Corey Taylor is tired of denying that Slipknot track The Negative One was written about ex-drummer Joey Jordison – but admits he can see how the idea arose.
It was the first song to appear from .5: The Gray Chapter, recorded after the band fired Jordison in December 2013. Speculation was based around the fact that the drummer’s member number was 1, while lyrics include “The lord of lies / You had to be set free / Opposing sides / Your choices are the negative one and me.”
Taylor has frequently said the track wasn’t about Jordison, insisting that while some of the lyrics on the album are autobiographical, none of them are about specific band members, other than himself.
Now the frontman tells Loudwire: “I think there’s a handful of people who have original ideas – then there are millions of people who’ll pick up that idea and paste it all over the place.
“A lot of people aren’t brave enough to have their own opinion. So even though that opinion was incorrect, I could see how something like that could snowball.”
He adds: “Honestly, I didn’t even realise you could have read it that way. It was furthest from my mind – none of the songs are about Joey. All the songs are about the band in general.”
Instead, he says, the words address his personal struggle to deal with bassist Paul Gray’s 2010 death. “There’s a part of you that really misses your friend,” he says. “Then there’s a part that’s so mad at your friend, it makes it hard to feel empathy, which is very natural, especially when you lose someone the way we lost Paul.”
Slipknot remain on tour until December. They’re considering the possibility of making a concept album after a hiatus, during which Taylor will work on Stone Sour’s sixth record.
