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Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American musician, author, and actor, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of Slipknot and Stone Sour.[1]

Taylor is a founding member of Stone Sour, and has released five studio albums with that band. Taylor joined Slipknot in 1997 to replace their original vocalist, Anders Colsefni. He has released five studio albums with them. He has worked with several bands, including Junk Beer Kidnap Band, Apocalyptica, Anthrax, Aaron Lewis of Staind, and Soulfly. Taylor was ranked number 86 in Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time.[2] He was also named 7th greatest heavy metal frontman by NME. Taylor was also found, by VVN Music, to possess the second-highest vocal range of any known singer in popular music with a range of 5 and a half octaves. He was beaten only by Mike Patton (6 octaves).[3] With both Slipknot and Stone Sour, Corey Taylor has sold over 70 million albums worldwide.

Early life[]

Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973, in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of German, Irish and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. Around 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests them most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work.

By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines is a place to which he frequently returned.

In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually abused at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often.

Career[]

Personal life[]

Discography[]

Further reading[]

  1. [[[:Template:AllMusic]] allmusic ((( Corey Taylor > Overview )))] AllMusic. Retrieved 2010-05-10.
  2. "Hit Parader’s Top 100 Heavy Metal Vocalists of All Time". Hit Parader. Retrieved 2010-07-16.
  3. Digging Deeper: Axl Rose is NOT the Singer With the Widest Range ~ VVN Music. vintagevinylnews.com.
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