COREY TAYLOR Says 2012 'Has Been An Extremely Wonderful Year Of Accomplishment'

On December 15, Simon Crampton of ThisIsNotAScene conducted an interview with SLIPKNOT and STONE SOUR frontman Corey Taylor at the Bournemouth, U.K. stop of STONE SOUR's European tour. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

ThisIsNotAScene: Finish the sentence. 2012 has been….

Corey: Busy. Between getting the [new STONE SOUR] albums up and going. Basically, I oversaw everything: the artwork, the packaging, the story. I'm adapting the story itself into the comics, trying to get those fucking going has been a crazy tedious process, but a really rewarding one. It's been a lot of work, it's had it's ups and downs. I lost my father-in-law about a month and a half ago, who succumbed to cancer, unfortunately, so that really kind of knocks the cherry off your happiness, but I know that he would be very very proud of what's going on. He got to see me play before he went in the hospital, just a quick little acoustic gig, but he was so chuffed. It really, really made me fucking happy. He's the only dad I've ever had. I only had him for about five years, but I'm glad I got to have him at least. So it's been an extremely wonderful year of accomplishment. Seeing everyone embrace "House Of Gold & Bones - Part 1" the way they have makes me very happy, but obviously, you can't have the good without the bad. It's been a hell of a year, let's put it that way.

ThisIsNotAScene: You mentioned that you have overseen everything to do with the release of "House Of Gold & Bones - Part 1". Was it challenging for you to explain everything you had in your head to the rest of the band to get everything going?

Corey: Not really. I mean, they kind of assume that I know what I'm talking about. [laughs] The poor bastards. I explained the idea to them, the concept of what it was, essentially. That got them really excited. Not only that, but when I told them I wanted it to be a double album, that really got them excited. Essentially, we were getting into territory that we'd never done before. Not only making an album that had a narrative, had a concept, had a theme and everything, but also to rise to the challenge with that many songs. They were really stoked and I was really happy about it. I kinda cheated a little. I played them a bunch of the songs I'd written, stuff like "Gone Sovereign" and "A Rumor Of Skin". That helped their excitement, to say the least, so it was pretty cool. Once I really wrote it out and got it so you could read it and see it, and had it so you could see all the different halves and stuff, they really got behind it. It's been awesome knowing that we are all on the same page, fighting for something that means that much to us.

ThisIsNotAScene: Part 2 of the "House Of Gold & Bones" saga has yet to be released. What can we expect from that?

Corey: Part 2 is much darker, if I'm honest. Aside from it being a completely different album, it feels more like a soundtrack to a movie in a lot of ways, man. It's really thematic. There are themes from part 1 that reveal themselves and that come again, musically. There's actually stuff from part 2 that you'll hear that's on part 1 and you'll be like, "Fucking hell!" We essentially recorded these, and this is where technology is now, so you could have these in a playlist on your iTunes and play them top to fucking bottom and really get that experience while you read both parts. So it's some of our darkest music, our most intricate and complex music, some of the best fucking lyrics I've ever written, to be honest. Even writing from a narrative like that, it was so challenging. Plus, it's got some of our best songs on it. You guys think part one's good? Fuck off. "Do Me A Favor" alone is going to kick the shit out of people and that's going to be the first single, which comes out in January, that's going to be the first taste that people get of part 2, and people aren't going to know what to do.

ThisIsNotAScene: Would you rule out a "House Of Gold & Bones" part 3?

Corey: No, it wraps up in part 2 pretty well. I've gotten that question before, and the thing that I've realized is, essentially, this is one story, this isn't a real sequel, this is just the second half of the same story. If you try and force a part 3 and it just feels forced, that's exactly what it would be — it would be forced. The great thing about this is that it doesn't feel forced at all; it came so effortlessly, really. It was a lot of work, but it came so naturally to us, and I think that's the reason why people are responding to it so well. There's so much good shit on it. I think we've done it and I don't want to fuck with it. Not to compare it to this, but it's the same reason that if you tried to do a sequel to "The Wizard Of Oz", it doesn't work. People have tried, and you're just like, "Will you please just stop? It is what it is." Like that god-awful sequel to "Gone With The Wind". I was, like, "Really? You guys are assholes." Leave it as what it is. I think that's why it works, and is going to stand for a long time.

Read the entire interview from ThisIsNotAScene.