Corey Taylor on fans throwing things at performers: “Artists aren’t regarded as people anymore”
Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor has spoken out about the recent rise in objects being thrown at performers saying “it’s fucking ridiculous”.
In recent months several musicians have been hit by objects including include P!nk, who was left confused after a fan tossed their dead mother’s ashes onto her stage in London, Harry Styles, who was hit in the eye by a mysterious object thrown and Ava Max who was slapped in the face by someone who ran onto the stage. Further incidents also saw Drake targeted and, more recently, Cardi B.
But the most concerning incident occurred when Bebe Rexha was left needing stitches after a member of the crowd threw a phone at her face as she was on stage. It was later reported that the concertgoer who threw the device did so because he thought “it would be funny”.
Speaking about the recent trend, Taylor has now hit out at concert goers for doing so. “Oh, it’s fucking ridiculous. This is one of the problems with social media. Now artists aren’t regarded as people anymore. Even if they never were, they were still regarded as something that is flesh and bone. They were something to obsess about, but at least they were a person,” he told Loudwire.
“Now, because of the feeling of being even more removed from the human experience, now, you might as well just be a fucking soda machine or a phone booth for fuck sake. You’re an object, and you’re going to be treated as such.”
He continued: “The fact that people can’t understand how utterly dangerous it is to do shit like that, how utterly rude it is to treat people like that, how utterly incredible it is to think that you are so special that the show is just about you and not about anybody else around you …. the level of entitlement that is being brought out in people is fucking disgusting.”
Taylor also warned that it is destroying the boundaries between artists and those attending concerts.
He added: “Everybody wants to just talk about how wrong it is, but nobody wants to talk about why. It’s because nobody’s looking at anyone as a human being anymore. They’re not looking at the artist anymore. They’re not looking at each other anymore like that. And until we bring the human element back into it, there will be no boundaries. That’s what it is. It’s a destruction of boundaries.
“Now people see that they can be disregarded and they’re going to get a reaction and they’re going to have something that they can tweet about again, it’s just one giant sucking black hole that looks like a massive asshole just sucking the whole universe into it. It’s dumb.”
Meanwhile, Taylor recently announced an upcoming UK and European tour for his second solo album ‘CMFT2’.
Starting on November 8, the tour will kick off with a show at Leeds’ O2 Academy, followed by a gig in Wolverhampton the following day. From there, the dates will see Taylor make stops in cities including Manchester, Glasgow and London. You can purchase tickets here.
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Damian Jones
NME
