At this point sources for the story of how Corey Taylor got arrested at the Viper Room are scant, to say the least. It happened while the group was recording their career-defining 2001 album, “Iowa,” and they entered the studio in January that year. This would likely put Taylor at 27 years old — young enough to do things dumb enough to fit the story. In fact, the tale comes almost exclusively from Taylor himself almost 10 years later in 2011 article on Spin, and from a slightly modified version of the tale reported on Metal Hammer nine years later in 2020. In other words, we should take the whole tale with a big, big grain of salt.
As Taylor told it, the story began on an unnamed date and time at the Rainbow Bar & Grill a short walk down the street from the Viper Room. Taylor saw one of his “heroes there, a guy I just worshipped,” as recounted on Spin, who was “being really unpleasant.” So naturally, Taylor got trashed and started chucking shot glasses at the unknown hero in question. Taylor got kicked out of the venue, and the venue called his manager the next day to say that if he dropped by the restaurant and acted that way again he’d be “banned for life.” At the time Taylor told the tale he apparently hadn’t yet been banned from the premises.
