Corey Taylor has recalled how he couldn’t sing in key amid his alcohol addiction that saw him ” f***ing 10 chicks a night” and doing “horrible s***”.
The Slipknot and Stone Sour rocker, 49, blames his lack of self-love and confidence on his battle with booze addiction and admitted his bad habits took a toll on both his mental health and his ability to do his job as frontman.
Speaking to the latest issue of Metal Hammer magazine, he said: “I was a full-blown alcoholic. I wanted to stay drunk so I could do horrible s*** because of my depression, because of my lack of self-confidence. I had become every cliché I hated because of it. You may have a family at home, but you may be running around f***ing 10 chicks a night because of that lack of self-love. When you drink that much booze, who you are becomes very washy. There’s something in you that’s empty. Something in you that feels like chewing tinfoil.
“Health-wise, it was really f***ng me up. The first three months of working on [2004 LP] ‘Vol.3’ were a washout for me, because my voice was so shot from the boozing and the lifestyle.
I couldn’t stay in key, I couldn’t hit any of the heavy s***, I’d get half a take and I’d spoil it. The other guys did not appreciate it: ‘Goddamn it, dude, you’re never f***ing here, you’re always wasted, it’s obvious you don’t give a f***.'”
Three-times-married Corey got sober after his first marriage to Scarlett Stone ended in 2007, however, he relapsed and finally got sober fully in 2010, though he admits he fights “every day” not to revert back to his old ways.
Asked when his wake-up call was, he recalled: “All the dramas in my life catching up with me. My fiancée at the time, later my wife [Scarlett, his first wife], had come out to LA to see what the f*** I was up to and confront me about it. We got a room at [LA hotel] The Hyatt House, we were going to talk, but we went out and I got f***ing s***-faced. That was when I tried to jump off the balcony of this eighth-storey room. My friend Tom grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled me back. It was a heavy night.”
Corey added of when he got sober: “The first time was literally the next day. It lasted three years, until my marriage ended. Then I started drinking again for about three years until it was, like, ‘I don’t get anything from this anymore.’ That was 2010. Trust me, it’s a struggle every day ‘cos of how my brain works and how I am as a person.”