The original Slipknot singer has explained how Corey Taylor‘s vocals ended up on the Crowz demos while he was out of town, and why the loss no longer troubles him.
Anders Colsefni fronted Slipknot for the first two years of their existence and sang on the only record the band made before the masks and the platinum discs. He says he made his peace with what came after a long time ago.
Speaking to the podcast “The Phase Remains The Same“, the singer laid out the sequence that ended his run as Slipknot‘s frontman, and, for the first time in this level of detail, how the handover actually worked in the studio.
After submitting Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. to Roadrunner Records, the band were asked to show the label where they were heading next. The recordings that answered that question have circulated for decades under the umbrella title Crowz. Colsefni says the versions fans know, with two singers on them, were never a collaboration.
“Well, Crowz wasn’t me and Corey recording anything together at all. It was just after we’d submitted Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. to Roadrunner, they wanted to hear where we’re going next. They’re, like, ‘Okay, this is a really disassembled group of songs that don’t make any tangible sense together. Let’s hear what direction you’re going in.’ So the Crowz songs were us writing our next stuff. ‘Me Inside‘, ‘Prosthetics‘, ‘Heartache And A Pair Of Scissors‘, which turned into ‘Scissors‘, and a number of other songs, ‘Crowz‘, ‘Carve‘, those were our next offerings to Roadrunner. And the only reason why Corey‘s vocals are on any of them is because they brought him in while I was gone for a weekend with my family to visit my family in Minnesota, and had him come in and record vocals over mine or with mine. And when I got back, they sold it to me as, ‘Hey, this is what’s gonna work best. You’re gonna do background vocals, and he’s gonna do lead vocals, ’cause we need a lead man.’ And I agreed with that. They needed somebody out front with a mic that’s not beating on something else. And so, really, the Crowz songs were really me first, and then they brought Corey in to redo them, and then sold it to Roadrunner so that they could get their record deal. And I have no regrets about it,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
Taylor was recruited from fellow Des Moines band Stone Sour in 1997 as Slipknot reached for a more melodic vocal approach. Colsefni stayed on for a period handling backing vocals and percussion before departing in September 1997, with Greg Welts taking over his percussion duties. Roadrunner signed the band in late June 1998 to a seven-album deal worth $500,000, and three of the songs Colsefni names above, “Me Inside“, “Prosthetics” and “Scissors“, landed on the self-titled 1999 debut that broke Slipknot worldwide.
Colsefni is direct about why the change was made and what it cost him at the time.
He continued: “I’m a death metal singer by heart, and they had the opportunity to go on and do what they’re doing now because they were able to do some radio songs that nothing I would do was gonna get on a radio. I already knew that. But that wasn’t what I was intending myself. But the fact that that ended up happening, while it ended up crushing my spirit for a little while, I was able to realize that I’m just one of a long line of original singers that weren’t the ones that actually made the band famous. You can start with Korn, for one of them. And it took a little while, but I was fine with it. And I’m certainly fine with it now. I don’t have any regrets. I only did what I could do based on what was going on at the time. And if it took bringing in a different singer to get a local band that I was part of out and make such an impact on history, I’m totally down with that. I’m not living the rock and roll lifestyle like all of them. I still have to work 40 to 60 hours a week and do all that normal stuff and try to fit my music afterwards, but that’s what most people do. The majority of the musicians out there, that’s what they’re doing. It’s only a select few that actually get the golden cup in their hand.”
Colsefni was 24 when the handover happened. He says he kept the whole period at arm’s length for most of his adult life.
“It blows my mind that this album that I was on is such a big, big deal, even at this time. It still kind of blows my mind,” he added. “Thinking about it, it really was a demo because we were still all trying to figure out what our overall sound was gonna be. What we did on the Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. album is different than what we started moving into in The Crowz tracks [referring to a compilation of different post-Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. demo recordings with both Anders and Corey on vocals]. It started moving into a different feel and trying to be more along of the lines of something in a basket that could be understood easily. But I love all those songs, and I spent a lot of years not listening to any of them. I spent a couple decades just ignoring all of it and just trying to get through my own life and, and keep my own sanity about things. But just three years ago, everything got reawakened in me, and all of this stuff, at my age now, all makes a lot more sense than it might have done back when I was 24.”
Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat. was recorded at SR Audio in Des Moines between December 1995 and March 1996 and released on Halloween that year. It has never appeared on official streaming services, which is a large part of why original copies now change hands for four-figure sums.
On June 6, 2026, Colsefni marked 30 years since he last performed the material in Iowa with a one-night show at Wooly’s in Des Moines, backed by a group of veteran Midwest players he assembled under the name The Crowz.
