Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor recently spoke to schoolchildren about Slipknot’s music, answering questions posed by ten and 11 year-olds.
Appearing on BBC Sounds with host Craig Charles last Thursday (September 29), Taylor was grilled by US fifth-graders.
When asked whether Slipknot have songs that change time signatures, Taylor replied: “‘Vermillion’ [2004] is actually a song that goes from three-four into four-four and kind of back and forth. I think there’s a section in there that goes from three-four to seven-eight, actually, which is very weird.
“It all kind of ties together with a riff that could go either way. And it allows us to kind of flow back and forth between them.”
Another child asked Taylor how he became a musician, to which he replied: “It all started with singing when I was about 10 years old. And I realised that I could pick up a guitar and I could find the notes that were being played on the song that I was listening to, which, I then realised that I had what is called pitch.
“It’s not perfect pitch, but it’s darn close… I taught myself how to play guitar, so I could write songs… then it was just a matter of getting people together to jam and have fun and dance. The rest is history. But it all stemmed from me just loving to sing, and loving to sing along to stuff that I liked.”
Asked what inspired him, Taylor emphatically replied: “Oh, man, everything really! I mean, life in general is the biggest influence you could ever have. There’s so many things that, if you look around with the right kind of eyes, you can find inspiration, no matter what it is. The beautiful thing about music is that it’s limitless. It has no end. All it needs is a beginning.”
Listen to Taylor’s full chat with the kids here.
The idea for the segment came after North Dakota teacher Risha Allen posted a TikTok video back in February, showing herself interacting with a quieter student who told her he listens to heavy metal during a music class about time signatures.
In one of the video’s captions, Allen wrote: “I’m a little nervous here [because] I want to relate to him. He hadn’t really engaged with me or liked music class up until this point, so I felt like relating to and respecting his music (very personal) would help me connect with him.”
After the student told Allen he likes Slipknot’s 1999 song ‘Wait And Bleed’, Allen began banging out the track on her bongo, making an effort to sing along.
Check out the video below:
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Slipknot released their seventh studio album, ‘The End So Far’, last Friday (September 30). The release featured the singles ‘The Dying Song (Time To Sing)’ and ‘Yen’.
In a four-star review, NME‘s Andrew Trendell said he saw the band’s final offering through Roadrunner Records as “so much more than the end of a contract” and that it serves as a confirmation against recent break-up rumours.
“Aside from the blood, the gore, the theatrics and the noise, there’s clearly always been much more to the band’s ability to shock and surprise – and now it seems their next left turn of an era could be their most daring yet.”