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Corey Taylor singing with Stone Sour at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre, Chicago, Illinois on 21 August 2010. © Â Chris Schwegler ./Retna Ltd./Corbis

"I'm a very lucky guy," says Corey Taylor, known to millions as #8, Slipknot's freakishly masked frontman, and to a lesser extent (although that could change soon) the downright normal-looking, unmasked singer and main songwriter for Stone Sour. "I get to write music that I love, and lo and behold, people seem to really like it. I know how fortunate I am."

Along with fellow Slipknoter, guitarist Jim Root, Taylor and the rest of Stone Sour (guitarist Josh Rand, bassist Shawn Economaki and drummer Roy Mayorga) have just released their third and most accessible album yet, the Nick Raskulinecz-produced Audio Secrecy.

In stark contrast to the doomsday-ish horror metal of Slipknot, Audio Secrecy is a line drive aimed squarely at rock's mainstream. Full of mature, melodious and deeply personal songs that bury themselves in the thicket of your senses on first listen, it's already attracting fans who wouldn't know The Subliminal Verses from a hole in the ground.

Which, according to Taylor, is pretty much the idea. "A lot of people are mighty stoked about this record," he says, "and I'm over-the-moon excited about that. There's this feeling going around that we could break big to a whole new level.

"I'm already noticing that there's no age limit to the kinds of people who like this record. We've got some Slipknot fans, but we're getting a whole bunch of other people. It's a little scary, but it's also damn gratifying. After all, it's been a rough few years."

Taylor admits that he's still reeling from the death last May of Paul Gray, Slipknot's founding bassist. "It's like, there are no words," he says. "Losing Paul isn't something you just get over. I don't know if we ever will. He was very important to all of us." And with a recent divorce and re-marriage, Taylor says he's had enough emotional upheaval of late to fill "five more records. But, you know, that's what an artist does - you write about what's going on inside. More and more, I find that I can do that in a very therapeutic way."

In the following interview with MusicRadar, Corey Taylor discusses the writing and recording of Stone Sour's Audio Secrecy. He also talks about the current state of Slipknot and what the future holds for the Iowa-based superstars.

What would you say have been the differences between cutting Audio Secrecy and Stone Sour's last album, [2006's] Come What(ever) May?

"Forgetting all the personal stuff, no major changes. You know, some of us have been doing this band since before Slipknot, so we know each other real well, and we've grown up a lot. Nobody gets bent out of shape if there's constructive criticism or suggestions. We're all in this to make the best music possible.

"I think the biggest change has been the stuff that Roy has brought in. He wrote some fantastic material, extremely melodic yet very rhythmic. This is the first time he's been able to write for a band that he's been in, and man, his songs fit like a glove with everything else we've written. He's a supreme talent, and this record is going to show the world that."

Aside from the fact that there's less people involved, what's different about working with Slipknot versus a smaller outfit such as Stone Sour?

"Things just feel easier with Stone Sour. We're a real tight group, we get along real well, and we're such fans of each other's writing. We get real excited when somebody brings music in. As you can imagine, when there's not as many people in the mix, it's a lot easier to add things to the music, to bend the songs and shape them a bit and take them to higher places. Working with Slipknot…things are always kind of in place."

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