Corey Taylor released CMFT on October 2, 2020, through Roadrunner Records. The Slipknot and Stone Sour frontman’s first solo album collected songs that stretched back to his teenage years, giving him an outlet for material he had been setting aside while working with both bands.
The first two singles made the range of that material clear. “Black Eyes Blue” put his melodic singing at the center of a guitar-driven rock song, while “CMFT Must Be Stopped” paired him with Tech N9ne and Kid Bookie for a rap-rock collaboration. Both arrived with the album announcement in July 2020.
Taylor had been preparing the project well before the pandemic changed his schedule. He told Rolling Stone Australia that he had started assembling demos, choosing songs and putting a band together roughly two years earlier. The plan was to record after Slipknot’s touring cycle, but the shutdown opened a window sooner. His musicians had already worked on demos together shortly before lockdown, so they could enter the studio with much of the preparation behind them. They recorded at Hideout Studio in Las Vegas with producer Jay Ruston, joined by guitarists Christian Martucci and Zach Throne, bassist Jason Christopher and drummer Dustin Robert. Taylor said the musicians drove into town and stayed with him, limiting outside contact during the sessions. They recorded 25 songs in roughly two and a half weeks, leaving considerably more material than the 13 tracks selected for CMFT.
Working together in the room was part of the appeal. In a November 2020 Classic Rock interview, Taylor connected the album’s upbeat character to the live recording approach and the musicians’ enjoyment of one another’s company. He wanted his songwriting to be the focus, with room for the different styles he loved. “I wanted to make an album that represents me,” he said.
The opening track, “HWY 666,” began as two verses in a notebook when Taylor was about 16, he told Metal Hammer. “Halfway Down” had been around for roughly 15 years by the time of the album, and he described it as a tribute to Bon Scott-era AC/DC. The solo sessions finally gave both songs a place on a record.
“Home” required him to develop a new skill before he could finish it the way he wanted. His first song about his wife, Alicia Dove, began on guitar. Taylor explained that the arrangement lacked the intimacy he was looking for, so he spent two and a half years teaching himself piano. In Classic Rock, he identified the Rolling Stones’ “I Got the Blues” as the first song he managed to play and sing at the same time.
He put that work onstage for the album’s release-day streaming event, Forum or Against ’Em, filmed at the empty Forum in Los Angeles. The set included all 13 CMFT songs alongside Slipknot and Stone Sour material and covers. During “Home,” Taylor sat at the piano and told viewers it was his first time playing the instrument live, as mxdwn reported in its concert review. He followed it with Stone Sour’s “Zzyzx Rd.,” using the skill he had learned for his solo debut to revisit a song from his other band.
