Corey Taylor (#8 of Slipknot, Stone Sour) appeared as a guest speaker last night (Wednesday, June 8) at the Oxford University.

Corey Taylor addressed the 120 or so students in the grand hall of Oxford Union, Oxford University’s famous debating society.

Corey’s message for the crowd was to forget about following their dreams. Identify what you are good at, and pursue that instead, he said, according to The New York Times.

“Too many people chase dreams that they don’t understand,” he said. “Too many people try to go for things that they’d like to do but they’re not realistic enough to know they don’t have the talent.”

When asked why when he so espouses authenticity, he belongs to a band (Slipknot) whose members all wear grotesque and identity-obscuring masks on stage, Taylor said it had to do with his chaotic and troubled early years in Iowa.

“When you put that mask on you go places you would never imagine,” Taylor said, according to The New York Times. “It comes from a spot that’s uncomfortable and really dark.” He added: “The mask was a way to visualize everything I was feeling in heart and my gut — all that pain I was holding on to. I didn’t have the worst childhood but I didn’t have the best, and when you grow up like that you have certain limitations invariably stuck inside you. Slipknot was a way to work it out.”

A video interview with #8 conducted immediately before he spoke at the Oxford University can be seen below.

Source: Blabbermouth