During an appearance at film and memorabilia convention Monster-Mania Con in Pennsylvania this weekend (November 11-13), Slipknot's Corey Taylor reflected on his relationship with bandmate Sid Wilson, revealing that at one point, the pair had serious issues with each other, which eventually turned into a physical fight.
When questioned by a fan as to whether he's ever had any big fights within his band, the frontman replies (as transcribed by Bob Suehs of Rock N Roll Experience): "Me and Sid got into a fistfight, and it's something that I'm not proud of. It was during a tough, tough time. He and I were at such parallel ends — polarized and parallel ends — of the universe for no reason other than we were just in different spots in our life.
"But for some reason we were just banging heads hard. And it wasn't good, to the point where when he would come into the room, I would leave, and if I came into the room, he would leave. This was about six years ago, so it's... We're good now, just so everybody knows."
Reflecting on the breaking point of the pair's quarrelsome relationship, he continues, "But it came to a head in Sweden. And he and I were both on a tear. Luckily, we kept this away from the fans. We had just had a meet-and-greet at the time. And a fan had given me a comic book that I had been looking for for a long time. So I was looking at it, and really appreciating it, and Sid being Sid, [he] came up and not knowing what was going on, he probably thought he was just joking, but came up and he just smacked it right out of my hand hard. He just nailed it. And in any other context, it would have been funny, like, 'Oh, you dick,' you know. But everything was amplified and all of the things you haven't said come rushing to the front of your mind and it becomes an issue. And that turned into us turning on each other and going at each other hard to the point where the band had to pull us apart. He was saying he was gonna go home and leave the tour. I wasn't going to apologize. It was bad, man."
When elaborating on how the two bandmates' repaired their damaged friendship, Taylor begins to choke up and get emotional, wiping tears away from his eyes. "When I had my spinal surgery, [ Sid] was the first one to call me and [pauses] he just said, he was, like, 'I'm so sorry,' and I said, 'I am so sorry.' And I said 'I love you.' He was, like, 'Are you okay?' And I was, like, 'I'm all right. It's all good.' And just like that, nothing mattered other than me and my brother."
He adds: "I'm really proud and I'm really glad that he and I could squash all that shit, because he's one of my favourite people in the world. Just the way he thinks, the way he creates, he's one of the best secret weapons that we have in Slipknot, because his musical mind is so creative. And plus, he schools us on every mask that he comes up with. I just look at him and go, 'You fucker! Goddamn it! Why did you think of that?'
"But it's stuff like that that endears you to the people that you've been in the trenches with, that you've spent half your life with on the road building this thing. I didn't expect it, and yet to this day, it means the world to me. So that's how you carry on. It's not about the fights; it's about coming back together. And that's the most important thing that we're ever gonna know. It's that shit; that's the stuff that you do."
Watch fan-filmed footage of the moment below:
Slipknot are currently in the midst of a South American tour in promotion of their new album The End So Far, released back in September as their final offering with Roadrunner Records. Their next show will take place on December 15 in Brazil, before they head to Europe next year.
