Stone Sour originally existed between 1992 and 1997, at which point Corey Taylor and Jim Root decided to focus their energies on Slipknot. Stone Sour will eventually reunite in 2000 and finally start their career as a recording band with their 2002 self-titled.
Despite being nominated for three Grammys over the years and having some fairly big songs, Stone Sour never really got to Slipknot levels of fame. In an interview with Metal Hammer, Taylor said he always knew that Stone Sour would be the smaller of his two bands, but credited the group as a good way for him to learn better songwriting.
"I knew that at the time I didn't write music as good as the guys in Slipknot, I wasn't confident in my abilities, I contributed [very little]," said Taylor. "Reforming Stone Sour meant I got better as a songwriter and was able to contribute music to Slipknot. But it came from a purely selfish place of just wanting to feel like I could do it.”
He continued: "I knew we would never have the same impact. You have one chance at grabbing lightning, and Slipknot was that chance. When I was young, maybe I wanted to have more credit [for Slipknot] from an ego standpoint. It's only in retrospect that you can look at it and go, 'I was actually a very big part of it.'"
Stone Sour has been on a hiatus ever since 2020 and the chances of a reunion don't seem great. In a recent interview, Taylor said "It's not that I don't miss some of the guys in Stone Sour; I still talk to them. But at this stage, I refuse to compromise my vision and my art because of certain people's hindrances. And that's all I'll say."
Taylor reiterated those feelings in the Metal Hammer interview, saying "I'm in no hurry to do it again, let's put it that way. Why? The reasons are nobody's business"
