Corey Taylor Quotes

We all grew up with Black Sabbath. I mean, there's no secret there. Any of us, any of the members of any band I've ever been in, or anyone I've ever worked with.

So when I got to be about 13 or 14, I started listening - even though my parents music was way cool - to contemporary hard rock at that time, which was Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Ted Nugent and all that, and that's just where I came from.

Then as I got older, I always gravitated towards the hard stuff, Born To Be Wild, then Black Sabbath.

At 15, I started listening to hard rock and heavy metal, but I would say it was more hard rock because I liked Kiss, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, and eventually AC/DC.

I've always been very image prone, along the lines of bands like Black Sabbath and even Devo.

When I get 13 or 14 years old, I get crazy with rock music, like, like, deeply crazy. And one of my favorite bands at that moment was, for example, like - bands like Metallica or Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd and Santana, you know? And then I start to play metal, actually, when I was - at the age of 15.

I wasn't that wild about that. I told them basically if they were really going to want to bring back heavy metal to a program on MTV, then they are really going to have to get in touch with what real heavy metal is.

I was mostly influenced by bands like Black Sabbath and Judas Priest - Metallica's 'Kill 'Em All' was also a hell of an inspiration.

I was such a big Kiss and Van Halen fan, Yngwie Malmsteen, Racer X... all that stuff. I loved everybody.

I started to get turned on to a bunch of different bands when I was in middle school/high school. I was turned onto The Who and Black Sabbath and Yes, and stuff like that. But Rush I obsessed over. I wanted to have every album. I wanted to know storylines, read all the lyrics, learn the songs and everything.

My uncles listened to rock and roll like Led Zeppelin. We had MTV, so I saw Adam Ant and Boy George and Def Leppard.

Where I lived, on Long Island, you had the radio stations that always played Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath and AC/DC and all that. I grew up on all that stuff.

Motley Crue was actually my gateway to heavy metal.

My biggest inspiration was always early Iron Maiden, because it was the only band I knew for some time, and, as we all know, Iron Maiden is great.

I wasn't personally that familiar with the Classic Rock bands. That is where Jorn Viggo came in: he played me tons of that stuff - Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, plus a lot of bands with cool songs, riffs, vocals, etc. We really listened to tons of music.

'Mama I'm Coming Home' is one song that I think is incredible. One of his best songs ever written. Lemmy wrote the lyrics to that.

The first Maiden record I ever got was 'Piece of Mind,' and I only got it because I thought the artwork was cool, and everyone talked about Iron Maiden. But they weren't necessarily the most popular metal band in America for a 12-year-old kid when I discovered them.

I'm of the generation that discovered Aerosmith because of Run-DMC. They just looked crazy to me. They were the dudes in the Run-DMC video. That's who Aerosmith was.

I sort of found King Diamond in second grade, but I didn't become a devoted Satanist until a few years later, but that was very much part of my adolescence as well.

'Wages Of Sin' was the first metal album I ever bought, and it was love at first listen.

'Master of Reality' rules; it's one of my favorite records of all time. It has some of the most evil riffs on it - and some of the sexiest riffs as well.

I got introduced to Western music and it inspired me. One of my favourite bands is Pink Floyd.

I always dreamt of being in 'Kerrang.' That was my ambition. I read that religiously when I was into heavy metal. Then the jazz magazines took over.

I was talking to my dad about the stuff he grew up listening to, and 'Operation: Mindcrime' is a record that he had always talked about around the house. He always talked about it as the 'greatest concept album of all time.' One day, I started listening to it, and it just hit me. I was like, 'These songs are all hits. They're all huge songs.'

I do remember being a kid and hearing Van Halen. My dad was always playing Van Halen in the car.