Remembering Joey Jordison
On July 26 2021 the music world lost a talented artist who performed world-class heavy metal and inspired countless musicians worldwide.
From a young age I was drawn into the music of Slipknot. Not only did I fall in love with the aggressive sound but the common message behind a lot of their songs — Be yourself, Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks and don’t let anyone tell you that you can never achieve anything.
Joey Jordison will be forever remembered as the iconic masked drummer of the band Slipknot, But he was also one of the most prolific and influential heavy-music songwriters of his generation.
To Joey, music was life. This was not just apparent because of his role as both the primary drummer and one of the founding members of one of the most influential bands in modern rock and heavy metal history. The devoted musician was also skilled with the guitar and performed in several other bands throughout his career.
But music was even more than that to him because it had been an essential part of his entire being, as if it was infused in his DNA.
Jordison’s mother, Jackie, reminisced about how even at the age of three years old, he was drumming. She told Rolling Stone, “He’d just sit on the floor and bang on pots and pans. I thought he had a heck of a beat for a little, tiny kid.”
Music was always there for Joey, from helping him survive high school to healing after being heartbroken, or forming close bonds of friendship. And even after overcoming great adversity later in life, he continued to do what he loved and made music until the end.
Jordison despised school right from the beginning.
From when he was first made to attend preschool around 1979, The drummer struggled to make friends. Music was how he got through it all, with his headphones on as much as possible during the day. At home, Jordison learned to play both the guitar and the drums, starting his first bands while still in grade school.
When Jordison reached Waukee High, his school life did not improve much at all. he was picked on for being the shortest guy there at 5 foot 5 inches tall. While he managed not to get beaten up, He did receive a lot of insults. Plus, most of his fellow students were only into sports, so the drummer was left feeling like an outcast with no one to talk to about the metal music he loved.
In an interview Joey joked about the situation and said, “In school everyone was taller than me. I got s*** for many years. No chicks would go out with me! I needed Gene Simmons’ seven-inch heels.”
Joeys parents divorce caused him to mature very early.
After his parents divorced, Joey Jordison’s father moved out, so the kids only got to see their dad on the weekends. For the rest of the week, the drummer had to help his mother take care of his two younger sisters at home, especially after school when she was still at work.
Throughout the experience, Jordison gained deep respect for his mother, who got up every day, made sure the kids went to school, went to work, then came home and made dinner, only to repeat the whole process again on only a few hours of sleep.
Joey said about his mom that she taught him really good morals and did raise him really well.
A major driving force while in Slipknot was anger, Brought on by those who tried to keep them down.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Joey Jordison said very bluntly, “I’m in this band because of everything that I hate about everything in the world.” The drummer would go into more detail to explain where a lot of that anger and hatred originated from, Basically it was due to the criticism and insults he and the rest of the band received as they tried to make it in the relatively small city of Des Moines, Iowa.
At times, It seemed like many people in the predominantly conservative town were actively discouraging anyone to succeed and get out, especially aspiring metal stars.
Jordison explained, “When someone constantly tells you to get a real job and quit spending your money on new drum pedals, all that circles around in your head. There’s a constant hate in me: it never leaves and it comes out every day. We were degraded for so long and had fingers pointed at us. When you get that middle finger as much as we did, you just want to throw it back in their faces.”
Needless to say, the drummer succeeded in doing so after the massive success of Slipknot.
Recording the album Iowa was like a prison.
The recording of their second album, ‘Iowa’ was rough for all the members of Slipknot and each one of them has been vocal about it, including Joey Jordison. The drummer equated the experience to being in a prison since they were all trapped together until it was finished. the drummer said that everyone was also highly intoxicated throughout the recording as well, which, ultimately, “was a very dark time for the band” that was something he was not fond of talking about.
The band was taken advantage of by their manager.
In 2002, the members of Slipknot were in one of the worst stages of their careers, collectively. Their problems were so severe, both financially and with their personal relationships, that the band went on a brief hiatus. Especially on the money side of things, Slipknot’s issues stemmed from poor management.
Lead singer of Slipknot, Corey Taylor, has said that their manager at the time, Steve Richards, deviously trapped each member through legal contracts and pitted them against each other, while leaving the band with a ton of debt on top of it all. The band also had to fight to keep the rights to the Slipknot brand and were fortunately successful in that battle. But they did have to tour excessively for their album, ‘Volume. 3: The Subliminal Verses, just to pay off their debt. The band certainly learned from the experience, making them a stronger unit.
Though regardless of the wrongs Richards committed against Slipknot, Jordison appreciated the things the manager did right and did not hold a grudge against him. Speaking of Richards the drummer would say “He did a lot of good things, God bless his soul. He’s dead. But it was the old scenario you hear about a lot of times. We ended up being ripped off and not told the truth. But I don’t think about that stuff anymore. I hope he’s resting well and that he’s in a better place.”
Joey Jordison at one point struggled with addiction.
Before 2008, Joey Jordison made public comments about the frequent drinking and drug use within the music industry, just like the other Slipknot members, but was also private about any personal struggles with addiction. Though the drummer did sometimes drop hints about his negative view on drugs, as in his interview with Revolver when he said, “I don’t like to condone any drug use, whatsoever.”
However, Jordison publicly admitted to having a drug problem after he could see that he was hurting his family and was desperate to change that.
Joey recalled that his sister, Annie, was desperately trying to help him during his week-long coke binges. She sent him a picture of his nephew, who was trying to play the drums and was wearing one of Jordison’s old masks. And so Joey called her, and she put him on the phone, and he said, “I love you, Uncle Joey.”
The moment struck him to the core, so Jordison said It took that moment to make him realize what was really important in his life and that he had done a lot of mean things to people and that things had to change.
Joey learned of fellow Slipknot members death while on a plane.
Joey Jordison had been friends with Paul Gray even before the formation of Slipknot, and it was Gray who brought him into the fold back in the fall of 1995, when Jordison would become the primary drummer of the band. So, the news of the bassist’s tragic death in 2010 hit him particularly hard.
Talking to author Joel McIver, Jordison described the painful event through his perspective. The drummer had just landed in Des Moines after collaborating with Rob Zombie for a tour while Slipknot were taking a break from the road. Since Jordison was still on the plane, he struggled to keep his composure when his manager called to inform him, and ended up smashing his phone in frustration from so many people calling afterwards.
At first, Jordison was furious that his manager could not wait until he was at home 30 minutes later, but as he said, “Then I realized they told me because they didn’t want me to hear it from anyone else. I just went into a blank shock.”
Joey said he was fired from Slipknot.
On December 12, 2013, Slipknot released a statement that Joey Jordison had left the band, citing personal reasons with no more details other than that. However, the drummer was quick to say that he was actually fired and had no idea beforehand that the decision had been made to kick him out.
Years later in 2016, Jordison was still fuming over the dismissal and revealed more from his perspective on how it played out when he said, “No band meeting? None. Anything from management? No, nothing. All I got was a stupid f****** email saying I was out of the band that I busted my ass my whole life to f****** create.” Though obviously furious, Jordison refused to rule out rejoining the band at some point.
Speaking of the decision lead singer of Slipknot, Corey Taylor would say “It’s like when a relationship hits that T-section and one person’s going one way and you’re going the other. And try as you might to either get them to go your way or try and go their way, at some point you’ve got to go in the direction that works for you. I guess to sum it up, it was one of the hardest decisions we ever made.”
A form of multiple sclerosis impaired Joey’s ability to drum.
Joey Jordison said that the other members of Slipknot thought he was on drugs, making that the reason why they had decided he should leave the band in 2013. But they were not aware of the fact that he had a neurological disorder called transverse myelitis that prevented him from being able to play the drums. They were not aware of this for a time because even Joey himself was fully aware of what was happening to him.
Transverse myelitis is a horrible condition that causes inflammation of the spinal cord that then damages nerve fibers.
Though by using his characteristic determination, Jordison managed to overcome the illness through exercise and therapy. The talented drummer then went on to play for the bands Sinsaenum and Vimic after leaving Slipknot.
On July 26th 2021 Joey Jordison tragically passed away.
The rock music world was devastated by the news of Joey Jordison’s death. His family released a statement on July 27th that the accomplished drummer passed away in his sleep the day before.
The statement read, “Joey’s death has left us with empty hearts and feelings of indescribable sorrow. To those that knew Joey, understood his quick wit, his gentle personality, giant heart and his love for all things family and music.”
His family also asked for privacy from the media during the difficult time. There was no information immediately available on the cause of death, or if it was related at all to his medical condition.
Slipknot showed their deep sorrow over the tragic loss simply with a black image on all their social media accounts shortly after the shocking news.
Joey Jordison will always be remembered by many of fans the world over who adored him and the bandmates who loved him like a brother.
