THE BEAST

SLIPKNOT   frontman   Corey Taylor   says that the passing of   Joey Jordison   broke his heart.

The founding   SLIPKNOT   drummer died "peacefully in his sleep" last July of an unspecified cause. He was 46 years old.

Taylor   addressed   Jordison 's death publicly during a February 18 question-and-answer session at the annual   Mad Monster Party , a three-day fan convention which took place at the Embassy Suites in Concord, North Carolina. Asked how he has dealt with the loss of his longtime bandmate,   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."

Corey   previously opened up about   Joey 's death during a September 2021 appearance on   SiriusXM 's   "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" . At the time, he said: "Our first concern was obviously his family, so we reached out immediately to make sure that they were okay, to let them know if they needed anything from us, they could absolutely ask.

"It's a damn tragedy,"   Taylor   continued. "He was way too young, and he was way too talented to lose him like this.

"I know a lot of people wonder about the circumstances that led to him not being in the band anymore, and it's, like, we're not gonna talk about that, because I'd rather talk about his legacy, which is that he helped create this band that we all have fought to keep out there and keep going.

"Just the fact that he's not here now, it's still — I still can't believe it,"   Corey   added.

SLIPKNOT   announced its split with   Jordison   in December 2013 but did not disclose the reasons for his exit. The drummer subsequently issued a statement saying that he did not quit the group.

Several years ago,   Jordison   overcame the neurological condition acute transverse myelitis, an inflammation of the spinal cord which damages nerve fibers, which ultimately led to the drummer temporarily losing the use of his legs.

Jordison   and the members of   SLIPKNOT   had been silent and evasive about the reasons for his dismissal from the band, but   Joey   finally spoke about it in 2016 while accepting an award at the   Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards   in London, England.

At the time,   Joey   claimed that he was fired from   SLIPKNOT   without a band meeting or "anything from management." He said: "All I got was a stupid fucking e-mail saying I was out of the band that I busted my ass my whole life to fucking create. That's exactly what happened and it was hurtful. I didn't deserve that shit after what I'd done and everything I'd been through.

"They got confused about my health issues and obviously even I didn't know what it was at first," he continued. "They thought I was fucked up on drugs, which I wasn't at all.

"I've been through so many things with those guys and I love them very much. What's hurtful is the way it went down was not fucking right. That's all I want to say. The way they did it was fucking cowardly. It was fucked up."

Back in 2014,   Taylor   told   Metal Hammer   that firing   Jordison   after 18 years was "one of the hardest decisions" the group ever made, adding that   Joey   is "in a place in his life" which is "not where we are."

Taylor   said he could not get into specifics for legal reasons, but admitted, "It's 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. This is me speaking in the broadest terms, with respect to   Joey . I guess to sum it up, it was one of the hardest decisions we ever made."

Taylor   said that the band is "happy right now and we hope that he is . . . he's just in a place in his life, right now, that's not where we are."

The singer would not answer whether drug use played a role in   Jordison 's dismissal, and confessed that he had not been in touch with his former bandmate.   Taylor   said, "I haven't talked to   Joey   in a while, to be honest. That's how different we are. It's not because I don't love him and I don't miss him. And it is painful; we talk about him all the time, but at the same time, do we miss him or do we miss the old him? That's what it really comes down to."

Four years ago,   Joey   revealed that he was working on his first-ever book.

In 2018,   Jordison   completed a European tour with the international death metal supergroup   SINSAENUM .

Seven months ago,   Joey 's   SINSAENUM   bandmate   Frédéric Leclercq   blasted   TMZ   for sharing the audio of the 911 call placed by the former   SLIPKNOT   drummer's ex-girlfriend after she found him dead. On July 29, 2021, the tabloid site posted the two-and-a-half-minute phone call in which the ex-girlfriend — who continued taking care of   Joey 's bills and maintaining his house in Iowa even after their split — could be heard getting very emotional when she went to his home to check on him after he hadn't returned her messages. During the call, she indicated that   Joey   was "a really bad alcoholic" with "health issues," and she revealed that the motion sensors on the house hadn't detected any activity in days.

The same year that he exited   SLIPKNOT ,   Jordison   launched the band   SCAR THE MARTYR   and later,   VIMIC .

Via Blabbermouth