Cool dads Aaron Lewis of STAIND and front man of SLIPKNOT and STONE SOUR, COREY TAYLOR recently met up with ARTISTdirect.com in a very exclusive interview about the importance of giving back, thier kids, the artists that affected them and their careers, songwriting, bowling alley gigs and much more. The two have known each other for a while now but got together after Aaron started the ‘It Takes A Community‘ foundation when his daughter’s school closed because of budget cuts. Lewis started the foundation to keep the school open via donations and this year’s event (held in the US) includes a stellar line up, including COREY TAYLOR. Here’s a snippet from the interview:

Aaron, how did you assemble the lineup for the It Takes A Community concert this year? Did you always know that you wanted Corey on the bill?

Aaron Lewis: Corey and I did a New Year’s Eve show together in Florida this past year. It went very well, and I wanted to get him involved in this show.

Did you guys know each other before that show?

Aaron Lewis: Yeah, unfortunately [Laughs].

Corey Taylor: I’ve been putting up with Lewis’s ass for a long time [Laughs].

Aaron Lewis: He’s been talking shit about me in the press for 13 years now [Laughs].

Corey Taylor: That wasn’t you! That was somebody else!.

Aaron Lewis: We’ve really come up through it all together. It’s been pretty much the same timeframe and schedules—everything—for both of us.

Corey Taylor: We’ve done some radio shows together, but I don’t think we’ve ever done a whole tour together.

Aaron Lewis: Right, it’s always been festivals and stuff like that.

Corey Taylor: Plus, we’ve both had the opportunity to jam with one of our favorite bands, Alice In Chains, which is awesome!

Do you remember the first time you saw each other play?

Aaron Lewis: I don’t remember the show, but I saw Slipknot and I was completely blown away by the magnitude of aggression. It really redefined heavy aggressive music in a manner that had never been fucking witnessed before.

Corey Taylor: Wow, thanks…I remember we did a radio show with Staind. I remember being very jealous of how good you were—especially you [Laughs].The songs you were able to write and your ability to balance the heavy and melodic stuff really hit me. I’ll be honest, that was a lot of the reason I wanted to bring back Stone Sour. Here was this band that could do everything. I was like, “I can fucking do that and I want to!” In a lot of ways, Aaron and Staind inspired me to branch out and put Stone Sour back together and be able to write songs that have the heavy and melodic elements. I wasn’t contributing a lot musically to Slipknot. I knew I had songs I wanted to write. Staind kind of kicked me in the ass to think, “If you’re going to do it, do it now.” You inspired me to get my shit together and start writing music and playing like that again.

Aaron Lewis: Thank you brother!

Corey Taylor: I love you, man!

It’s a mammoth interview, which you can read in it’s entirety by CLICKING HERE. COREY’s book is a best seller here in the UK, with STAIND’s upcoming album in the pipeline and the single Not Again being released digitally on August the 14th – see HERE for details. If you missed COREY and the SLIPKNOT mob at this year’s Sonisphere Festival, the BBC have a tidy little video summing up the festival and including some footage of the mighty Knot, AT THIS LOCATION.