Slipknot frontman plotting solo album

DETROIT (Billboard) - As Slipknot prepares to hit the road later this month, the frontman for the masked Iowa metal band is making plans to record his first solo album.

"I know I have this album that I need to make," Corey Taylor tells Billboard.com, "and I'm the kind of guy that if I can't get that done then it's going to hold me back from all this other stuff I want to do. I just know I've got to make it or I can't branch out."

Taylor, who keeps busy on the side with the band Stone Sour, describes the solo material as a cross between the Foo Fighters and Social Distortion "with some Johnny Cash mixed in."

But until September, when Slipknot is scheduled to finish touring, Taylor says he's seriously committed to the nine-piece group, which released its fourth album last year, "All Hope Is Gone."

The arena trek kicks off on January 23 in Saint Paul, MN., and the group plans to tour North America and the European festival circuit with staging that Taylor says is "getting away from the pyro and way more visual, video-oriented this time."

Reuters/Billboard.