COREY TAYLOR On SLIPKNOT's Longevity: 'We Know That We're Not Done Yet'

In a new interview with Tom Power, host of "Q" on Canada's CBC Radio One, Corey Taylor was asked what has kept SLIPKNOT going for more than two and a half decades. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I think it's a couple of different things. I think it's the fact that we all still have that fire in our belly to make music, to get on stage and push it as far as we can. Even though, obviously with age and injury, it's slowed us a little bit, but there's still that urge to do it. It's also the fact that we're all fans of each other's writing, playing, performing. We love the music that we create together and there's still so much that we haven't done. There's still so many things musically that we could still kind of lean into."

He continued: "I think we know that we're not done yet, let's put it that way. I think the consensus is that we know we're not done yet. And maybe when the time comes that we all look at each other and go, 'You know what? I think we've done it. We've achieved what we need to achieve,' that'll be the time where we kind of put our tools down and back out of the garage. But till then, man, I mean, we're still very lucky to be able to do this. We're still very lucky to have the size of the audience that we do. We captured something in the zeitgeist that is very rare. And it's very rare for a band of our age and our genre to stay modern and current. So, I don't know if I really even have the answer for that. All I know is that we are trying to take advantage of it as much as possible because there's really no roadmap for it — other than maybe a handful of other bands; METALLICA, obviously. Other than that, there's really no roadmap for us to follow. We're just kind of cutting the road as we go."

Last year, SLIPKNOT guitarist Jim Root told Australian Guitar magazine that there was no room for egos in his band. "We're getting to that point in our career where we're all in this together," he explained. "We all want to do the best we can for the role we play in this band, and when that becomes the priority, that's when you put ego aside, put all that bullshit aside, and work together to make something great."

Guitarist Mick Thomson added: "We'd be stupid to keep doing this if we didn't love it. There's too much bullshit. I think the biggest problem that breaks up bands is when everyone comes in with fucking egos. When egos and bullshit start to make a person nutty, that's when problems happen and musicians start to hate each other. Fortunately, in the first few years after we blew up, nobody's ego got too far out of check. And that can happen real fucking' easy. There's no I; there's us."

This past June, SLIPKNOT announced the addition of a new keyboardist, two weeks after Taylor and his bandmates revealed the departure of longtime member Craig Jones.

SLIPKNOT played its first show with its new mystery member on June 7 at the Nova Rock festival in Austria. The concert took place hours after the band announced in a social media post that it had parted ways with Jones.

A short time after SLIPKNOT revealed Jones's exit from the group, the band's original post announcing his departure was deleted and a photo was shared of SLIPKNOT's apparent new member. The same unidentified person appeared onstage behind the keyboards at the Nova Rock show and all subsequent SLIPKNOT tour dates.

No reason was given for Jones's departure from SLIPKNOT.

Jones joined SLIPKNOT in early 1996, shortly after the band had finished the recording of its demo album "Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat." He was initially brought in to replace Donnie Steele, one of the two original guitarists, though he quickly moved on to the role of sampling and keyboards. Following the departure of drummer Joey Jordison in 2013, Jones was the second-longest-serving member in the band.

SLIPKNOT is continuing to tour in support of its latest album, "The End, So Far", which was released in September 2022 via Roadrunner Records. The follow-up to "We Are Not Your Kind", it is the band's final record with Roadrunner after first signing with the rock and metal label in 1998.