COREY TAYLOR On SLIPKNOT's Plan To Record Double Concept Album: 'It's An Interesting Idea'

SLIPKNOT singer Corey Taylor has confirmed that the band is considering writing and recording a double concept album to follow last year's ".5: The Gray Chapter".

".5: The Gray Chapter" was released in October 2014 following a six-year hiatus during which founding SLIPKNOT bassist Paul Gray died and original drummer Joey Jordison was dismissed. Since the CD's release, several of the SLIPKNOT band members, including guitarists Jim Root and Mick Thomson, have expressed hope that the group could record the follow-up effort sooner than expected, with Root claiming in recent interviews to have already begin compiling ideas for SLIPKNOT's next release.

SLIPKNOT percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan recently told BBC Radio 1's "Rock Show" that he would love to see the band record a double concept album in the vein of PINK FLOYD's "The Wall" and THE BEATLES' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", with a movie to go along with the project. He said: "I've been on Jim, and I'm just, like, 'Man, we've gotta write an art record. We've gotta write our 'Wall'… 'Sgt. Pepper's'… whatever you wanna say. And that's where I'm at. We've got so many records on our record deal. We've done five. I'd love it if we could do a double album, just… interludes… Have a concept, [and] maybe make a movie. I mean, things that have all been done, things that have all been done before, but… you know, our way, our interpretation. That would be a grand slam for the Clown. Don't get me wrong: we'd still do our thing. We're still gonna be SLIPKNOT."

During the question-and-answer portion of his solo concert at the House Of Blues in West Hollywood, California on Sunday, July 19, Taylor was asked if SLIPKNOT will keep going once the tour cycle for ".5: The Gray Chapter" has been completed. He said (see video below): "Oh, absolutely. You're fucking right we're gonna keep going."

He continued: "I will give you a little glipse of the future of SLIPKNOT right now. First of all, more than likely, we will continue to work with the two new people who we made '.5: The Gray Chapter' with, who, I'm sure you've read, is Jay [Weinberg, drums] and Alex [Alessandro 'Vman' Venturella, bass]. We're going to tour until June next year. We're gonna go around the world again and then we are definitely gonna come back to the States and try to hit some of the other places that we didn't get to hit. That will more than likely wrap up the tour cycle. I will then go and do STONE SOUR. Clown has got a couple of movies that he wants to direct. And let me tell you something: they just put together an initial cut of his first movie, 'Officer Downe', and I guess it is blowing people away, so I'm so fucking proud of him. Everybody else is gonna kind of do their thing in SLIPKNOT, I'm gonna do STONE SOUR, and then we will reconvene, and I know, a couple of the guys, we've been talking about a double concept album, which I don't know if we could... But it's an interesting idea. So they told me to start thinking of an idea for a story. So we'll see what happens."

As previously reported, Taylor said in a recent interview with RockSverige.se that SLIPKNOT will take a "couple of years off" after completing the tour cycle for ".5: The Gray Chapter". Taylor explained, "We're gonna finish touring and then we're gonna take a couple of years off again to let everything chill. I'm gonna go do my thing, [and] everybody else's gonna go do their thing... then, in a couple of years, we'll get back together and see what happens again."

Taylor's "thing" is STONE SOUR, which has two more covers EPs in the works following this spring's "Meanwhile In Burbank…Taylor told The Pulse Of Radio that he's written "about eight songs" for the follow-up to the band's 2012 double concept album, "House Of Gold And Bones". He said: "I've got a bunch of new songs, bunch of new music written. Everybody in the band has stuff. So we're gonna start kind of putting that together early next year, kind of just trying to get demos together to see where we're at. And then maybe in the fall go in and start making a new album."

Following the "Meanwhile In Burbank…" EP, STONE SOUR plans to release two more EPs of cover songs in the near future, with the first one titled "Straight Out Of Burbank" and the second called "No Sleep 'Till Burbank".

STONE SOUR's last collection of original music, "House Of Gold And Bones", was a double concept album released in two parts in 2012 and 2013.

SLIPKNOT's "Summer's Last Stand" tour kicks off on July 24 in West Palm Beach, Florida, wrapping up six weeks later on September 5 in Dallas.