Corey Taylor, the charismatic frontman of nu metal band Slipknot has revealed that the group’s music isn’t for everyone. He claims that “a lot of people” in the band’s home state of Iowa “are very ashamed” Slipknot are from there.
Speaking on the Zach Sang Show, Taylor continued, outlining why people are “so mad” that Slipknot became successful. The frontman blames the state’s widely conservative outlook and the jealousy of “bitter” peers who never enjoyed the same level of fame.
“We were judged for so fucking long about who we were; I mean, we came from The Fringe, and what we represented was something that, to do this day, is still anathema to a lot of people in Iowa,” Taylor explained.
“There are a lot of people in Iowa that are very ashamed of the fact that Slipknot comes from there and it’s because of this newfound resurgence and conservative bullshit. As much as Iowa – when I was there – was a purple State it’s very red now, and there’s a lot of people who I know who are not happy about it.”
After podcast host Sang expressed his disbelief, Taylor replied: “Not if you come from there, not if you know the people. There’s a lot of fucking dicks who still live in Des Moines, Iowa, that are so mad. I know dudes that I’ve known for 30 years; I run into them and they side-eye me hard”.
He added: “There’s so many bitter pricks in that goddamn town and they’re just hanging on you know, like they just don’t want to accept the fact that they didn’t want it [success] as much as we did. And I’m not going to sit here and say that they didn’t deserve it because there were a lot of great bands in this scene that we came out of, but for whatever reason, they didn’t push hard enough and even when we did make it, and we tried to shine that spotlight on the Des Moines scene because it was almost in a weird way like a pseudo-Seattle moment”.
“There was a lot of people trolling through Des Moines trying to find the next Slipknot,” continued. “Everybody who we tried to help blew it, they just didn’t fucking want it as much as we did you know: I mean we would have lived and died for the shit and these guys just thought it was a crumb.”
Listen to the podcast episode below.
