STONE SOUR // Why So Serious?

Today, Iowa hard rockers Stone Sour welcome their new album Hydrograd into the world. We’ve already been spoiled with a cornucopia of singles including Fabuless, Song #3 and Taipei Person / Allah Tea; all of which strongly hinted a straight up and down rock ‘n’ roll unholy spawn awaited us.

Prior to the release we spoke with vocalist and serial frontman Corey Taylor. Despite having released music for decades, Taylor seems exceptionally stoked for Hydrograd, or as he puts it: “I’m fucking ecstatic.”

“I’m really stoked. I’m so proud of it that it’s made me more anxious about it. I just want it out now. If I could leak my own album I would. I want the world to hear what I’ve been hearing, and feel what I’ve been feeling. I want the world to see what this whole journey has been. I want the world to hear what an awesome, free rock ‘n’ roll album it us.”

Those who have been paying attention to the band’s releases will notice a lot less fanfare surrounding Hydrograd compared with older sibling House of Gold & Bones. The latter a two-part, concept album accompanied by a graphic novel. This was a deliberate attempt to avoid distractions from the actual music, Corey says, “We wanted people to come along with us, we didn’t want to beat them over the head with it.”

“It’s one of the reasons why the album doesn’t have an overt message. It’s not supposed to be so serious, it’s one of those albums we want people to discover—it doesn’t have to have a message, it doesn’t have to have a big statement. It’s meant to be something you can put on and listen to anytime.”

“The House of Gold & Bones albums told a very different story artistically and visually. It was so much work. I’m very proud of it, but at the same time I wanted people to be able to just put the album on and listen to it. That’s specifically what this album for.“

As well as what they had touched on previously, Hydrograd was very much informed by the band’s future. “We’re very much a band who hates fucking repeating themselves.” Corey says, “We also know what we’ve done. This it’s like ‘what’s next?’ This was us going Ok, we know we’re going to record everything live, let’s find the tunes that let us wear our influences on our sleeves a little more.”

As a result, Hydrograd is a tapestry of punk, metal, rock and hard rock, “which are very different things” Corey says. The album sees his bandmates “just really musically trying to fill some of the blanks that we’ve already done and yet take it to a whole other level.”

“We’re very much a band who hates fucking repeating themselves.”
[COREY]

With a direct connection to the bands that influence Stone Sour, Hydrograd hold an illustrious accolade with the frontman, “To me, this is our definitive album in many ways.”

“Coming off such a big project like the House of Gold & Bones albums you kind of had to make a statement. By us just putting something together that, musically, was so exciting to us, that allowed us to take all the pressure away and be like ‘Fuck it, we’re just going to rock. It was as simple as that’.”

It’s clear Stone Sour went into the Hydrograd sessions with a clear idea of what they wanted to achieve with the release. With all these KPIs on the table, the band ran the risk of getting too caught in the process to enjoy the album, but as Corey explains, it was as much fun to make as it was to listen to.

First of all, we’re such dorks it’s not even funny,” Corey says. “We’re five of the biggest assholes on the planet and we enjoy each other’s company. It’s criminal that we got to make an album with our friends. We laughed every day. We were there early, we left late … There was not one bum out moment.”

“Even when we would run into an issue! We talked about it and we tried everything. That was the one rule: every idea gets explored for at least five minutes. Sometimes it was right, sometimes it was wrong but the overall feeling was we’re doing this together. We were so stoked about the songs that it took away a lot of the pressure that maybe we’d be feeling. It destroyed the stereotype that there has to be tension to make a great album.”

Corey has now elaborated on the album’s namesake, recalling a vagued-out moment in an Eastern European airport. Essentially, Corey saw a word that didn’t exist, and ran with it. Now, the word is being spoken by tens of thousands of people the world over. Something Corey describes as both “funny” and “weird”.

“I’m stoked that I was able to come up with something like that. It just feels cool. But I’ve done that in a lot of different ways, I’ve always been into plays on words—not sure about inventing them. I’m fairly sure that Hydrograd breaks into Water Town … and the funny thing is Water Town was an actual nickname for Area 51, which plays into America 51, which plays into my new book which is coming out in August. How fucking weird is that?

The album will hardly have time to collect dust before the band is in town bringing it to life for their Australian fans. Rarely are we placed so close to the album release date, instead waiting until the cycle end draws close, but this was all part of the master plan.

We knew that Australia, New Zealand, even the Asian rim kind of gets put off a little bit,” Corey says,  “We were like screw that. We’re doing everything the opposite way. We know how great the fans are and we didn’t want them to wait forever. You guys have supported us for so long we wanted to show our gratitude for that, and really make something special.

“We’ll come with the peak of the energy, and put together something badass and awesome.”

Hydrograd is out today, 30th June, via Warner Music.

Stone Sour Australian East Coast Tour

Friday, August 25 – Festival Hall, Melbourne

Saturday, August 26 – Hordern Pavilion, Sydney

Tuesday, August 29 – Eatons Hill Hotel, Brisbane *NEW SHOW*

Wednesday, August 30 – Eatons Hill Hotel, Brisbane – SOLD OUT

Tickets are available via Live Nation