 years. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Corey Taylor produced by Mitch Pollock.