A decade ago, Slipknot and Stone Sour vocalist Corey Taylor was given the opportunity to step in on vocal duties for legendary metal act Anthrax.
Taylor was in the running to replace Joey Belladonna on the follow-up to 2003’s We’ve Come For You All. In a new interview with SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation Virtual Invasion, Taylor delved into the experience. Revealing that Slipknot’s record label Roadrunner snuffed the wick of Corey Taylor’s thrash metal dreams out, citing prior label commitments.
“It was something that really we hadn’t talked about too much at length,” Taylor shared. “It was just something that we had talked about doing just ostensibly as a one-off, but we were just gonna kind of see what could happen.
“That actually started as an idea because of an acoustic gig that I did with Scott [Ian, of Anthrax] and Frankie Bello [Anthrax bassist] at a place in New York. And I cannot remember what the name of the place was. I know it was a club that Scott had maybe an interest in it, so we were helping to promote the club.
He continued, “And it was something really cool that it was just, like, ‘Hey, do you wanna come do this?’ I was, like, ‘Yeah, man. Let’s do it.’ So we went down, we had dinner, we did the acoustic show. And then afterwards, we were all kind of just hanging out, and the half-joking line got thrown out, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if you joined Anthrax?’ And we all laughed, and then we all stopped. And we all just went, ‘Hmmm. That could interesting.’ It was between Joey and John [Bush], so everything was kind of up in the air. It was before — what was his name? — Dan [Nelson]. And we talked about it more and more, and it was something that I was really, really into.
“They sent me a bunch of music, most of which ended up on Worship Music — luckily, because the music was so good. Nothing got recorded, because the day I was supposed to fly to Chicago to rehearse and start demoing with Scott and with Charlie [Benante, Anthrax drummer], I got a phone call from Roadrunner telling me that they weren’t gonna let me do it.
They wanted me to go back and do All Hope Is Gone, because we [were] still contracted to do another Slipknot album, and they weren’t going to allow me the wiggle room. I don’t even know if those people are still at Roadrunner, to be honest. But I know that they cracked the whip on it and were really hardcore.”
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Corey detailed that it was the first time in his career that he felt like he was “backed into a corner.”
He revealed, “Not that I didn’t wanna do a Slipknot album, but I was so into the idea of doing an Anthrax album. And I remember having to call and tell the guys [in Anthrax] that I wasn’t gonna be able to make it. It broke my heart so hard.”
Earlier this week, Corey Taylor shared a new video for his solo track ‘Black Eyes Blue’, taken off his forthcoming debut solo album CMFT. The record will arrive on October 2nd.
Check out ‘Black Eyes Blue’ by Corey Taylor:
