Corey Taylor from SLIPKNOT “COAL CHAMBER and MACHINE HEAD Were Dick Headliners, Now They Open For Us

BBC Radio 1‘s “Rock Show With Daniel P. Carter” recently brought together Corey Taylor from SLIPKNOT and Caleb Shomo from BEARTOOTH to share their experiences as frontmen. Speaking about what it is like to tour with “dick headliners,” Corey said: “It’s the worst. Sticking clocks in your face. That’s why Clown [SLIPKNOT percussionist Shawn Crahan] breaks ’em — just because of that. When we were first starting out” — apparently referring to the 1999 U.S. tour with COAL CHAMBER and MACHINE HEAD — “they would stick clocks right in the front of our stage, even though three-fourths of the crowd was there to see us. They were sticking that clock in our face, basically letting us know, ‘You’re not the top of the heap yet.’ And, honestly, that’s why we started headlining. We were forced into that. For real. We were just, like, ‘Really? All right. Let’s see.’ And then all of those bands opened for us.”

Asked what inspires him to keep performing with the same kind of passion and fervor as he had in SLIPKNOT‘s early days, Taylor said: “I get positive competition and negative competition from a lot of the acts that are out there. Especially when we’re on tour with great bands. When we were on tour with you guys” — referring to BEARTOOTH — “watching you guys got me stoked to play. So, for me, that inspiration comes from friends, it comes from enemies, it comes from everybody. And there’s no limit to that. To have that after this many years feels good. It makes me feel like I’m still doing it for the right reasons.”

SLIPKNOT is continuing to tour in support of its latest album, “We Are Not Your Kind”, which came out in August. The disc sold 118,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first week of release to land at position No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.