In the world of metal, you’re not going to get too much news without hearing Corey Taylor’s opinion on it as well. Despite not seeing his face for over half of his career in Slipknot, the “Great Big Mouth” loves to speak his mind and has done so ever since the days of their debut, going after everyone from Limp Bizkit to Justin Bieber to Kanye West to Machine Gun Kelly and more over the years.
Enter the story of Corey Taylor versus Chad Kroeger. While their war of words in the press has escalated in the past 5 years, the origins of the conflict seems to stem back almost two decades.
Back in the early 2000’s, Taylor took umbrage that Roadrunner Records was putting more money behind Nickelback than Slipknot.
Expressing his frustration in an interview at the time, Corey said: “I’m glad they could use our money to make Nickelback happy. That’s a very bitter subject for me and if I see any of those fuckers, it’s going to be brutal.”
Fast forward a bunch of years later, and apparently, the sting of Taylor’s initial comments were still weighing heavy on the mind of Kroeger.
When promoting one of Nickelback’s records on a radio show a few years ago, Chad seemed to be a little buzzed and started to go off on Corey, going so far as to call out his other band Stone Sour, saying:
“I can’t think of another band that’s as diverse as we are. I can’t. And I don’t think that’s me talking from pride or ego. Yeah, because they’re [Stone Sour] trying to be Nickelback… They’re okay, but they’re not as good as Nickelback. They sound like Nickelback Lite.” He also challenged Taylor to see if he could write a hit song:
Taylor of course, wasn’t having any of it, responding later that “You can run your mouth all you want. All I know is I’ve been voted ‘Sexiest Dude In Rock’ wearing a mask. You’ve been voted ‘Ugliest Dude In Rock’ twice without one. Stick that up to your ass. Dude, curl up in bed with your Hello Kitty pillow and shut up.”
Corey seemed to have the last laugh in more ways than one though, saying after the fact that “I don’t want to talk about that dickhead. Why do I give a shit about what Chad Kroeger says? Chad Kroeger is to rock what KFC is to chicken. Is that wrong? I feel like I’m not wrong… I’ll still eat it but I’m not gonna feel good about it.”
In 2017, Taylor did say he attempted to draw a truce, telling Junkee: “I have been fucking trying to bury that for months now! It’s out of my hands, man! [Stone Sour] played in Sydney over the weekend, and people started a ‘Fuck Nickelback’ chant. I’m, like, ‘Fuck, I’m never gonna get away from this!'” He went on to say:
“It’s so fucking funny, especially when I’m seeing all of these tweets and shit from fucking Nickelback fans. I’m, like, ‘He’s the one who fucking started it! I didn’t say a fucking word!'”
The two musical titans haven’t appeared to have officially publicly buried the hatchet just yet, but for the time being, the war of words has appeared to have drawn a cease fire. Time will tell, though, as we know that Taylor seems to delight in some good old fashioned verbal sword fighting.
In the meantime, you can watch some of Taylor’s comments about Kroeger through the years below: