SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor says that the death of the band’s former drummer, Joey Jordison, is still hard to think about.
Joey Jordison passed away “peacefully in his sleep” last July of an unspecified cause. He was 46 years old.
Taylor discussed Jordison’s death publicly during a February 18 question-and-answer session at the annual Mad Monster Party in Concord, North Carolina. When asked how he has dealt with the loss of Jordison, Corey said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “That’s a tough one. It hit me hard, even though I hadn’t seen him or talked to him in a very long time. And I won’t get into certain things, but I will say that it hit us all really hard. The first person that I called was Clown [SLIPKNOT percussionist M. Shawn Crahan] to make sure he was okay. Because those guys… I can remember going down and seeing them both at the gas station that Joey worked at — like, way back in the day. And he would work the overnights. When I wasn’t working at the porn shop, I would go down. And they were always scheming; they would always sit together scheming. It’s, like, ‘I’ve got this fucking idea. All right? We’re gonna set our faces on fire.’ And I was, like, ‘No. You’re really not gonna do that.'”
He continued: “All that history and all the memories came back then. And his health was obviously part of that. And it was sad because this man was probably one of the most gifted people I’ve ever seen in my life… It was far, far too soon. And it broke my heart. Regardless of what had gone down between us, it broke my heart. It was a hard… It’s still hard to think about. I think about it now and it doesn’t seem real. So it hit us just as hard. It’s one of the reasons why we pay homage to him and Paul [Gray, late SLIPKNOT bassist] at the end of [each SLIPKNOT] show — to make sure that people realize that even though he was gone, he’s still part of the family, and he always will be.”
SLIPKNOT announced the departure of founding drummer Joey Jordison in December of 2013, but did not disclose the reasons for his exit. Joey would eventually release a statement saying that he did not quit SLIPKNOT and he was actually fired from the band via e-mail.