COREY TAYLOR Opens Up About Turning 50 Next Week: ‘I Try To Take Very Good Care Of Myself’

SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor, who will celebrate his 50th birthday on December 8, was asked in a new interview with TellUs Rock if reaching the half-century mark is something that he thinks about or if it’s “just a number” for him. He responded in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It depends on how early in the morning I think about it. ‘Cause there are definitely [times when I’m] trying to get up and I’m [in so much pain that I’m], like, ‘Oh, Christ. Where did that come from?’ So, yes and no.

“I try to take very good care of myself,” he continued. “I work out. I try to eat well. I don’t always succeed, but I try to eat well. I try to stay as healthy as possible, not just because of what I do, but because I wanna spend as much time on this planet with my family as possible. So there are definitely days where 50 feels like a number, and then there are days where 50 feels like, ‘How am I only 50 and I feel like shit?’

“I did some serious damage to myself when I was younger and I’m kind of paying for it now, but I’m also maneuvering,” Taylor added. “And you just kind of have to take it as you go and just be, like, ‘All right. Well, this is life.'”

Three months ago, Corey told Rock Feed that he can’t see himself performing with SLIPKNOT into his 60s. “I’ve already said that physically I maybe have five years left, but at the same time I go out of my way to really try to take care of myself,” he said. “Now I have a lot of fucking miles on me. It’s hard for me. People don’t realize this, but when I walk, I’m almost in constant pain. It’s the knees, it’s my feet. I have a broken toe on this foot. I have gout across my feet. It gets up into my joints and shit. Yeah, it’s tough. I’m not as nimble as I used to be. I’m not 35 anymore. It’s hard. But there are ways to do shows that don’t require being that crazy now.”

Corey continued: “The travel doesn’t lend itself to being healthy, because, at that point, it’s not like being home. You’ve got all your stuff. You’re kind of at the mercy of what’s there for you. So you’re gonna eat like shit, you’re gonna sleep like shit, you’re gonna feel like shit, and nine times out of 10, you’re gonna play like shit. We don’t want that. So it’s tough. Even a guy at my level, it’s not always laid-out catering and the best food and the best people. Sometimes it’s a soggy sandwich at 12:30 in the morning, and you’re looking at it, going, ‘If I put this in my body, I’m gonna throw up.’ People don’t fucking get that. You know why they think that? It’s because that’s all they see on Instagram, on TikTok, on this and that, and you’re seeing the commercials. There have been times we’ve gotten off stage, we’ve gone right to the airport, flown out. We don’t sleep until seven the next day. And now we’re just all [exhausted]. Our crew gets it even worse, ’cause they have to fucking go in, make sure everything’s good, and then they can go fucking take a nap. So it’s not gravy all the time, man. It’s tough. It’s hard fucking work. Even at our level, it’s hard work.”

Taylor previously talked about the possibility of retirement this past June in an interview with Germany’s Rock Antenne. At the time, he said: “As long as I can physically do it, and as long as there are people there to see it, man, I’ll continue to do it. Now, if the quality starts to fail, then I’ll know it’s time to hand it in. And I’ve already thought about it — I’ve already thought about, maybe I’ve got another five years left of physically touring like this. I try to take care of myself. I work out when I can. The travel out here [in Europe] is exhausting; the food [on the road] is horrible; so it makes it hard to do that. But as long as I can keep at it, that’s at least what I wanna do. So, yeah, it is what it is.”

Asked if his bandmates feel the same way about the end of SLIPKNOT as he does, Corey said: “If they wanted to continue and I wanted to retire, I would help them find somebody, to be honest. This band has always been bigger than the sum of its own parts. And it was hard moving on without Paul [Gray, late SLIPKNOT bassist]. It was hard moving on when we had to part ways with Joe [late SLIPKNOT drummer Joey Jordison]. It’s always been hard when the original nine ceases to be the original nine, but at the same time, the ones who are here are here because we love it, and we’ve always gotten something out of it.

“I’ve said it since day one — if I didn’t want to do SLIPKNOT, I wouldn’t do it,” he continued. “And I think I’ve proved that. The reason I stick around is because I want to do it. There’s still something in my heart and my soul that needs it. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Obviously, psychotherapy will help me out with that shit. But at the same time, it’s… it’s once in a lifetime, man.”

Asked if he feels a responsibility to the SLIPKNOT fans to be there with his bandmates, Corey said: “I do. But at the same time, I don’t expect them to be there. I mean, there are songs that they love; there are songs they don’t love. There are times I love this band; there are times I don’t love this band. But I still wanna be here. And when I physically can’t do it anymore, that’s when I’ll hang it up. I might not retire from performing period; maybe that’s when I go and I do my acoustic thing. But when I can’t go out there and give it at least my one hundred percent, that’s when I’ll hang it up. And me and Clown [SLIPKNOT percussionist and visual mastermind Shawn Crahan] have talked about this, man. He’s older than all of us, and he’s broken just as much crap as I have. I mean, Christ, he hit the keg with a baseball [bat] and ripped his bicep clean off the bone, and then went, got surgery and came back.

“We’re psychos, dude,” Taylor added. “I went out three weeks after my fucking spinal surgery — ’cause I’m a psycho. It’s just we don’t know our limitations until they catch up with us. So that’s what I say. I mean, yes, there’s a responsibility to the fans, but there’s also a responsibility to me and my family. And I don’t wanna be the one trying to pick up my grandkids and my legs don’t work. I just don’t wanna do that — I refuse to. I want my quality of life to be better than that — at the end.”

SLIPKNOT has spent most of the last year and a half touring in support of its latest album, “The End, So Far”, which was released in September 2022 via Roadrunner Records. The follow-up to “We Are Not Your Kind”, it is the band’s final record with Roadrunner after first signing with the rock and metal label in 1998.