COREY TAYLOR Calls STONE SOUR's 'Audio Secrecy' Only 'Hiccup' Of His Career

Corey Taylor has called STONE SOUR's 2010 album, "Audio Secrecy", the only "hiccup" of his career.

The band's third full-length effort was recorded and produced by STONE SOUR and Nick Raskulinecz at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, Tennessee and was the group's last album to feature bassist Shawn Economaki.

Speaking to Jamey Jasta of "The Jasta Show" podcast, Taylor said: "I've only had one hiccup in my career, and I'm very proud of that. I'm very proud of the fact that there's only been, really, one album where I've felt like it was done wrong and it was done in a way that didn't make sense.

"It really came down to, at the time, Atlantic [subsidiary of Roadrunner's parent company Warner Music Group] wanting us to be something that we weren't," the singer explained. "[The label] was trying to get us to go with a different producer — Rob Cavallo [GREEN DAY, SHINEDOWN]. But we wanted something edgier, and that's why we were putting the emphasis more on the harder stuff. But [the label] was looking for more of the pop stuff, [they were] looking for more of the radio stuff, and we were, like, 'We're not interested in that. We still love this hard edge that we have.' So I had to call the head of Warner myself and tell him, 'Look, we want to use Nick Raskulinecz. Nick gets us, Nick helped us so much on [2006's] 'Come What(ever) May'. And we trust him. And we're just not ready to take that pop turn — we're just not.' And he said, 'Okay. I'm gonna trust you.' But then, when I tried to get hold of him again to help us, I couldn't get hold of him, which was messed up. Because then it bounced down to Atlantic. And now the same pop people were in charge of overseeing us.

"We [were] demoing," he continued. "We [were] in this mansion in Nashville. I wanna say that we were there for two months writing and working on stuff. We had the album ready and they wouldn't let us go in the studio, because they kept saying that we didn't have the songs. And I'm, like, 'Are you out of your fucking mind?' And our A&R guy at the time just kept beating us over the head. He was, like, 'We need this. We need this. We need this.' And I was, like, 'But we have that. What kind of album do you think we're gonna have? I don't understand this.'"

Taylor went on to clarify that he wasn't blaming Raskulinecz for any of the disagreements STONE SOUR was having with its record company. "Nick was really the guy who went to bat for us and fought those people tooth and nail," he said. "He's one of the best dudes that I know to work with. But by the time we got in the studio, we'd already been rehearsing the stuff for three months. So now we're going into the studio with an attitude, now we're going in over-rehearsed, now we're going in tired and frustrated. And I can hear it, and most of the guys in the band can hear it."

Taylor now believes that "Audio Secrecy" would have been a much stronger album had STONE SOUR been allowed to follow its initial creative vision. "I think if we had gone in when we were supposed to, it would have felt so much different and had much more energy," he said. "But because they held us back, it sucked the wind out of us. And they made us use a handful of songs that I had written for my solo stuff that the band didn't wanna use and I honestly didn't wanna bring in; it was like a totally different thing. The song 'Pieces' on the album, that was a solo tune. A coupe of the other ones — 'Imperfect' was a solo tune. And 'Imperfect' didn't sound anything like [it ended up sounding] — it was a full-band version; it wasn't this slow… It was just a whole different thing; it would have been a lot different. So there was a lot of stuff that we were kind of cornered to do and because we just wanted to get it out there. And then we had to do the mix on the road, because we had stuff booked. And then because you're sandwiched in between SLIPKNOT and STONE [SOUR], you have to take advantage of the time, so we had to get out there. So we were doing the mix on the road. To this day, I'm not happy with how… There are certain songs where my vocals are just buried, and it's hard for me to listen to. It was tough."

During the making of "Audio Secrecy" and the subsequent tour in support of the album, Taylor and guitarist Jim Root's other band, SLIPKNOT, was on hiatus.

Taylor revealed in a recent interview that STONE SOUR is already working on material for its seventh studio album.

The next STONE SOUR LP will follow up 2017's "Hydrograd", which was reissued last month in a deluxe expanded edition and contains the chart-topping single "Song #3".

Taylor did confirm, however, that he will step away from STONE SOUR in 2019 to focus on the next album from SLIPKNOT. He remarked that the enforced break for STONE SOUR will "allow the audience to miss [STONE SOUR], which is the best thing in the world you can have — that built-in need for a band to come back."