"I'm starting to make peace with the fact that there are dark pieces of my chapters that I've had to let go of"

Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor has opened up about his battle with addiction, and how his altered attitude on the path to recovery has impacted on the band’s new album.

Yesterday saw the masked metallers mark Halloween by returning with new single and video ‘All Out Life‘. Taylor used the opportunity to explain how the new Slipknot album is ‘their darkest chapter’, and falls somewhere in sound and energy ‘between their debut and Iowa‘.

Having been very open in the past about his struggles with depression and having been abused as a child, the singer and Stone Sour frontman has now revealed that his brighter outlook has had a positive impact on the band and their new music.

“I’m looking to the world through clearer eyes,” Taylor told Zane Lower on Beats1. “I’m also just starting to make peace with the fact that there are dark pieces of my chapters that I’ve had to relinquish and let go of. I’ve said, ‘Look, if it wasn’t for all these dark things happening to me, I wouldn’t be the guy I am right now’.

“This has made me deal with the fact that I am an addict. It’s made me deal with the fact that I’m in my ’40s, I’ve got kids, and I need to take care of them. I’m dealing with all of these crazy things in my life that make me ‘me’, and yet I should be embracing the fact that I’m alive. I should be embracing fact that I’m a father, I should be embracing the fact that I’m in two great bands.”

Speaking of the ‘balance’ between being a recovering addict and functioning adult and artist, Taylor continued: “It’s good, man. It’s allowed me to get out of my own way and enjoy life. Get out of my own head and enjoy the things that I have. It doesn’t mean that it’s the death of desire or anything like that, but it’s allowed me to really take advantage of the time I have right now and like the person who I am.

“I was never a huge Corey Taylor fan, until maybe the last year or so. I was like, ‘What? There’s a lot about me that’s really, really cool. I’ve luckily had a lot of great people around me to encourage that and go ‘We’ve been saying that for years’.”

Speaking of his mental health in an interview last year, Taylor said: “I do have bouts of severe depression, which are very, very hard to deal with sometimes. But because I’m also an addict, I try to stay away from as much potentially addictive medication as much as possible, because I know me, and I know how I would be.”

Read more: Slipknot’s The Clown on the importance of discussing mental health after the death of Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell
“So I’ve really tried to deal with it as naturally as possible, and I know that sounds very hippie-like, but when you know yourself, and you know the habits that you can slip into so easily, you have to find alternatives… And I also still do therapy.”

Slipknot’s new album is due for release next year. The band are also set to headline Download Festival 2019, alongside a number of other huge European tour dates.