Corey Taylor Fires Salvo at Roadrunner Records, Says Execs “Don’t Care”
If you think about big music acts like major sports stars, Slipknot have got to be one of the biggest free agents on the market today. Having just finished their last record for Roadrunner Records with The End, So Far, the band has gone on record to say they don’t intend on coming back. That’s a big deal not just for Slipknot, but for one of the bigger record labels that’s seen some better days in recent years since its acquisition by Warner.
Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor has been one of the more vocal people talking about the changes at Roadrunner. During a recent interview with NME, the opinionated Iowan said the potential for a new era for the band was very real while simultaneously taking Roadrunner higher ups to task for how the band was treated down the stretch.
“It’s such a different label than it was when we first signed with it. Once you’re in the hands of people who don’t care, it’s just a fucking business. And that’s what happened.
“We’ve had to fight for every fucking release that we’ve had because the people who now work for Roadrunner think they know what they’re doing and they just don’t. They’ve tried to give us fucking advice, and we’re just like, ‘What are you talking about? What band do you think we are?’
“This is almost like the second phase of Slipknot. The first phase was the original nine. The second phase was obviously dealing with loss, dealing with the loss of Paul, the loss of our innocence in a weird way, losing Joey, and reconfiguring in a way that was never gonna be like the original.”
I can’t imagine what it would have felt like to be given advice this far into the band’s career. The guys have weathered plenty of storms in the past and been through a lot of shit, so for some nothingface executive to tell them what to do had to be particularly galling.
Who knows where Slipknot will end up, or if they’ll just handle things on their own, or if they’ll even stick around moving forward? As one of the biggest bands in the world, there are a lot of options out there for the nine-piece band.
To read more about what Corey Taylor thinks about things like being expected to write super heavy music since Iowa, be sure to head over to NME to read the full interview.
