Corey Taylor has opened up about Slipknot‘s ‘Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses’ and revealed that making the LP “was just as big a risk as making” ‘Iowa‘.
While appearing on Seton Hall’s Pirate Radio, 89.5 FM WSOU in support of his latest LP ‘CMF2‘, the Slipknot frontman reflected on the band’s 2004 album which will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year.
‘Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses’ was produced by Rick Rubin and featured tracks such as ‘Duality’, ‘Pulse Of The Maggots’ and ‘Vermilion’. It also featured ‘Before I Forget’ which won the group a Grammy for Best Metal Act. It followed their second album, 2001’s ‘Iowa’.
After being asked to name something the band did on that album that wouldn’t have been heard on any prior album of theirs, Taylor said: “Oh, man. Well, I mean, obviously the acoustic stuff that we did with songs like ‘Circle’ [and] ‘Vermilion Pt. 2’. I mean, really diving… It was where we really started wearing our artistic side on our sleeve, because it was something that we knew that we could do and that we had done in the past, but we had never really been afforded the opportunity to do it.” (via Blabbermouth)
He continued: “We also knew that if we stayed just trying to out-heavy ourselves, we were going to turn into somebody who didn’t sound honest, who didn’t sound legit. Which is one of the reasons why we stopped and we said, ‘We need to spread our boundaries out and we need to take this risk.’ And people don’t realise this, doing ‘Vol. 3’ was just as big a risk as making ‘Iowa’.
“So, lyrically, sonically, creatively, we were able to kind of pull together, even though we were pulling apart at the seams at the time, and we created something that to this day is probably — other than some of my approaches at singing some of the songs, it’s probably one of the best things I’ve ever done.”
The album was released on May 25, 2004 and peaked at Number Two on the Billboard 200 chart. It sold 243,000 copies in its first week.
Elsewhere in the interview, Taylor addressed his past comments on the disappointment of his vocal takes during the first months of recording the album, which left him thinking about quitting.
“Well, it was largely because my alcoholism was really in full effect,” he said. “I mean, yeah, it was brutal. It is hard for me to listen. And, of course, as an addict, you’re blaming everybody but yourself. And once I got clean, I realised, I was, like, ‘Man, I have to start from scratch.’ And I did.”
He continued: “I slowly but surely started building my vocal takes and vocal passes back. But it was hard going, man. ‘Cause people don’t realize the damage that alcohol does to your voice. Plus, I was smoking, so it was a gnarly, gnarly time in my life.”
In other news, Taylor recently revealed that he began releasing solo music as he felt he wasn’t getting the credit he deserved for writing with his two bands.
In a three-star review of ‘CMF2’, NME said the record was a “fascinating insight into the dichotomy that drives one of the greatest bands of the 21st Century”.
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