Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor has spoken about gun violence in the US in an interview with The Independent (opens in new tab) and says: “There are too many fucking guns in America.”
Taylor was speaking with the newspaper just two days before 22 people were killed and a further 24 injured in a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso. Just hours later, another nine people were were killed and 27 injured in a separate shooting in Dayton, Ohio.
In the interview, which was published over the weekend, Taylor adds: “I could walk outside right now and find a gun within minutes. There’s a very toxic gun culture here, it’s a cult and it worries me.”
The shootings and others in the past been blamed on music and video games – a point Taylor is quick to pick up on.
He says: “Music is an easy target because those in authority don’t understand it. There’s a complete lack of effort to try to understand it, and a lack of willingness to take any portion of the blame for these events.
“If you’re looking for a certain kind of rhetoric, whether it’s hating black people or gay people or whatever, there are thousands of sites with people posting about it.
“We’re seeing the repercussions of a failure to address that. They still want to blame the music, and it’s been happening since the 60s to ‘85 with Tipper Gore. Just get the fuck out of my face with that shit!”
Slipknot, who launched their new album We Are Not Your Kind last Friday, are currently on their Knotfest Roadshow with special guests Volbeat, Gojira and Behemoth.
