SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor recently sat down for a four-part conversation with Knotfest.com‘s Ryan J. Downey and spoke about his contribution to “The Metallica Blacklist”. In part two of the chat, Corey touched on the parallels between METALLICA and SLIPKNOT.
“One of the first songs I ever learned how to play on guitar was ‘Enter Sandman’,” Taylor said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “Because that was kind of our generation’s ‘Stairway To Heaven’ or ‘Smoke On The Water’. It’s one of those riffs that… I like to call if the Guitar Center virus. Anybody who comes in [at a Guitar Center location] is either playing ‘Sandman’, ‘Crazy Train’, ‘Smoke On The Water’ or ‘Stairway’ or ‘Whole Lotta Love’… You have those gateway riffs where you go, ‘Oh, I figured it out.’
“I sat down one day, as I got better at guitar, and I went back and listened to the first four METALLICA albums and just started woodshedding and learning all these riffs. And it became a sort of language that you could speak to other musicians when you’re jamming for the first time. If you kicked into ‘Blitzkrieg’ or something, or if you kicked into ‘Ride The Lightning’ and just started [playing the opening riffs of the song], and they kicked in with you, you knew you were off to the races, because you don’t just learn that riff; you learn the whole tune and you just go for it. So it was almost like an initiation in a weird way; you knew how to do it. So I played METALLICA in almost every band that I’ve been in; it’s always just been there. I mean, from my first sort-of-real band CRIMINAL MISCHIEF all the way up to my solo band.”
Corey contributed a killer cover of the METALLICA classic “Holier Than Thou” for “The Metallica Blacklist”, a53-song collection of the “Black Album” covers by numerous artists from every genre of music.