UPDATED 9/21, 1:59 p.m. ET: Corey Taylor has responded to MGK, who followed up his Slipknot jokes at Riot Fest with tweets further detailing the inspiration behind them. To hear MGK tell it, Taylor contributed a would-reverse to his and Travis Barker’s Tickets to My Downfall album but the verse was rejected for—in his words—being “fucking terrible.”
Taylor has since shared screenshots alleging to show conversations he had with Barker. In one screenshot, Taylor is seen responding to Barker’s message about song-tweak suggestions from MGK, telling the blink-182 drummer and producer that he is not “the right guy for the track.”
See original story below.
Machine Gun Kelly had some mid-performance shade for Slipknot at this weekend’s Riot Fest in Chicago.
On Sunday night, festival attendees were given a scheduling-spurred choice of catching MGK or the Corey Taylor-fronted metal band. The two acts were among those whose scheduled set times overlapped with others, which—of course—is simply part of the experience for any festival. Both started at 8:30 local time, with Slipknot slated for 75-minute set while MGK’s slot was an hour.
Between songs, as seen in a clip that’s since gone viral, MGK dabbled in ageism when telling his fans what he was “really happy” to not be doing.
“Hey, you wanna know what I’m really happy that I’m not doing? Being 50 years old wearing a fucking weird mask on a stage, talking shit,” MGK, whose second album with Travis Barker is expected to arrive soon, said. “So anyway, what’s everyone’s favorite candy? Reese’s Pieces?”
A report from the Chicago Sun-Times adds that MGK also took another name-free shot, this time ahead of an “All I Know” run-through.
“Turn the lights up,” he reportedly said. “Let me see who chose to be here instead of with all the old weird dudes with masks.”
MGK later took to Twitter to write, “corey did a verse for a song on tickets to my downfall album, it was fucking terrible, so i didn’t use it. he got mad about it, and talked shit to a magazine about the same album he was almost on. yalls stories are all off. just admit he’s bitter.”
While the comments from the Tickets to My Downfall artist were interpreted by some as having been a wholly out-of-nowhere occurrence, previous comments from Taylor—which also didn’t feature the practice of naming names—could offer some insight here.
Back in February amid promo for his 2020 solo album CMFT, the Slipknot vocalist said he hates “all new rock for the most part,” though he also referred to himself as an “old fogey dude” who dislikes everything.
“I [hate] the artists who failed in one genre and decided to go rock—and I think he knows who he is,” Taylor said around 27 minutes into the Cutter’s Rockcast episode below. “But that’s another story. I’m the worst and I hate everything. People are used to that with me, though. But I have also encouraged a younger generation to think past the boundaries of what we listen to.”
Complex has reached out to reps for both MGK and Corey Taylor for comment and will update this post accordingly.
In a perfect world, i.e. the one we clearly do not live in, all of this would eventually lead to an MGK x Slipknot world tour in which each act covers selections from the other’s catalog.
