SLIPKNOT's COREY TAYLOR Reflects On Nearly Disastrous Early Pyro Mishap

In a recent interview with AXS TV's "The Power Hour", SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor reflected on one particularly scary incident that happened during the band's early days of touring.

"When we got the great idea to bring out pyro with us because we were just gonna start going crazy with it, we hired a dude who, come to find out, was not legally licensed to be able to [operate pyrotechnics]," Corey said. "So he's setting all this stuff up. He's packing it himself in the back of a truck that's like 120 degrees in there. He's also got the concussion set up right spitting distance from the audience, which is illegal; it's supposed to be 25 feet back. And he also has the dragons that we were using — the fire — right in front of the P.A. speakers. So one night we look over and the dragons are going off. They set fire to the P.A. system. Now the fire is sitting right next to the tank that has all of the fuel in it. So we're looking at it. It was me and [former SLIPKNOT percussionist Chris] Fehn, [we] ran over and were hitting it with towels, trying to put it out before it explodes and kills us all. And to this day, it scares the hell out of me every time they go off."

Tattoo The Earth creator Scott Alderman reflected on an early SLIPKNOT pyro mishap in his book "Caravan Of Pain: The True Story Of The Tattoo The Earth Tour", which came out last year. He wrote in part about the trek's initial incarnation, which took place more than two decades ago (as published by Revolver): "SLIPKNOT had hired pyro technicians to design and run pyrotechnics for their show, though they couldn't do it in Portland because they didn't get permits in time. The team doing it had experience in the movie industry, but this was their first concert tour. I was standing by the back of the field when they did the first round of fire cannons, and it looked out of proportion for the size of the stage. There was only supposed to be one flash, and the band started to move forward after the first one, then a second one boomed, spitting out fire from the side of the stage for an even longer duration. When the pyro finally stopped, I could see that the stage side fills were smoldering, but fortunately the huge branch hadn't gone up in flames. The crew had broken out the fire extinguishers."

This past February, SLIPKNOT shared "Bone Church", a surprise standalone single, along with a Shawn "Clown" Crahan-directed video piece titled "Yen – Director's Cut (Bone Church)", which found the SLIPKNOT founding member refreshing footage from the band's "Yen" music video.

SLIPKNOT is continuing to tour in support of its latest album, "The End, So Far", which was released last September 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.