R.I.P. Joey Jordison, founding Slipknot drummer

Joey Jordison in 2008 Photo: Lisa Maree Williams (Getty Images)

As reported by Variety and confirmed by a statement from his family, founding Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison has died. A cause of death was not given, but the statement says he died “peacefully in his sleep” yesterday. Jordison was 46.

Jordison was born in Iowa in 1975 and started playing drums and starting bands as a kid, eventually bringing him in contact with the local metal scene. The band that would eventually become Slipknot was formed from members of other Iowa-based metal bands, who would regularly swap and alternate members to jam and work out different kinds of metal sub-genres. Jordison, Paul Gray, and Shawn Crahan started planning their own heavy metal band in the mid-’90s, choosing the name “Slipknot” after a song they had written. Longtime members Corey Taylor, Craig Jones, Sid Wilson, Mick Thomson, and Chris Fehn joined within a few years, with Slipknot releasing a well-received self-titled debut and quickly developing a following thanks to extensive touring (including a run with Ozzfest) and it’s very metal-friendly brand of having all of the members wear masks.

While playing with Slipknot, Jordison also formed and played guitar for horror metal/punk band Murderdolls with singer Wednesday 13. Together, they released two albums before splitting up. Around that same time, Jordison left Slipknot—with the band initially saying that he had chosen to leave for personal reasons and Jordison saying he had actually been fired. Years later, he revealed that he had been diagnosed with transverse myelitis, a neurological condition that left him unable to use his legs and therefore unable to drum. Jordison was able to push through recovery and returned to working as professional musician, forming a new extreme metal band in 2016 called Sinsaenum with vocalist Attila Csihar and keyboard player Sean Zitarsky. Their most recent album, Repulsion For Humanity, came out in 2018.