Slipknot’s Corey Taylor on Joey Jordison: “He Had Demons”

Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor has opened up about late drummer Joey Jordison in a new interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music.

Taylor made some revealing remarks about his former bandmate, who passed away in July 2021. Jordison exited Slipknot on shaky terms in 2013, insisting that he was fired while the band said that the drummer left for “personal reasons.”

“Me and Joey, we had talked over the years every now and then, it would just be random,” Taylor said, “but we never said to each other what we needed to say to each other, at least I didn’t say it to Joe, but that was the complicated thing about Joey, was the fact that he was so many different people in one person, but it was hard to get a beat on what was going on at any given time. He had demons that would’ve killed normal people.”

Taylor continued: “He was one of the true musical geniuses I’d ever met. He was just complicated. Everybody likes to sugarcoat a lot of shit after the fact, but you don’t realize that what you’re doing is you’re dehumanizing them. I can’t do that because I can lived with these guys. Yeah, and the goddamn tragedy of it is that we did everything we could to try and be there. Not only for him, but for [late Slipknot bassist] Paul [Gray]. I mean, we would rally and we would rally and we would rally, and it’s just a shame, man. The world is less cool without him in it.”

Taylor goes onto to discuss Joey’s replacement, Jay Weinberg, who joined Slipknot in 2014. The singer even highlighted some comparisons between the two drummer’s playing styles.

“.There’s a lot of flavor in what [Jay] plays,” said Taylor. “He explores the openness a lot more, lays back on it … but there’s definitely smash there, but it’s in spots and that’s kind of what Joey did so well. He knew when to explode, but he also knew when to lay down the groove. I think that’s where Jay is really starting to find his place in this band because this band has always been about that.”

Meanwhile, Slipknot release their new album, THE END, SO FAR, on Friday (September 30th), and are currently on their fall Knotfest Roadshow tour. The trek continues Saturday (October 1st) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and runs through October 7th in Irvine, California. Pick up tickets via Ticketmaster.

Watch the Apple Music interview with Corey Taylor below.