Corey Taylor explains the concept behind his planned fifth book
Slipknot's Corey Taylor details his plans to tackle "social media and the age that we live in – the 'outrage' age" in book number five.
Corey Taylor told Kerrang! at the end of 2020 that he was thinking about getting to work on book number five this year ("It's taken me four-and-a-half years to get over the hangover of the last one…" the Slipknot frontman joked), and now he has revealed that he has a "concept in mind" to write about.
Speaking on 95.5 KLOS's New & Approved series (via Blabbermouth), Corey says that his next tome will be addressing "social media and the age that we live in – the 'outrage' age".
"It's starting to really kind of form in my head," he says. "I may actually write it soon, because it's really kind of out of control out there right now."
Corey continues, "I was reading about how Gen Z is trying to cancel Eminem because of one line that was in a Rihanna song that he did with her, and I'm just like, 'Is that where we are right now?' I mean, at this point, you're talking about the Salem witch trials. You're talking about America in the '20s where the KKK was a political force. You're talking about complete condemnation without context or any rationalisation for an action like that.
Read this: 20 classic albums that are 20 years old in 2021
"And to me, that's [what's] most dangerous – when the mob decides that you're gone. That is Caesar at the Colosseum, for god's sakes. That's when it's dangerous. The level of censorship that we're starting to see… And I'm not saying that certain things haven't been said that easily offend people. However, the flipside of that is that you can't even make a joke anymore – even in the cleanest of situations. [People] completely turn on you. And there's not one hint of satire, there's no hint of irony – it's just all-out rage, and it's all through this [shows his smartphone]. And that's when it's really greedy, that's when it's really dirty.
"It can't be that way," he adds. "If we can't have a conversation, how the hell are we gonna communicate? And if we can't understand the difference between metaphor and complete reality, then we're in real trouble. And that's where I'm leaning with the book."
Sounds like a pretty explosive read already. Check out Corey's full interview below: