Slipknot on Tortilla Face: “The audience has to figure out who you are”
Slipknot dropped a brand new single “Birth Of The Cruel” today ahead of their album We Are Not Your Kind, which will release later this week.
Now, vocalist Corey Taylor spoke to Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s Beats 1 about the new song and what fans can expect from the album.
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Taylor first talked about the “groove” on the new song and how it’s got “hints of old school stuff”. Lowe mentioned it sounding a bit like Alice In Chains, to which Taylor agreed with.
“Absolutely. It’s dark, man,” he said. “It’s real, but it still pulls you in and just, that’s the lurch.”
“Birth Of The Cruel” is the band’s fourth single ahead of the fast-approaching We Are Not Your Kind, following “All Out Life,” “Solway Firth” and “Unsainted.”
You can listen to Slipknot’s latest song below.
He also spoke about how proud he is of the record and how excited he is for everyone to hear it.
“It’s one of those things where I was really, really proud of what we’d done,” Taylor said. “It’d been a long time since I’d felt that way. You know, like-Probably Volume Three, you know? I mean, All Hope Is Gone, we were just glad that we got the thing done, just because of all the turmoil that was going on with the band and stuff.”
“Point Five it was like … kind of soul searching,” Taylor continued. “It was bittersweet. It was like, okay, I guess this is … We can do it. Now let’s see if that love and passion is still there. You know? With this album, we checked all the boxes.”
“It was so good to let that out and just to stop holding it back and really unleash. That’s why it sounds so alive, basically. When we listened to it top to bottom, I was blown away. I was like, ‘Oh god. People aren’t ready for this, man. It’s really, really good.’”
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He then clarified that even though he criticized those past records, he doesn’t hate them.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong. Those [last few] albums have great songs on them. But as far as a whole, it just didn’t have that same vitality that the earlier stuff did,” he said. “I feel like this one really captures what we’ve tried to do. This album musically, I could put between Volume Three and Iowa easily. But yet it can stand on its own. You know? It’s another step in the chapter that we’re trying to create, basically.”
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He also talked about how the OGs in the band are “closer than (they’ve ever been). He said part of that is due to Shawn “Clown” Crahan dealing with the death of his youngest daughter earlier this year.
“We all rallied around him hard, because people were coming at him. Just another symptom of the dark side of social media. People were coming at him and we just basically-I won’t even get into it because people are gutters, some people are garbage eaters,” he said. “And the fact that they were coming at my man was wrong. So we all circled around him … We said, ‘No, you’re not going to do that.’ And that kind of showed us all that we were still really close.”
He said that energy has been reflected in the current touring energy among Slipknot members.
“We have all really just kind of bonded again … and it’s weird too because, it’s like we all kind of feel like we can enjoy it again,” he said. “There’s nothing kind of, picking at the seams or trying to pull us apart. … It’s just us getting ready to go and, and we’re going harder than we ever have. Or at least as much as our bodies will let us.”
He also talked a bit about the new member, dubbed “Tortilla Man,” but didn’t give much information about his mysterious identity.
“You’ve got to wear the Tortilla on your face first of all, and the audience has to figure out who you are,” he said. “Tortilla face. He’s doing great. He’s a great dude and is killing it, man. It’s kind of cool. It’s brought this whole new energy to everybody as well. So it’s a lot of fun to watch him.”
You can listen to the entire interview here.
We Are Not Your Kind drops Friday, Aug. 9 via Roadrunner records, with preorders available here.
Slipknot continue their Knotfest Roadshow tomorrow in Denver, CO. Tickets are on sale now with a full list of tour dates below.
Dates:
08/06 – Denver, CO @ Pepsi Center
08/08 – Lincoln, NE @ Pinnacle Bank Arena
08/10 – Des Moines, IA @ Iowa State Fairgrounds*
08/11 – Tinley Park, IL @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
08/12 – Clarkston, MI @ DTE Energy Music Theatre
08/14 – Virginia Beach, VA @ Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater
08/16 – Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center
08/17 – Bonner Springs, KS @ Providence Medical Center Amphitheater
08/18 – Maryland Heights, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
08/20 – Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage
08/21 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center
08/23 – Burgettstown, PA @ KeyBank Pavilion
08/24 – Scranton, PA @ The Pavilion at Montage Mountain
08/25 – Darien Center, NY @ Darien Lake Amphitheater
08/27 – Mansfield, MA @ The Xfinity Center
08/28 – Wantagh, NY @ Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater
08/30 – Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Center
08/31 – Camden, NJ @ BB&T Pavilion
09/01 – Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live
09/03 – Alpharetta, GA @ Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
09/04 – Tampa, FL @ MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre
09/06 – Austin, TX @ Austin360 Amphitheater at Circuit of The Americas
09/07 – Dallas, TX @ Dos Equis Pavilion
09/08 – The Woodlands, TX @ The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion presented by Huntsman
What do you think about Corey Taylor’s statements about the upcoming Slipknot album? Sound off in the comments down below!
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