Corey Taylor Wants to Be a Mash-Up of These Two Legendary Acts

While heaviness has defined most of Corey Taylor's musical career, the Slipknot vocalist has shown a penchant for pushing the musical boundaries with projects outside the Slipknot world, and now that's started a solo career, there's no intention of holding back on his musical exploration.

While speaking with Metal Hammer, Taylor name-checked a pair of legendary artists that he views as a benchmark mash-up of where he'd like his future musical pursuits to go.

“I’m looking at this as my third chapter," he explained to the music mag. "Starting out with Slipknot was a war just to keep my shit together, then as time went on it became about balancing two massive acts and to keep doing it for my own pure reasons. This third act will probably be the last 20 years of my career, presuming I make it another 20 years!"

"For me, the third act is bringing together music from this wheel I’ve found myself in – songs from Slipknot, from Stone Sour, and to show people things and bands they’ve never heard before. I want to be a mash-up of Bruce Springsteen and Ozzy Osbourne,” continued the vocalist, noting two iconic musicians in very different styles of rock that his music could fall between.

That's a round-about way of Taylor saying he's not planning to box himself in musically. As he notes elsewhere in the interview, "The breadth of it is so wide now, because we’ve touched on so much shit [with my solo music]. There’s super-heavy riffy stuff, hardcore punk, a piano song that could have been on [U2's album] The Joshua Tree – I give no fucks. We’re challenging people – and nobody does that now."

He adds, "Everything’s a fuckin’ dial tone, with the rare exception of, like, 10 percent of bands out there. If you’re not challenging your listeners, you might as well be flipping burgers.”

That next challenge for Taylor comes with CMF2, the singer's second solo set, that's due on Sept. 15 and is available to pre-order right here. “My first solo album was kind of where I was coming from. This album is more where we're going," said in a statement announcing the album back in May. The set also features the new single "Beyond."

Taylor, who has been rocking stages with Slipiknot this summer, will turn his touring attention to his solo work in late summer and early fall, playing shows with Wargasm, Oxymorrons and Luna Aura. Get your tickets here.