If you skipped out on today’s (October 01st) showdown between Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor and percussionist M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan on Hot Ones‘ ‘Versus‘, you likely missed out on Taylor‘s current thoughts about some of his past beefs with famous musicians.
Amid the aforementioned contest, Taylor was asked to rank the three artists who were involved in his most publicized beefs, or suffer a bite of some unforgivingly hot sauce coated chicken wings.
Rather than take the not so easy way out, Taylor indulged in the question. However, the outspoken vocalist was also quick to share that he has been attempting to better himself and wasn’t interested in indulging in the gritty details.
Earlier this year, Taylor canceled his planned solo tour, citing mental and physical health concerns and later revealing nearly suffered a relapse. Since then, he has chosen to prioritize self care and work on himself, even going so far as to alter the way Slipknot tour to help ease any mental strain.
As for the clashes covered, the band’s most infamous beef with Mushroomhead wasn’t on the table, likely due to it being more of an entire band venture, as opposed to Taylor being a central participant.
Instead, the oldest of the beefs discussed was a past feud between Taylor and Limp Bizkit vocalist Fred Durst, which played out around 1999-2000. Essentially, Durst was alleged to have disparaged Slipknot fans, calling the masked Iowan outfit’s legions of maggots ‘fat, ugly kids.’
Taylor himself was asked to address the matter by a fan on a televised interview in Australia in the early 2000s. When asked by that individual what was going on with the fellow multi-platinum nü-metal band at the time and if there was “a bit of a rivalry going on”, Taylor responded:
“You would have to ask the Limp Bizkit question… Alright I’m gonna go on record right now, you guys ready?… Limp Bizkit, somebody in Limp Bizkit had the audacity to say to one of our good friends who is a very reliable source, that Slipknot fans are nothing but a bunch of fat, ugly kids.
You know what I said to that? 1: I’m a fat, ugly kid. 2: Slipknot fans, for the most part, enjoy all kinds of music, like Limp Bizkit, maybe. So what you’re basically saying is that your fans are fat, ugly kids too? Is that what you’re trying to say to me… Is that what you wanna say? You wanna talk shit on the people who you care about?! WE WILL COME THERE AND WE WILL KILL YOU!”
The eventual breakout diamond-certified success of Nickelback‘s 2005 “All That Right Reasons” would go on to see the Canadian hard rockers become a top priority at the label, ultimately overshadowing the breakout multi-platinum accolades Slipknot had garnered at the label several years prior.
While some had suspected that some rivalry may have begun to simmer there, it was Kroeger‘s comments to Metal Convent in 2017 that escalated the apparent enmity. When it was put to Kroeger that Taylor‘s other band Stone Sour were among the more diverse of rock bands, Kroeger unloaded, offering:
“Yeah, ’cause they’re trying to be Nickelback. Corey Taylor has said some really nasty things about me before in the press. He talks about how easy it is to write a hit song. Well, show me. Show me. Write one. I have yet to hear one. They’re okay. But they’re not as good as Nickelback. They sound like ‘Nickelback lite.'”
Kroeger also took a shot at Taylor‘s success in Slipknot:
“They had to put on masks and jump around. How good can your music be if you’ve gotta beat each other up on stage, throw up in your own masks every night…? I mean, music shouldn’t come with a gimmick; music should just be music. None of my favorite music comes with a gimmick. And he got tired of sitting behind a mask—he wanted people to know what he looks like—so he started Stone Sour.”
Taylor was a bit restrained in his initial retort, but still had some cagey responses to Kroeger‘s comments, and later proclaimed that “Chad Kroeger is to rock what KFC is to chicken.”
The final feud to be broached was perhaps Taylor‘s last big squabble in the press. Bad blood between Taylor and multi-platinum rapper/pop-punker/actor Machine Gun Kelly spilled over on the internet back in 2021.
MGK was initially seen as the aggressor in that war of words, calling out Slipknot while he was performing from a dueling stage with the band at that year’s ‘Riot Fest‘ in Chicago, IL. MGK was filmed addressing the audience as follows during his set:
“Hey, you wanna know what I’m really happy that I’m not doing? Being 50 years old wearing a fucking weird mask on a fucking stage, talking shit. So anyway, what’s everyone’s favorite candy? Reese’s Pieces?”
However, further elaboration on social media from MGK found him explaining that he was firing back at Taylor, after claiming the Slipknot vocalist spoke ill of him in the press. That situation got a bit more complicated when MGK also stated that Taylor had been invited to appear on MGK‘s platinum-certified fifth studio album, “Tickets To My Downfall“.
MGK claimed that Taylor had submitted a “f*cking terrible” verse for the album, and in turn, MGK rejected it, prompting Taylor to speak out against MGK in the press. Taylor fired back with screencaps of emails that seemingly told a different story, with Taylor apparently backing out of the track on his own accord after having concerns with the direction of the song.
Taylor later explained his side of the matter, staying firm to his assertion that MGK started the beef. Several months later, MGK had seemingly let bygones be bygones, saying at one point, “that situation’s unfortunate because I think both of us let our egos get in the way.”
With the backstory out of the way, that leads us to Taylor‘s new ranking of the artists involved these past disputes. When put to that task on this aforementioned hot wings contest between himself and Clown, Taylor replied:
“I love that this is coming up as I’m doing all this work on myself. If I were to answer with my current self, I would say that a lot of the things that I said were based off of my own ego, my own insecurities, my own arrogance. If I was gonna say it with that ugly ego, I would say at the top, I would put Limp Bizkit.
Because, creatively, there are so many factors to that band. That show, and have been explored. And my issues truly weren’t even with Limp Bizkit. They were with Fred. You know, it wasn’t about the band. It was just about what Fred represented at the time, the things that were being said, and the people in the band that were actually saying things about us.”
Clown remarked, “Everybody was saying stuff about us,” leading Taylor to offer:
“Exactly. I would put MGK in the middle. Before the beef, I did have respect for him, and I liked his music. We butted heads, ego-wise and creatively because of a song that he and Travis [Barker] invited me to be on. He and I are very similar, and I hope he’s figuring shit out, because I know he’s been through some dark shit.
And I’ll put Nickelback last because… [Clown interrupts to say “Nickel my nuts,” before Corey continued] “honestly, they’re just a musical echo. It’s just the same thing. There’s some stuff of theirs that I like I thought “How You Remind Me” was a really good song.”
After some light prodding from Clown, Taylor responded to his bandmate:
“You’re f*cking… You’re poking my bear and I know what you’re trying to do. So. Limp Bizkit #1. MGK #2 and Nickelback #3.”
