Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor may rage onstage, but the singer reveals in a recent chat with Mythical Kitchen’s Last Meals that he’s found a way to leave the anger onstage and even has a “higher power” that he prays to before every show.
It’s been part of the therapeutic moments that Taylor has undergone over the years and he admits that appreciation and gratitude have gone a long way in helping him be a happier and more in touch person with those around him.
Who Is the Higher Power That Corey Taylor Prays To?
Chef, author and host Josh Scherer compares Taylor’s love of comics and super heroes to him becoming one when he puts the mask on and hits the stage with Slipknot. He asks the singer, “How much does it help being able to take off that second skin and leave it on the stage?”
“For my psyche and for the people around me, I’m sure they appreciate it and I certainly do, but I do a little prayer now before every show,” reveals Taylor. “I have a higher power in my program that I recognize. The name is Lord Mother, because it’s a little bit of everything.”
“This is something that I’ve come up with. Because I don’t, and this is gonna sound crazy, but I have trust issues. But I don’t really trust a lot of organized religion. However, in the program that I am in, we are encouraged to realize a higher power that is greater than us. So, to me, Lord Mother is the yin and the yang. It’s the Alpha and the Omega. It’s the ending and the beginning. And it’s everything around us. And when you open up to it, it’s like feeling a breeze on the hottest summer day. It’s like a glass of iced tea. You get that little sweetness and then your thirst is quenched. It’s beautiful.”
He concludes, “It’s taken me time to learn to listen to it and I’ve never been a religious person. I’ve never been a spiritual person. But letting go of that, of the incredible weight of ego, has helped me listen.”
What Else Corey Taylor Has Learned About Himself
Leading up to the discussion of Corey Taylor defining his “higher power,” the musician spoke about finding a peace in his daily life.
“Appreciation and gratitude changes you and it changes the way you treat people,” shared the singer.
“The best thing I ever learned was two things. Always judge someone by how they treat someone they don’t need anything from and integrity is what you do when no one’s looking. As an addict, as an alcoholic, as someone who has struggled with ego, those are things that don’t come naturally sometimes,” he adds. “You have to stop sometimes and reshuffle my priorities and figure it out and what I realized is that I love people. I love finding out about people and I wasn’t showing that. I wasn’t showing up for my friends and asking how their life was going. I wasn’t finding out about their accomplishments. Everything was stuck in my orbit. It had to be about me or it couldn’t be enjoyable.”
READ MORE: Corey Taylor Shares a Very Relatable + Honest Response to Turning 50
Having learned these lessons, he then applied it to coming off a rage-filled performance.
“That anger shrunk to a place that I no longer wanted or needed to be the guy that raged over the last three years after every show with Slipknot or my solo stuff or whatever,” shared the singer.
“I do a gratitude meditation. I’m literally still covered in sweat, makeup still on my face and I’m taking my mask off and I’m in the van heading back to the hotel or dressing room or whatever and I am regulating. I’m tapping back in because I don’t want to live there. I want to visit there, but I don’t want to live there. Because I realize that in order to be truly happy, you have to appreciate what you have. You can’t be jealous or resentful of the things you don’t have because that is an aspect of an empty person,” explained Taylor.
Taylor is currently enjoying a bit of a break as neither he nor Slipknot have any shows currently booked.
Slipknot’s Corey Taylor Guests on Mythical Kitchen’s Last Meals
Below, see a gallery of all 19 musicians that have been in Slipknot.
All 19 Musicians Who’ve Been in Slipknot
Below is every musician who’s been counted as an official member of Slipknot from its formation in 1995 through the 2020s.
Gallery Credit: Lauryn Schaffner