Slipknot will not perform at Knotfest 2017

"We've got some cool stuff coming down the pike that will happen later," Taylor adds, which includes likely appearances at this year's Knotfest festivals -- one already announced for Oct. 28 in Toluca, Mexico, and with a U.S. date, again paired with Ozzy Osbourne's OzzFest, expected to be announced on July 10. Taylor adds it will be Stone Sour, and not Slipknot, that he's playing with on those dates. "Nothing's being written, nothing's being done. Everybody's just doing their thing, which is fine," Taylor says of Slipknot's status. But he's confident the group's absence this year will help Knotfest in the long run. "I think in a lot of ways your festival has to live past you, or it's not gonna live at all," Taylor explains. "If it has to live and breathe on your presence, then it's not a festival, and it's not for anybody else but you. And for us, it's always been more about the art and the music and everybody... That's why we put so much work into it to begin with, is to really make sure that it was stable and it was strong and the foundation was there."