Slipknot is one of the biggest metal bands in the world, but frontman Corey Taylor says they don’t make a lot of money. In a recent appearance on the FeedbackDef podcast, Taylor revealed that the band splits their earnings equally and that they are all paid commensurate with what they are worth. He also said that they are not extravagant or rich by any stretch of the means.
“Honestly, in a weird way, we don’t make a lot of money. I mean, we make enough to live, obviously, and we can live comfortably, but we’ve never been offered massive deals. There’s a lot of us in the band, and there’s a whole crew that we have to pay. There’s the production that we have to pay for. There’s all of this shit that we need to pay for. So at the end of the day, we are paid pretty much commensurate with what we are worth. We’ve never been even close to the big paydays that sports people get, actors — all of that shit. So in a weird way, we’re kind of — if you adjust for inflation, we’re upper middle class, basically. We’re not extravagant. We’re not rich by any stretch of the means, but we do okay. I can take care of my family. Their educations are good to go. I have insurance for all of my kids. And really, that’s it.”
Taylor also added that the band is not palatable for a mass audience and that they appeal to a more niche genre: “Maybe it’s because we’re so reactionary. Maybe it’s because we are not palatable for a mass audience. We appeal to our genre and people kind of on the outskirts of our genre, but that’s it. We appeal to a lot of them, so we do okay, but we’re never gonna see fucking Taylor Swift money, shit like that. So the misconception that all rock stars are just rolling in it, that’s not true. There’s a reason why we have to tour as much as we do, because that’s the only way we can actually pay our fucking bills.”
