Noisey had Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor rank the bands records from best to worst as part of their ‘Rank Your Records‘ series. His choices can be found below:
05 – “All Hope Is Gone”
04 – “Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses”
03 – “Iowa”
02 – “.5: The Gray Chapter”
01 – “Slipknot”
Taylor also shared his thoughts on each choice with the site, some highlights include:
On “Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses“:
“Rick Rubin famously told me I needed to change the chorus to “Before I Forget,” because he said it wasn’t a strong chorus, and I told him that’s just not going to happen. I agreed with him on a couple of occasions, but when it came to that song, I knew it was powerful enough that the chorus would carry it. And then we won a Grammy for it, so y’know. It was very strange, it was a very strange thing. Plus, a lot of things going on behind the scenes with us as far as management went that people don’t even know. We were in such disarray, it’s amazing it came out in seven months.”
On “Iowa“:
“I think that album would’ve had more impact if it wasn’t for 9/11, which a lot of people forget happened a week after Iowa came out. A day after Slayer released their new album that people had been waiting for. We were kind of ostracized because of the things that were going on. We’d just gone through this terrible fucking tragedy, so they were looking for anything they could control as scapegoats. So we got fucked, Slayer got fucked, Rage Against the Machine got fucked. All of these seriously heavy artists got thrown up against a wall, and a lot of the safer shit got in.
Nothing happened to fucking Linkin Park. All these lilly white fucking bands where people were like, “Well they’re safe enough, we’ll listen to them.” At the same time, we didn’t go anywhere. We went out and toured that album for another year and a half just to make sure it got its due credit.
And now there’s some of the fans’ favorites. As dark as it is, there are so many fucking anthems on it, they still get played on the live set. I think it’s a testament to how far we were willing to stand our ground.”
On touring behind “Slipknot” and the low expectations they had for its success:
“It’s so crazy! And we did Ozzfest ’99, and you could tell something was happening. Something was becoming fucking crazy. The album hadn’t even come out yet. It came out halfway through that tour. So really there was nothing to prepare anybody for anything. And then after Ozzfest ’99 ended, we had three days off and we went right into the Coal Chamber tour where we were third on the bill, right below Machine Head.
Halfway through that tour, we ended up switching places with Machine Head and becoming direct support. Because we would play, and this is nothing against any of these bands, nothing at all, we’d play and half the audience would leave after. It was no shit. We didn’t have anywhere to go after we played so we’d go out to the audience and hang out, watch the other bands, and we’d watch people streaming out—buying our merch and heading out. So it became a point where nobody wanted to take us out on the road with them. So we had to headline out of necessity.
Meanwhile, the album goes gold and we didn’t realize it. We didn’t get the plaque for it until February 2 of 2000. When we got the plaque, we found out within two months it would go platinum. Then it went double platinum. People don’t understand just how fucking insane it was. We’re sitting back going, “What?” Suddenly we’re the biggest band on Roadrunner, and no one prepared us. We didn’t know what the fuck was going on. We had shitty management at the time, and it was insanity. It all started because we went up a mountain, and had an absolute fucking blast making that album. It went through three people’s hands to mix it.
I don’t know if anyone’s ever told this story, but Clown, Joey, and Ross Robinson broke into the studio where the master tapes were, because we weren’t liking the mixes we were getting. They broke in, stole the tapes, and mixed it themselves! [Laughs] I think Paul was there too. I had to go back to Iowa to go back to work, and I get a call from Clown: “By the way, we committed grand larceny, we just stole our own fucking album.” And they sat down and mixed it because no one else understood it.
When you’re the first, no one knows. There’s not track record for it. So we’d get these shitty fucking mixes that were either too thin, too bass-laden. People didn’t understand what this noise was. So we ended up mixing it ourselves, man. There’s so many crazy stories from that first album, I can look back and smile that it’s happened to us, and the subsequent years. It all started from the first album and all the crazy shit. Living off 20 bucks a week, having to hide your ramen because your asshole bandmates were trying to steal it.
Having to come up with 30 ways to make ramen so you don’t lose your mind, that’s how we lived. It was so insane, but it was so awesome because we were in it. All the talk, dreaming was over. It was time to do the work. And we did, the rest is fucking history man.”
There’s far more from Taylor on each his choices over at Noisey.
