July 14th is SpongeBob day, named for the iconic Nickelodeon series SpongeBob SquarePants. The show has been running since 1999, with its zany humor, quotable one-liners, and cast of characters who have broken through the cultural zeitgeist. They've even permeated the nu world, as seen in a 2011 solo performance by Corey Taylor, the angry uncle of the music world and frontman of Slipknot and Stone Sour.
After someone called out the SpongeBob theme as one would traditionally do for "Free Bird," Taylor decided to say fuck it all, fuck this world, etc, and play the song, and the crowd on hand responded in kind with a call-and-response singalong. Since then, Taylor has leaned into the bit, bringing it out for his "CMFT" solo shows, as seen in this clip from a 2016 show in London's KOKO Club:
Things came full circle for Taylor at a 2022 performance by Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob himself, and his band Tom Kenny & The Hi-Seas. Corey Taylor joined the group onstage for an impromptu rendition of the theme, and while the Venn diagram between nu metal fans and SpongeBob fans may not be a circle, it's probably closer than we realize, as evidenced by the clip below:
So why did one of the most pissed-off sounding frontmen in metal learn the song? In short, it was to connect with son Griffin, who would later go on to front his own band in Vended, via music. In a 2020 interview with Montreal Rocks, Taylor was asked about covering the song, and if a studio version would ever emerge, and he offered the following (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.net):
"Oh, man. The funny thing is it's almost like a double-edged sword these days. It drives me nuts that it's one of the most requested songs at like my acoustic shows, and yet the whole reason I learned that song was so me and my son could connect on music. So I have a hard time saying no to stuff like that, man. I've thrown it in the set like a handful of times, even when it wasn't there. I did a version of it for this online critic called the Nostalgia Critic. I keep wondering whether or not I should do like a full band version and just trip people out, you know? So, I don't know. You can never say never. But it's very funny. Let's put it that way."
Could this ever come to pass? Even if it doesn't, Taylor has been playing the song for a decade and a half at his solo shows, and it's a clip that seems to regularly make the rounds on social media reels. May this put to bed the idea that metal musicians are all scary and angry all the time.
Sometimes they're just goofy bastards using their powers for good.
