I’ve covered a lot of Slipknot’s feuds, including why they hated working with Rick Rubin, their feud
with Mushroom Head, the one involving Canadian superstars Nickelback and even Burger king,
but today I want to talk about one of their more recent feuds,
which was with Machine Gun Kelly. Today let’s take a look at their feud.
I have to admit that the first time I heard about Machine Gun Kelly, it was when he became the face
of John Varvatos in fall/winter of 2017. Keep in mind that this is a brand that prides itself
on having rock n’ roll in it’s DNA with Jimmy Page, Joe Perry, Ringo Starr and Gary Clark
Jr in their marketing campaigns over the years, Machine Gun Kelly started out as a
rapper and has now pivoted to rock music. Some claim his feud with rapper Eminem forced him
to pivot in his career. Eminem wasn’t the only person machine gun kelly feuded with as he has
now been feuding with Corey Taylor of Slipknot. Apparently, the whole Corey Taylor/Machine Gun
Kelly feud stems from a failed collaboration between the pair The feud escalated to involve
debates over the choice to wear comfortable shoes, what exactly constitutes rock music,
and even Britney Spears’ name inadvertently got dragged into the war of words.
The feud started with an interview that Machine Gun Kelly gave to Rock This With
Allison Hagendorf, where he criticized the current state of rock n’ roll and took a
swipe at rock bands at the time, saying, “I’ve gotta see some ‘f— you.’ I have to,”
“I want some attitude, dude. Like this is what I f—ing hate, this is what I will tell you. I
did Warped Tour and these motherf—ers would wear comfortable shoes onstage every day.
F— your f—ing Nike, New Balance comfy shoes because it makes you feel comfortable. Put on some
Doc Martens! Put on some Chucks; put on some Vans. Like, it’s not about you! It’s about the show. You
don’t look cool, man! I f—ing hate your feet, I hate your shoes. … You’re comfortable. Rock and
roll’s not comfortable — it’s uncomfortable. It’s a metaphor. Your shoes are a metaphor.”
Pretty soon after the interview was released, Machine Gun Kelly faced some backlash from some
people online, but he didn’t back down from his opinion. Instead, he issued a sarcastic
apology on Twitter, writing, “To the bands mad I said they wear ‘comfy shoes’ – I’m
very sorry that I can get you this upset just by talking about your little pointy new balances.
I wear pink so like…what do I know anyway?” By February of 2021, Slipknot’s Corey
Taylor would weigh in without naming names on Cutter’s Rockcast saying,
“I hate all new rock for the most part. I [hate] the artists who failed in one genre and decided
to go rock and I think he knows who he is.” Seven months would pass and there was media
silence. Then, in September of the same year, at Riot Fest in Chicago, both Slipknot and
Machine Gun Kelly were scheduled to make an appearance the same day at the same time slot,
just on different stages. It was during Machine Gun Kelly’s performance that he slammed Slipknot
on stage saying “You wanna know what I’m really happy that I’m not doing?” “Being 50 years old
wearing a f—ing weird mask on a f—ing stage, talking sh–. So anyway, what’s everyone’s favorite
candy? Reese’s Pieces?” he’d ask the crowd. Following the performance, Machine Gun Kelly
would take to Twitter to reveal what he interpreted to be the origin of the feud,
the song “Can’t Look Back” that was supposed to feature Corey Taylor on guest vocals.r.
Kelly would tweet, “Corey did a verse for a song on Tickets to my Downfall album,” “It was f—ing
terrible so I didn’t use it. he got mad about it, and talked sh– to a magazine about the same
album he was almost on…just admit he’s bitter.” Corey Taylor would address the situation the same
month, releasing emails and texts he exchanged with Machine Gun Kelly, and with musician Travis
Barker, who served as one of several producers on Kelly’s album. The messages Taylor released
showed the rapper appearing excited about the collaboration. However, things would hit a snag,
though, when the rapper gave Taylor some feedback on his performance. Taylor would write to Barker
“So I listened to the ideas and to be honest, I don’t think I’m the right guy for the track,”
“Nothing personal, I just think if this is what MGK is looking for, someone else is the guy to
do it. It’s ALL good, and I’m stoked for him- I hope you guys find the right fit for it.”
Seems like a totally courteous response. Machine Gun Kelly would respond to the
tweet writing, “Basically, your verse was really bad. Respectfully, I was just telling
you to rewrite it because it was really bad. Respectfully. But let’s do a Britney Spears
cover song together.” Hmm…’Toxic,’ perhaps?” Months would go by before we would hear anything
about the feud. Then, in September of last year, Machine Gun Kelly and Slipknot were
both booked for the Louder Than Life festival. It seemed like a strange booking to have included
Machine Gun Kelly, given that most of the acts on the bill were either hard rock or metal.
Kelly would taunt some of the audience members who didn’t respond kindly to his performance.
From there, things did get briefly physical when Machine Gun Kelly and fans came face-to-face in
the photo pit, with the rapper tussling and throwing a punch at someone before
security quickly whisked him away, an incident that was similar to his VMAs
dust-up with Conor McGregor a few weeks earlier: In response to the widely circulating news that
fans appeared to "relentlessly" boo Machine Gun Kelly, one Twitter user shared a video of fans
expressing support during the set. Feeling the headlines had misrepresented Kelly's time onstage,
their ire was aimed at Loudwire in the tweet, even though Loudwire had yet
to report on the incident at that time. Machine Gun Kelly retweeted this message
and wrote, "I don't know why the media lies in their narrative against me all the time
but all I saw was 20,000 amazing fans at the festival singing every word and 20 angry ones."
Conversely, Slipknot fans would get their revenge when multiple fan-shot videos appeared to indicate
there were far more than 20 disgruntled fans who were responsible for the resounding boos.
After some extended silence, Corey Taylor addressed the feud once again
during his Q&A session at ShipRocked 2022, and based on his statements, it seemed
like he wanted to lay the whole thing to rest. “For those of you that don’t know, MGK doesn’t
like me very much,” he said in response to a fan question. “And let me follow that up by saying
I don’t care. I won’t fill you in on the whole f—ing story because you can go online and look
it all up. However, I will say this: He maintains that I started it. The truth is he started it.”
“You don’t get to walk into a genre with the history,
with the work… The fact that this genre really doesn’t get the f—ing respect that
it deserves,” the rocker continued telling the crowd in fan-captured footage. “You don’t get
to walk in as some weird substitute teacher and pretend that you can tell us what to
wear — boots, shoes, house f—ing shoes, slippers. Why don’t you suck every inch of my d–k? You don’t
get to do that. And these are bands that maybe I don’t even f—ing know, but guess what? I f—ing
respect them because they get on f—ing stage and they f—ing give every f—ing thing they’ve got.”
Then as recently as March of this year Taylor would talk to Metro UK where he would say
"There's not a lot of diss tracks in rock - there's a handful but there's not nearly
as many per capita as there are with hip hop. There are entire albums devoted to that s**t in
hip hop but I don't have the time to do that many diss tracks for that many people that I
see as f*****g garbage artists," he elaborated Then literally as I was wrapping up this script
Machine Gun Kelly revealed in an interview with Audacy
that he is and i quote done with rock n’ roll telling the interviewer "I'm going to make a
rap album for myself," "For no other reason, no point to prove, no chip on my shoulder…
If I keep doing things to prove things to people, I'm going to, one, drive myself crazy and, two,
not make a good product. In 2020 Kelly album Tickets To My Downfall, followed by Mainstream
Sellout in March this year. Both albums reached No. 1 on the US Billboard 200 charts,
with Mainstream Sellout becoming one of the best-selling albums of 2022 so far.
That does it for today’s video, guys; thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like button
and subscribe, and I’ll see you again on Rock N’ Roll True Stories. Take care.