Seven Deadly Sins: Settling the Argument Between Born Bad and Damaged Good

by Corey Taylor

Overview

For the first time, Slipknot and Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor speaks directly to his fans and shares his worldview about life as a sinner. And Taylor knows how to sin. As a small-town hero in the early '90s, he threw himself into a fierce-drinking, drug-abusing, hard-loving, live-for-the moment life. Soon Taylor's music exploded, and he found himself rich, wanted, and on the road. His new and ever-more extreme lifestyle had an unexpected effect, however; for the first time, he began to actively think about what it meant to sin and whether sinning could—or should—be recast in a different light. Seven Deadly Sins is Taylor's personal story, but it's also a larger discussion of what it means to be seen as either a "good" person or a "bad" one. Yes, Corey Taylor has broken the law and hurt people, but, if sin is what makes us human, how wrong can it be?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306821226
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	07/03/2012
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	102,845
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.02(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

Corey Taylor is the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Deadly Sins, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven, and You're Making Me Hate You. Lead singer of rock bands Slipknot and Stone Sour, Taylor has earned 11 Platinum records, 43 Gold records, and a Grammy. A native of Iowa, he spends his time between there, Las Vegas, and his suitcase.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Fans of the heavy metal band Slipknot will eagerly devour its lead singer/songwriter Taylor's first book, which displays a prose that perfectly captures the supercharged energy, aggression, and outrageousness of Slipknot's music . . . Powerful and moving." —-Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

"Fans of the heavy metal band Slipknot will eagerly devour its lead singer/songwriter Taylor's first book, which displays a prose that perfectly captures the supercharged energy aggression, and outrageousness of Slipknot's music."
—Publishers Weekly

"[Taylor is] a literary genius of this day and age...Seven Deadly Sins is full of hilarious and thought provoking metaphors, innuendos and references that need to be highlighted just so you can show your friends...I can not recommend this book enough. This a MUST-READ book."
—Hollywood Music Magazine

"Dishy."
—Revolver

"An in-depth argument for the redefinition of sin, meshed with personal stories from[Taylor's] childhood and career."
—Metro New York and Metro Boston

"Corey Taylor is one of those people that just seems impossible good at whatever he chooses to pursue, and I have no doubt that this tome will reflect this fact."
—Seattle Weekly

"With his literary debut, Corey Taylor delivers a unique spin on the rock star biography, foregoing the strip-mined territory of the rock and roll tell-all and instead incorporating tales of his excesses into an articulate, thought-provoking examination of sin, morality and the search for purpose...He combines his own life experiences with an intriguing examination of the seven deadly sins...His style is intimate and conversational, as if you're the last two standing after a long night out and he's sharing his deepest beliefs over the last cigarette of the evening...Loads of humor, colorful analogies and of course, some riveting stories of life in the fast line."
—The Nervous Breakdown

"[Taylor] takes an f-bomb loaded crack at philosophizing on sin and an often astute look at modern society's folly."
—Des Moines Register

"In this series of essays, based around the titular sins, Taylor espouses upon the lessons learned while going from 'an absolute crazy person' into someone more in control and reflective—but not pulling any punches. he can be both self-effacing and self-aggrandizing, but he presents a more worthwhile and even illuminating 'argument' than most of his peers could manage."
—Oakland Press

"Corey is as matter-of-factly blunt as it gets. He is articulate enough to issue his point of view clearly and a good enough writer to render the stories of his life with great readability. I remember when I first saw a picture of him and his band mates in Slipknot. I read that they were from Iowa. I thought of all that flat space, the quintessentially American cultural dead zone they were ripping themselves out of and knew that they were very much for real. A lot of guys like Corey die young in America's abundant killing fields. They get shot in parking lots outside of bars, they overdose, hang themselves in basements or spend their lives in correctional facilities. Corey figured something out, figured out quite a few things, actually. He's an interesting guy, smart from hard lessons."
—Henry Rollins

"A compelling read, the book is a refreshing journey through an age-old concept and its definition. The warts-and-all approach he uses in his lyrical approach is used in Seven Deadly Sins to winning effect."
—AOL Noisecreep

From the Publisher

Fans of the heavy metal band Slipknot will eagerly devour its lead singer/songwriter Taylor's first book, which displays a prose that perfectly captures the supercharged energy, aggression, and outrageousness of Slipknot's music ("I was still kicking emotional crabs out of my soul crotch, reaching for the razor while rinsing out the Rid"). Starting with the premise that the seven deadly sins should be changed to "the seven petty sins," since the old ones are outdated and "barely PG-13," he ends by offering a list he calls the New Seven Deadly Sins," which include murder, child abuse, rape, and torture. In between, he barrels through his personal takes on positive aspects of the seven sins, such as his view of greed, "where one man's greed is another man's ambition" that "could cure cancer" even if that man only wants "the money that the patents will bring in." Overall, his hope is that people will "stop holding themselves back even slightly and start realizing potential they never dreamed existed," a hope that survived a harrowing childhood in a small Midwestern town—"a cornucopia of racism, malicious intent, and ignorant torrents of pain" that he describes in the book's most powerful and moving chapter. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Hang out with a pretentious, ranting metal rocker for 250-pages.

Taylor's band Slipknot developed a cult following during the late '90s and early 2000s, in part due to their over-the-top theatricality, and it's this sense of melodrama that permeates what is likely the worst rock autobiography in recent memory. Taylor, the band's lead singer, has lived the prototypical rock-star life: tough upbringing, rises from obscurity, drowns in alcohol, drugs and sex, hits rock bottom, gets sober, etc. Since the author's story is thin and not particularly interesting or original, he bulks up his memoir with pseudo-philosophical screeds about, as readers will guess from the clichéd title, the Seven Deadly Sins. Of sloth: "[it's] a simple case of strong people forgetting their nut sacks on the corner of the dresser before they leave their house in the morning." Along with its tastelessness, one of the other problems with the book is the artless prose—the sentences are often just randomly organized words with a period at the end. If Taylor was even the slightest bit appealing or likable as a narrator, readers may have cared about his eating tips (pizza with ranch dressing is one of his faves) or his take on film (Gordon Gekko is the coolest character name in cinema history), but he's such an arrogant blowhard that even when he tries to be charming, readers will want to smack him in the face with a copy of the Keith Richards memoir (an example of a well-executed rock autobiography). At times, Taylor's lack of self-awareness is breathtaking. In the section on lust, for instance, he writes, "If it were not for lust, half my stories would be boring wastes of breath." Unfortunately, dear author, allof your stories are boring wastes of breath.

Angry, self-aggrandizing, bilious and barely readable.

Kirkus Reviews