STONE SOUR's COREY TAYLOR Explains 'Hydrograd' Album Title

STONE SOUR and SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor was recently interviewed by Meltdown of the Detroit, Michigan radio station WRIF. You can now listen to the chat below.

Asked where the title of the new STONE SOUR album, "Hydrograd", came from, Taylor said: "I'm running through this airport in Eastern Europe. This was only a few years ago. No offense to the airport — it was kind of antiquated; they hadn't really upgraded anything. So the gate info was all on those old-school '80s block-letter, number, digital horrible Timex watch kind of readers. This would have been top of the line in Times Square in, like, 1968, let's put it that way. So not only is it impossible to read, it's also scrolling back and forth between Cyrillic and regular English letters. It's also scrolling back and forth between different languages. So my brain is trying to do geometry while also at a sprint, 'cause I don't wanna miss my plane. I pass one, and I look up and I could have swore it said 'Hydrograd.' And I kept running for a second, and I was, like, 'Hydrograd? Where the hell is Hydrograd? What?' So I stopped and I turned around and I went back to the gate, and I'm standing there and I'm watching it cycle through and cycle through and cycle through… Nothing. It didn't say 'Hydrograd.' It didn't even start with an 'H.' It wasn't even close. And I'm just sitting there wondering when my sanity split on me, trying to figure it out. And I walked away and I was just, like, 'Well, it's a cool name.' And I just kind of stuck it in my pocket. And then years later we were doing demos for [the new STONE SOUR album], and I actually named one of the songs I wrote 'Hydrograd'. And I was, like, 'You know what? That would be a good name for the album overall and just kind of run with it.' So that's it, really — it was what I saw but didn't really see."

"Hydrograd" will be released on June 30 via Roadrunner. The disc was recorded at Sphere Studios in North Hollywood, California with producer Jay Ruston, who has previously worked with ANTHRAX and STEEL PANTHER.

The band tracked the album live in the studio, cutting a total of 18 songs from which 15 will make the CD.

"Hydrograd" track listing:

01. YSIF
02. Taipei Person/Allah Tea
03. Knievel Has Landed
04. Hydrograd
05. Song #3
06. Fabuless
07. The Witness Trees
08. Rose Red Violent Blue (This Song Is Dumb & So Am I)
09. Thank God It's Over
10. St. Marie
11. Mercy
12. Whiplash Pants
13. Friday Knights
14. Somebody Stole My Eyes
15. When The Fever Broke

The cover artwork can be seen below.

The Paul Brown-directed video for "Fabuless" was filmed on April 18 in Los Angeles.

Taylor recently said about the full-length follow-up to "House Of Gold & Bones": "It is the best stuff that we've ever written. It's got a lot of different directions, but at its core it's very hard rock, almost in a modern/classic sense. There are some hints of punk in there. There's some cool hard rock/heavy metal. There's just all of these really cool elements that we've never maybe allowed ourselves to kind of go to."

Bassist Johnny Chow described the disc as "a straight rock and roll album" in an interview with WRIF, adding, "It's just very groove-oriented, very melodic (with) big choruses. We've got some mellower songs on there too, which are equally just as amazing and have a lot of groove to them."

Chow called the record a "bit of a departure" from previous STONE SOUR albums.

STONE SOUR will play the Rock On The Range Kick-Off Party on Thursday, May 18 at Express Live! in Columbus, Ohio. The event will start the Rock On The Range weekend, with METALLICA, SOUNDGARDEN and KORN headlining this year's festival.

STONE SOUR will also be special guests of KORN on the latter act's "Serenity Of Summer" trek, which starts on June 16 in Salt Lake City and wraps on August 2 in Cleveland.