Corey Taylor debuts his ‘gnarly’ new mask at Slipknot’s first gig since February 2020

Corey Taylor unveiled his “gnarly” new mask as Slipknot returned to the stage on Saturday night (September 4) with a headlining appearance at the Rocklahoma festival.

Largely based around the band’s first two albums, Slipknot and Iowa, the Iowan nontet’s 13-song set was their first performance since they stepped off the stage at Helsinki’s Hartwell Arena on February 24, 2020 at the end of a European arena run in support of 2019’s We Are Not Your Kind. 

One of the big talking points of the night in Oklahoma was the first public sighting of Corey Taylor’s new mask. Back in April, the singer told Jackass star Steve-O that his new mask was “gnarly” and declared that it would “fucking scare kids.”

“It’s so gnarly, dude,” he told Steve‑O. “It’s really uncomfortable; it freaked my wife out. She won’t look at it – and she loves crazy shit like that. She’s just like, ‘That’s really bothering me, you need to put that picture away!’”

Last week, Taylor assured Slipknot fans that they’re in for a treat, with the band’s forthcoming album set to feature “fucking savage heavy shit.”

“I actually like this [new album] better than the last one,” the singer said. “I loved the last one. It’s really, really good. There’s some darker, heavier shit on it. There’s some tunes that are actually really outside of the realm of what we’ve done before, but… it all works together. And there’s some fucking savage heavy shit, which I’m really stoked on. So it’s gonna be rad.”

“I was actually supposed to finish my vocals this week,” Taylor revealed. 
“I got screwed, man [by Covid-19]. I actually only have really three songs left to do. I’ve done all the other tracks because I’ve been doing ’em in between tours, just fucking hitting it.”

No release date has yet been set for what will be the band’s seventh studio album, and their final release for Roadrunner Records.