Six Things You May Not Know About Corey Taylor of Slipknot and Stone Sour

Stone Sour and Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor has been all over music news lately. Headlines have ranged from "Corey Taylor: There's Nothing Worse Than Forced Music" to "Slipknot's Corey Taylor Robbed of Music Gear, Late Bassists' Guitars Stolen."

There are things that have come to light this past year that any fan of the hardcore musician already knows: Slipknot will make more music, maybe released in 2014. Stone Sour is relentlessly touring. Taylor's comic book ventures are going swimmingly. And he's continuing to write books.

There are a lot of things about Taylor thought that often aren't included in interviews, so how about we focus on a few things you may now know about Taylor for this week's Metal Mondays?

1. His Goal From Day 1 Was to Make Rock Movies Taylor intends to step into Rob Zombie territory and make movies, usually flicks based on his concept discs House of Gold & Bones Part 1 and 2. A couple of years ago, he and Clown (Shawn Crahan) from Slipknot started Living Breathing Films.

"We're about to break ground on our first film, which we've been putting together over the past year or so," Taylor told Up on the Sun. (Here's the full interview.) "I've had to learn the hard way that the movie industry moves a little slower than the music industry. We are very, very close to really starting to get it together so we can make our first film. I'm really stoked.

"That being said, I'm actually starting to put together two outlines for two movies that would be based around the House of Gold and Bones album. Yeah, that's been my endgame since day one; is to make two cult classic fantasy movies. To make rock movies in a way that's never been done before."

2. He Loves Musicals According to Corey Taylor, Les Miserables is his favorite musical of all time. And apparently he knows his shit. He's seen everything from Wicked to Book of Mormon.

"Les Miz is not only my favorite musical, but it's also my favorite story," Taylor said in an interview on Musicradar.com. "I love the book, which I read as a kid, and I identified so much with Jean Valjean. The struggle to find out who you are, to come out of darkness and strive to be a better person -- that's what the last 10 years of my life has been about.

"To this day, I can listen to the soundtrack and get so lost in it. There are songs on it that make me bawl my eyes out. This was years before Susan Boyle came out and did her version of "I Dreamed a Dream." If you really want to feel some serious shit, listen to the version that's on this album. If you don't end up in tears, you don't have a soul."

3. Dave Grohl Was His Dream Collaboration Taylor and Grohl collaborated on "From Can To Can't," and when I asked him what musician he would really love to collaborate with, he said:

"Well, Dave was #1. Anytime I looked at that question in the press for years he was my first guy. Because, A, I love the dude to death. We're pretty good friends. And B., I love his songwriting. I'm a huge Foo Fighters fan; I'm a fan of everything he does. So getting to work with him and putting the song together, the two of us, really framing it out, was such a treat for me. It's probably one of my favorite things I've ever done.

"So now, I have to move all these people up because it was a huge check mark off my bucket list and I don't know what to do with myself!"

4. But Next Up? Trent Reznor "One person I'd love to work with is Trent Reznor. I'm a huge, huge Trent Reznor fan. We've met in the past, so I would love to do some dark and violent with him. I would also like to put together almost a dark acoustic EP with some of my favorite people.

"Everyone from Das Rigg, to Steve Earl to Waylon Maintain, Jerry Cantrell . . . Just people who I love their guitar work and I love their approach to songs. But I would never get it done . . . but a boy can dream when he's by himself in his bedroom."

5. He's More of a Family Man Now From non-stop touring for years, and a seemingly endless array of projects at any given time, Corey Taylor is ready to spend some time with family.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hitting a wall right now," he admitted in a May interview with me for Up on the Sun. "I'm just gonna . . . be a dad for a few months. Which I'm really really looking forward to, you know?

"My boy's getting old. He's gonna be 11 this year. This is all he's known his whole life. This is what I do and he knows when I'm gone than I come home. I need to stop and be a dad for a while and that's all I want to do."

6. His Newest Book Is Lovin' on Ghosts Corey Taylor likes a good ghost story -- especially when they actually involve him. His second book, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven (Or, How I Made Peace with the Paranormal and Stigmatized Zealots and Cynics in the Process) details things that a lot of he and his friends have encountered over the years in terms of the paranormal.

As he told Billboard: "I believe in ghosts because I know, because I've seen them, but I don't believe in God. So what do I think these things are, and why do I believe the way I do?' And that's what got me excited about it. I could kind of ghost in and out of the chapters -- no pun intended -- and kind of make my case and come from a hopefully unique standpoint where I'm trying to figure out what this energy is, what these spirits are."

I'm most looking forward to the chapter where he revisits The Mansion, the haunted Hollywood Hills site where Slipknot made its Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses album.

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