Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor told Noisecreep.com that the band will probably enter the studio in January to begin work on their third album, saying, "We've already got ten tunes fully written and another 15 we're kind of working on here and there. When I'm not on the road I'm still working, I never stop. And it's really good, everything we're doing is really, really good."

As for what the follow-up to 2006's Come What(ever) May will sound like, Taylor hinted, "I can say the material is darker than Come What(ever) May, but a lot more melodic, a lot stronger, a lot more mature, and the lyrics that are coming out of me are really good. I'm really excited."

Taylor has also said in recent interviews that he plans to work on his first solo album while recording the Stone Sour disc, but told us that Stone Sour will come first on his list: "Stone Sour's going to be a major priority. If I shot that band in the foot, it would defeat everything that we stood for, basically, and I don't want to see all that work go to waste. And I also feel that, with everything that's going on with that band right now, there's a lot of exciting, creative ideas coming in. There's so much potential now for that band."

Taylor has played some solo shows in the past year with an outfit he assembled called the Junk Beer Kidnap Band, and plans to put the material down on an album sometime next year.

Asked how he decides which songs fit which project, Taylor told Noisecreep, "I just kind of go by my gut. Sometimes the songs just make it easy . . . I just know what's a Slipknot song, what's a Stone Sour song, and what's a solo tune. And luckily I can kind of see that."

Taylor's main group, Slipknot, just wrapped up more than a year of touring behind its 2008 album, All Hope Is Gone, as well as a year-long celebration of the 10th anniversary of its major label debut.