Corey Taylor is talking to me from a tour bus that hasn’t quite made it to the hotel. There’s background noise, there’s Corey apologizing for it, and there’s the sense that even if the world were silent, the man would still be buzzing. That’s the thing about CMF2, his second solo album—it sounds like someone who refuses to slow down, even when he’s waltzing.
The record kicks off with a mandolin piece Taylor accidentally wrote the day he bought one. “I tuned it to a very specific tuning and just started tinkering,” he says. “That thing just came out of me and I was like, well, there’s the intro.” It’s not just a folky flourish—it’s a setup. “I wanted the intro to be a spoiler for an explosion musically… haunting yet familiar and really inviting.”
That kind of big-picture thinking comes from what Taylor calls “honing it in.” CMFT was a grab bag of songs from over the years—“I may never get this opportunity again, so let’s put these out and see if anyone likes them.” Turns out, they did. So CMF2 became an actual journey, stitched together with a clear through-line and a few heavy sucker punches for good measure.
Also, Bowie is in the DNA. “His courage is ridiculous,” Taylor says. “People called him chameleonic—that wasn’t right. He was ahead of the curve every time. Ziggy was a precursor to punk. Scary Monsters was a precursor to New Wave. He knew what was going to happen next.” Taylor latched on to the lesson: follow your heart, not the trend. “It may be different, it may be dangerous, but it doesn’t matter because it’s coming from me.”
That’s why CMF2 swings from metal to country in a single breath. The waltz “Breath of Fresh Smoke” was written 17 years ago after Taylor discovered Ray LaMontagne and Ani DiFranco. “It’s about getting out—out of a small town, out of a relationship that makes you feel small.” He calls it “Irish country,” in three-four time, the kind of song you sway to on a barstool.
Still, don’t think age has dulled his roar. “I don’t think I’ll ever be a truly peaceful person,” he says. “There are still things that get my blood up—the way we treat each other, the way we talk to each other. It makes me need to use that voice.” If he’s not unleashing it on the crowd, he’s unleashing it on his kids. “Poor Griff grew up with it more than his sister has,” he laughs.
Even the gnarlier moments on CMF2 are built with hooks—something he can’t help. “I don’t know how to write something that doesn’t have a hook,” he shrugs. “Whether it’s a vocal hook or a music hook, it’s in my DNA. Why fight it?”
When he’s not on stage, Taylor’s reviving Famous Monsters, the classic horror mag he bought because he wanted it to feel like “the destination.” There’s a convention in October, a semi-annual magazine in the works, and plans to co-produce movies. “We’re bringing the family back together,” he says.
For now, he’s on tour, bringing CMF2 to the masses, including a stop at Louisville’s Louder Than Life on September 22 alongside Tool, Godsmack, and Limp Bizkit. “It’s gonna be a lot of fun,” he promises, which sounds less like a prediction and more like a guarantee.
Watch the interview above and then check out the video below.
