Slipknot’s Corey Taylor on hitting rock bottom and the live performance that helped him back up

CW: Suicide

I was 19 the last time I tried to take my own life. My depression and anxiety at the time were almost uncontrollable, and it was a very bleak point in my life; I had just experienced a gnarly breakup. I was kind of bereft of hope at that point, so I went into the bathroom, swallowed a lot of pills. I woke up in the emergency room puking my guts out because they had just given me Ipecac, which for those of you that don’t know, tastes like maple syrup but does not have the same effect. I slowly started to get a semblance of normalcy.

I had to call my grandma to have her come get me. My grandmother was the one person in my life I was closest to, and it’s so very clear that she was disappointed, because she knows what I’ve done. There’s a sense of crippling helplessness on her part, because we weren’t a family that talked, let’s put it that way. It’s a stoic kind of love and she didn’t know what to say or how to comfort me. So we got to the house, she laid me on the couch, and just went to a room to grieve in her own way.

@crackmagazine #Slipknot’s @Corey Taylor on hitting rock bottom and the live performance that helped him back up 👊 Shot by Dan Virchow #HeavyMetal #FaithNoMore #AltMusic #CoreyTaylor ♬ original sound – Crack Magazine

I laid on the couch and turned the TV on. It was the night of the MTV Video Music Awards, and all of a sudden, here comes Faith No More bounding on to the stage to play Epic. Watching Mike Patton not give one red fuck about anyone in that audience was life-changing. He was dressed the way I wanted to dress, his hair looked fucking rad, and him and the band sounded incredible.

I think the year was 1990, right before the mad alternative explosion. I just remember being transfixed by the show, and I thought, “No, I want to do more, I want to see more.” Immediately, I realised this is what I wanted to do; this is who I want to be. And from that second on, I went out of my way to try and start a band. This performance broadened my horizons in a way that I don’t think any other band or artist ever has. That was my first real moment realising that my journey was a little more creative.