Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, actor, and author, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour. Taylor formed Stone Sour in 1992, playing in the Des Moines area, and working on a demo. He joined Slipknot in 1997 to replace their original vocalist and has subsequently released five studio albums with them. After the first two Slipknot albums went Platinum, Taylor revived Stone Sour to record an album and tour in 2002.

Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of Irish, German and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. In 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work.  Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an "old dilapidated farmhouse" which on days in late autumn would "look like Black Sabbath album covers". By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned.  In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually assaulted at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often.

When was he born?
on December 8, 1973