20 Best Corey Taylor Collaborations - Ranked

We can forgive you if you missed the Corey Taylor collaboration on Avatar’s Hunter Gatherer album. Taylor actually whistles key parts in the band’s song “A Secret Door.”

The connection came through producer Jay Ruston, who invited Taylor down to the studio after having recently worked on a Stone Sour record with Taylor. The singer offered to lend a hand, so singer Johannes Eckerstrom took him up on it.

During their chat, Eckerstrom recalled to Loudwire, "We were talking about being fans of South Park in there and one of the funniest things they did was Jay Leno is a guest star and gets to play a cat. 'Meow.' That’s brilliant. And Jerry Seinfeld’s agent was insulted and turned down the opportunity of him playing Turkey No. 2 in a way old Thanksgiving episode. So, we thought Corey 'Fucking' Taylor, yeah, he can whistle. And as a matter of fact, he did it better than we could have. I whistled on the demo and the high notes were too high for me. So it’s funny that it’s a thing that we also really actually needed."

But Taylor wasn’t just part of the studio process for the record for his whistling talents alone. Eckerstrom admitted he came in with song suggestions that helped tracks move in a different direction.

The name may not be familiar, but the list of players is pretty damn impressive. Corey Taylor, Randy Blythe, Dave Grohl, Neil Fallon, Tommy Victor, Jello Biafra, Matt Skiba and more all turned up on the 2014 album Teenage Time Killers, Greatest Hits, Vol. 1.

The band was the brainchild of Corrosion of Conformity drummer Reed Mullin, My Ruin guitarist Mick Murphy and producer John “Lou” Lousteau. Taylor was pulled in for one of the album’s better songs, “Egobomb,” a track that was a driving rocker that featured moments of punk pit-stirring heaviness.

Corey Taylor has shown a penchant for working with rappers, especially ones that have some affinity for heavy rock music. You can add Hyro the Hero to that list, as Taylor appearance on a reworked version of the song “Kids Against the Monsters.”

Hyro said, "Working with Corey Taylor was absolutely incredible. When I first heard him sing the words of the chorus we created, I got chills. ‘Kids Against the Monsters’ is about the problems we deal with from generation to generation. This generation is trying to find peace and fix past mistakes. When you press play and listen to my music, I want you to feel the positivity and love."

Taylor added in a press release, “It’s always nice to collaborate with up-and-coming talent, especially when you’re a genuine fan. I was stoked to hop on this song with Hyro The Hero. He embodies what a true artist is meant to do: make you feel something. This song is a great reminder that we’re stronger together when facing our demons.”

Social media can be used for good. Case in point, the ongoing collaborative relationship between rapper Kid Bookie and Corey Taylor. Back in 2019, the rapper called out Slipknot’s “Wait and Bleed” as being as iconic as System of a Down’s “Chop Suey” and a Twitter exchange followed. “I gotta work with you before both of us leave this earth,” said Bookie taking his chance, with Taylor replying, “Let’s talk my friend” and presumably taking it offline after that.

Not long after, Taylor appeared on the Kid Bookie songs “Stuck in My Ways” and “Game.” Of “Game” (heard below), Bookie said, “A song for you to scream ‘go fuck yourself to the face of all gatekeepers. Heavy culture is evolving and being part of the evolution with the teachers who taught us how to evolve is exactly where we need to be right now, an obnoxiously loud, violent piece of music to reflect the tide of the mood, not everything is pretty and sometimes mirroring that sonically is truth in audio. AWOOOH!”

Corey Taylor added, “This song is the perfect blend of smooth and violent. The tones are sick. Book and I are ready for all takers on it. Rated ‘C’ for ‘Crank The Fuck Out Of It!’”

Kid Bookie would later return the favor appearing on Corey Taylor’s “CMFT Must Be Stopped” from Taylor’s debut solo album.

Sometimes you need a sledgehammer! And that’s what Falling in Reverse got with Corey Taylor’s aggressive belting midway into their 2019 single “Drugs,” The electro-leaning rocker uses “Drugs” as an entry point to speak on the feeding of negativity in the world and what it’s doing to society as a whole.

Taylor arrives midway through the song to deliver its heaviest moment, belting more in Slipknot guttural vocals, “Everybody is dead from the neck up / Trying to keep their heads up, searching for a way out / This is a dying nation, so complacent / Spirits need awakened, what are we waiting for? Fuck Die! / Just die motherfucker, die motherfucker, die.”

Corey Taylor had high praise for Code Orange before ever jumping on a song with them. Back in 2017, the Slipknot vocalist revealed that he was turned onto the band by Anthrax’s Scott Ian, and that he was excited after watching them perform.

Speaking with Metal Hammer, Taylor commented, "Now they’re on the verge of something that’s so them. Even though you can hear their influences, you can tell it’s them, and there’s no other band like them. I’ve never seen a band with so much talent that’s democratically spread out. It’s inspiring.”

So, a year later, when Corey got the call he was more than happy to join them on a song. The band paired with Taylor on “The Hunt,” a driving, chaotic rocker from their The Hurt Will Go On EP.

If there’s a musician that has a hand in as many pies as Corey Taylor, it might be Travis Barker. The Blink-182 drummer started spreading his wings a bit with Give the Drummer Some, a 2011 solo record that paired him with some of his favorite musicians spanning a wide array of genres. Taylor turned up on a bonus track called “On My Own.”

“I just love music. The more I can be around it the better, so with my album it's no one genre," Barker told Spinner.com. “It goes from everything from punk rock to hip-hop to some electro stuff on there to a metal song with Corey Taylor from Slipknot. It's been really fun and interesting up 'til now.”

What better way to promote the cross pollination of two iconic festivals than to have than to share a live performance of the leader of one festival covering the music of the leader of the other festival. That’s what happened back in 2016 when Corey Taylor hopped onstage at the Palladium in Los Angeles with members of Zakk Sabbath to perform Black Sabbath’s “Faeries Wear Boots.”

The performance was later released as a single, providing great promotion for the inaugural “Ozzfest Meets Knotfest” outing in San Bernardino, California. Taylor was backed on the performance by Zakk Wylde, Blasko and Joey Castillo.

Dave Grohl’s Sound City documentary not only showcased some of the amazing talent that recorded albums at the legendary Los Angeles area studio, but it also yielded a pretty interesting soundtrack. Among those turning up on the record was Corey Taylor, who worked with a band of Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen, Kyuss’ Scott Reeder and Grohl himself on a song called “From Can to Can’t.”

Taylor revealed to Arizona station KUPD, "[Dave Grohl] sent an email to me, basically explaining this huge project he was doing – the documentary around the infamous board that he got from Sound City, which so many people have recorded on – myself included – we did Iowa on that board…He bought it, and I loved the idea that he was like 'how many albums have been made on this board?"

He adds, "[Grohl] wrote the song, he sent me a demo of it and I was like 'this is fantastic' and I just basically wrote the first thing that came off the top of my head. He didn't even hear it until I went down there to record it. And I laid it down and he was just like 'wow.' Because we did it old school – two inch tape, take after take after take. And with that board, man. It just sings, it was really, really cool."

There’s a lot of crossover between Corey Taylor and the over-the-top metallers Steel Panther. And Taylor was on Steel Panther quite early in their career, agreeing to hop on to the song “Death to All But Metal,” the first song appearing on their 2009 Feel the Steel debut album. He also lent backing vocals to “Asian Hooker” and “Eyes of a Panther” that also appeared on their debut album.

His collaborations with Steel Panther have also included pairing up on a cover of Dio’s “Rainbow in the Dark” and appearing on a version of “Steel Panther Fucked My Girlfriend” that the group claimed to The Crash Report “sounds like the fucking Eagles.” And Steel Panther returned the favor appearing in the video for Taylor’s “Samantha’s Gone.”

The group has poked fun at Taylor’s propensity for collaborations, with guitarist Satchel once proclaiming while promoting their “Rainbow in the Dark” collab, “I know that Corey Taylor sings in all kinds of bands. He’s a musical whore. There’s really nothing he won’t do for $50, including this.”

When Nergal decided to break out of Behemoth to pursue a different type of music, he pulled in a number of name guests as well. One of those all-star collaborations for Me and That Man was on the song “How Come?” that featured Corey Taylor, then Volbeat guitarist Rob Caggiano and Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds along with Sasha Booie.

In our 2020 interview with Nergal on Loudwire about the project, Nergal stated, “With Corey Taylor, just the fact that he’s taking part in a niche project like this is mind-blowing to me; he’s such a busy guy, but he really took his time with this and contributed some awesome parts — working with him has made my career, to be honest.”

The song appears on Me and That Man’s New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1 album.

Of all the collaborations included in this list, Corey Taylor’s appearance on “My Underworld” from Tonight Alive feels the most like a true duet. The singer is paired with Tonight Alive’s Jenna McDougall on the more melodic track.

“Corey is an unreal man. He was so generous of heart and time and energy and kindness through this whole process. It was seamless. I reached out to him and he wrote back saying he’d love to be on the record,” said McDougall to New Noise Magazine. “It was a cool experience and everything you hear is totally his own doing. The song was written and the lyrics and the melodies in place and he rewrote his part and put his spin on the melodies. He came up with the call and response in the bridge. I think his voice sounds unreal and wonderful.”

Corey Taylor is down for the cause! Taylor was one of several name talents (Joe Elliott, Ivan Moody, Slash and more) appearing on Sixx: A.M.’s 2020 all-star benefit single “Maybe It’s Time.”

Nikki Sixx brought everyone together with the idea of releasing the song to raise royalties for the Global Recovery Initiatives Foundation to address the opioid epidemic. The song also got an extra push, tied to the film Sno Babies that itself dealt with drug addiction.

"It’s a real issue… It’s affecting young people more and more every year, so it’s very, very important for all of us to pitch in and do our part, especially some of us who have lived through it... those of us who have survived ... it’s the least I can do," said Corey Taylor in a statement accompanying the announcement of the song

It had to happen at some point. Korn and Slipknot had been two of the biggest acts of the 21st Century, and in 2016 their paths crossed on the song “A Different World” from Korn’s The Serenity of Suffering album.

Singer Jonathan Davis revealed, “We were trying to figure out who we wanted to collaborate with, and I’m like, ‘You know, that’s the one, that’s the guy,' And I texted him, I’m like, ‘Do you want to be on a new Korn track?’ He’s all, ‘Hell yeah! When and where, what do I do?’ So he did great on the song. I already did my parts, I’m like, ‘Do what you do, man.’ And I like the way he did it, the approach: he starts creeping in underneath the song, you can start slowly hearing his voice under mine, and it crescendos up into the middle part where he sings, and then it’s just full-on at the end, so the song came out great.”

Guitarist Munky later revealed to Full Metal Jackie, “Nick Raskulinecz, the guy that produced the record. He basically picked up the phone and [asked Corey], 'Hey, would you wanna sing on Korn's record?' And Corey was, like, 'Yeah, man.' He was really into it. So he came down… I think he listened to, like, three tracks, and he narrowed it down to this one song that he was feeling. And it came out killer; I'm really happy with it. I can't wait for people to hear it. 'Cause it definitely has one of those… it has a quiet moment in the verses, and then it has these big choruses, and then the middle part just opens up and it gets really heavy."

Roadrunner United is the type of project we may never see again, with the label pulling together its roster of bands at the time and forming a variety of supergroups tasked with creating new music. Taylor, the Slipknot vocalist, was paired up with Machine Head’s Robb Flynn, Still Remains’ Jordan Whelan, Fear Factory’s Christian Olde Wolbers and Chimaira’s Andols Herrick on “The Rich Man,” a darkly moody and bass-heavy track.

When Roadrunner took it a step further, putting together a concert to showcase the all-star lineups and music from the project, scheduling forced a few lineup changes. Below, you can see Slipknot’s Paul Gray and Annihilator’s Jeff Waters stepping in for Flynn and Wolbers on the live version of the song in 2005 that was later released.

Not every Corey Taylor collaboration is with a huge band. In fact, Taylor’s love for upstarts The Dead Deads led to him making a guest appearance on their melodically melancholy “Murder Ballad II.”

Taylor and guitarist Meta Dead co-wrote the song, then the singer hopped on the track from the band’s 2021 album Tell Your Girls It’s Alright to lend a helping hand.

“My little brother was teasing me the other day about the juxtaposition of our poorly-attended first gig playing a benefit show of Dead Milkmen covers to now releasing a duet with Corey Taylor,” says guitarist Meta Dead. “I know most people’s question is probably going to be: How did this happen? And the answer is: CMFT is nice as hell, and likes the kind of songs we write.”

Bassist Daisy Dead added in a press release statement, “It went from, ‘Yay, we’re on tour with Stone Sour’ to ‘Yay, Corey might want to co-write for the new record’ to ‘Yay, here’s a single and a video with CMFT,’ and it all felt pretty natural and also a bit surreal. I mean, our band dressed as Slipknot for Halloween once, so, yeah! It’s wild.”

Taylor himself spoke about the track and working with the band during an interview with Matt Pinfield, commenting, “I got turned on to (The Dead Deads) by their album For Your Obliteration… which is such a great album and is some of the best songwriting I’ve heard in years. We had the chance to have them on some Stone Sour shows, and me and Tish hit it off as songwriters. She said, ‘I’ve got this idea for a follow-up to ‘Murder Ballad,’ which was essentially ‘Murder Ballad II.’ Through video, we went back and forth, building this song and working it out. It became something really really cool.”

Though their time in the music world barely crossed paths, Corey Taylor was on the radar of Pantera legends Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul, who recruited the Slipknot vocalist for a song on their Damageplan album titled “Fuck You.”

Speaking with Rock Hard Megazine, Taylor recalled, “I got this crazy call from Dime who was like, ‘Dude we need you to sing on this track man and blow the fucker up.’ So they sent me the track, I went into the studio, fucking nailed it down and killed it. It was bad ass.”

Vinnie Paul recalled, “I remember when we got it back we were just, ‘Wow! Wow!’ Are you fucking serious?!’ Especially the bridge part. That was my favorite part and he fucking nailed it. It was awesome to have him be part of that record.”

Taylor noted, “I remember listening to it back once the album was completely done and I was like, “Fuck yeah.” And of course, who are you going to come to for a song called “Fuck You.” You’re talking to the man who has basically made it an art form.”

This remains one of the highest charting Corey Taylor collaborations, with the singer pairing up with instrumental rockers Apocalyptica on one of their first vocal collaboration songs.

“I’m Not Jesus” was a heavy song dealing with themes of child abuse and the church. The track climbed to No. 6 on the Mainstream Rock chart back in 2007.

Speaking with MusicWeek, Taylor recalled of the collaboration, “I was at a point in my career where things were going pretty well. The first time I ever sang someone else’s lyrics was Apocalyptica when I did ‘I’m Not Jesus,’ and they even offered me to re-write stuff and I was like, ‘You know what, I know the background of what this song is about because it’s about child abuse,’ something that I know first-hand about from when I was growing up. So, I was like, ‘You know what, I respect the lyrics, I respect what’s going on, and it’s really good, so there’s no need for me to change anything.’”

Corey Taylor personally shouted out Tech N9ne among his favorite collaborations during a talk with Loudwire, noting, “The songs that I did wit Tech N9ne were amazing. Just the fact that he was down to let me go off and do my thing. ‘Wither’ is just such a great song. People always get surprised when they realize how old that song is now. That thing came out like 10 years ago or something like that.”

As SongFacts notes, Taylor once said of their pairing, "Working with Tech was a no-brainer. When I heard the music for 'Wither', I knew the two of us would make something dark and crazy. The slow burn in the music is awesome. His band is great and the performance is incredible."

The love goes both ways with Tech N9ne being a longtime Slipknot fan. "This collaboration is a total dream come true, because I've been a maggot (what Slipknot affectionately call their fans) since '99,” he proclaimed. "This song we did together is such a dynamic roller coaster ride! It starts off calm and cool and then f---in' gets loud and extremely mean and crazy! It's perfect!"

Taylor later appeared on Tech N9ne’s song “Bitch Slap” and Tech N9ne returned the favor by appearing on Taylor’s solo album single “CMFT Must Be Stopped”

In a recent Loudwire interview, Corey Taylor named this as one of his more rewarding collaborations of his career. “I’m pretty proud of a lot of stuff. One of the first collaborations I ever did was with Max [Cavalera] on Soulfly II when we did ‘Jumpdafuckup’ together. The fact that he was asking to do a tune with me blew my mind.”

“We were still very young,” recalled Taylor. “In fact, the first album, we were still touring on that. They wanted me to come down to the studio and I basically wrote what I did on the road leading up to that recording session in Phoenix. I met him that day. We had a blast together and we just fucking banged it out and we just looked at each other like giddy fucking little kids going, ‘Fuck, this is so fucking cool.’

“To me, it’s still one of the favorite things I ever did cause that song, it fucking pounds dude,” said Taylor. “Especially the last half of it is just so in your face. It’s some of my favorite flow that I ever wrote. Just all of it and all the crazy shit that we were able to do together. And Max is just such a great dude that the handful of times that we’ve had to do it live, it was just so much fun, man.