Former drummer Joey Jordison, one of the founding members of the American metal band Slipknot, has passed away at the age of 46. The cause of death hasn’t been made public, but Billboard received a statement from Joey’s family saying that “[He] passed away peacefully in his sleep on July 26, 2021”. Joey’s family members will hold a private funeral service and hope that the media will respect their wishes.
Since the news broke out, the official Slipknot social media accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter, changed their profile picture and header image to all black while sharing a black image without any caption.
Joey’s absence from the world has also stirred a slew of emotions within the Japanese rock scene and notably, many of the more emotional reactions were shared by drummers.
We translated a few of the ones shared by drummers, let’s take a look.
Naoki (DEATHGAZE, ex-DEXCORE)
Natsu (NOCTURNAL BLOODLUST)
The original tweet by Natsu is written in English:
Zyean (JILUKA)
Reizi (DEXCORE)
Miharu (Dokuga)
For those who are unaware, Slipknot’s presence in Japan has always been far and wide and influenced generations of Japanese rock artists. Expanding its reach, Japan is also one of the few countries that are treated with the Slipknot-born festival, “Knotfest”. In Japan, it features a mix of the greatest western and Japanese bands, of course, headlined by Slipknot themselves.
Even recently, ACME’s vocalist Chisa voiced how he loves Slipknot in a YouTube video. And the main face of Japan’s cutest group BABYBEARD, who calls himself “Ladybeard”, prominently mentioned how Slipknot has been a determining factor to his stage performance.
But it’s not all one-sided. In 2018, Joey made a remark mentioning “Yet another reason why I love Japan…” while posing with the red mascot drummer Nyango Star from Aomori prefecture.
For me personally, Joey Jordison was the most influential figure from Slipknot. Even while wearing a mask and being a drummer at the back, his charisma shone brighter than any of the members. His unique playstyle transcended any modern drummer at the time too, when Slipknot was rising and at its peak.
Be it on stage or in recordings, Joey’s performance has always been the most enjoyable part of listening to Slipknot—and always will be.
Your spirit will undoubtedly live on, thank you for everything.