While many musicians are seeing COVID-19 and the lockdown it’s caused as a huge detriment to their careers and touring plans, Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor has obviously viewed it as a challenge. Not only did the singer perform a massive livestream show at The Forum in LA to celebrate the release of his debut solo album, he’s also now in the process of planning a socially-distanced tour for later this year.
Speaking to Arizona radio station 98 KPUD, Taylor was asked about his upcoming touring plans, and revealed that he has something in the works.
“[It will be a] short tour — probably about three weeks,” said Taylor, as transcribed by Metal Injection. “Some of the places we’ll be doing two nights in one city. It’ll be completely social-distanced, which means there’ll be pods with space around it, and the only people allowed in the pod are the people who came with that group. [There will be] temp checks at the door, and you have to have proof of a negative test within 48 hours [of the show], or you won’t be let in at all.
“So, I’m looking at ways to kind of get the cobs going — not only for myself but for people I care about. My crew needs work; my wife [Alicia Taylor, a professional dancer and a member of Cherry Bombs], her dancers, they wanna get back out there. So this is the test to see if we can start to kind of inch back towards reality with these in place — at least until the vaccine has had a chance to kind of do its thing.”
Speaking further about the idea of reintroducing shows to the public, Taylor said, “The only way this happens is if we learn to do it. We have to get on with it.
“President Biden was talking about the fact that it’s a national emergency that there’s been no school — real school — and a real plan in place, because there was really nobody running the boat for God knows how long, and that’s been a national emergency.
“And a lot of people feel like that about what they do for a living. I’m not gonna put what I do as important as education. However, what I do is responsible for a lot of people’s livelihoods. And the faster I can find a way to get us all back doing that in a way that doesn’t endanger people, the better. Instead of just kind of using it as a crutch and waiting for it to go away… Guess what? This may never go away.”
More about Corey Taylor’s solo tour as we hear it.
***
Words by Chris Krovatin
