Joey Jordison (April 26, 1975 – July 26, 2021) was born Nathan Jonas “Joey” Jordison and was an American musician and the original drummer and co-founder of the heavy metal band Slipknot, in which he was designated #1, and the guitarist for the horror punk supergroup Murderdolls.
Joey Jordison was born in Des Moines, Iowa, to Steve and Jackie Jordison and had two younger sisters. He grew up in a rural area outside of Waukee where he used to play basketball on the street in front of his house. Joey embraced music at an early age, which he attributesd to his parents’ influence, and played guitar until gettinghis first drum kit as a gift from his parents at age 8.
Joey Jordison’s parents divorced when he was young and the children stayed with their mother who remarried and set up a funeral parlor where Jordison would occasionally help. During this time, he formed the band Modifidious, in which he played drums.
Modifidious helped Joey Jordison break new ground, playing live as support to local bands including Atomic Opera, featuring Jim Root, and Heads on the Wall, featuring Shawn Crahan. He also played at a bowling center his family owned, on a night called “Bowl-O-Rama”. After several lineup changes, including Craig Jones and Josh Brainard, who would also later be in Slipknot, the band released two demos in 1993, “Visceral” and “Mud Fuchia”.
In early 1995, Modifidious disbanded because of a shift in interest from thrash metal to death metal in America, and Joey Jordison joined another local band called the Rejects as a guitarist, but he only played a couple of shows.
Joey Jordison was also involved in a band with future bandmate Paul Gray and vocalist Don Decker, named Anal Blast.
On November 28, 1995, Mark Anthony Cadavos approached Joey Jordison while he was working, offering him a position in a new project called the Pale Ones. Intrigued and at a point where he was “lost”, Joey Jordison attended rehearsals at Anders Colsefni’s basement and immediately wanted to be part of this new band.
Of the eventual nine members, Joey Jordison was the third to join Slipknot who would become pioneers to the new wave of American heavy metal. Each member of Slipknot is assigned a number and Joey Jordison was assigned “#1”.
Joey Jordison produced one album with Slipknot the 2005 live album “9.0: Live”.
In August 2008, Joey Jordison broke his ankle and Slipknot had to cancel some of its English tour dates. On August 22, 2009, Jordison was taken to the emergency room for a burst appendix, less than an hour before he was to take the stage for Auburn, Washington’s KISW Pain in the Grass concert. As a result, Slipknot had to cancel shows in August and September, to give Joey time to recover.
On December 12, 2013, Slipknot announced on their official website that Joey Jordison had left the band, citing personal reasons for his departure. However, Jordison released a statement insisting that he had in fact been fired from the band and stated that Slipknot “has been my life for the last 18 years, and I would never abandon it, or my fans”.
After years of both sides being silent and evasive as to the reasons for his leaving the band, Joey Jordison revealed in June 2016 that he suffered from transverse myelitis, a neurological disease that cost him the ability to play the drums toward the end of his time with Slipknot.
In 2002, Joey Jordison revived his band The Rejects, renaming them the Murderdolls, and became the Murderdolls’ guitarist, and he recruited Wednesday 13 of Frankenstein Drag Queens from Planet 13 to play bass. Wednesday eventually became a vocalist, while drummer Ben Graves and bassist Eric Griffin completed the band’s lineup.
Murderdolls signed with Roadrunner Records and released an EP entitled “Right to Remain Violent” in 2002, followed in August 2002 by their debut album “Beyond the Valley of the Murderdolls”. The band uses horror films, including Friday the 13th and Night of the Living Dead, as an inspiration for their lyrics.
On October 30, 2002, the Murderdolls made an appearance on an episode of Dawson’s Creek entitled “Living Dead Girl”.
The Murderdolls reunited in 2010 with only Joey Jordison and Wednesday 13 remaining from the original line-up. The band released their second studio album “Women & Children Last” on August 31, 2010 and then band embarked on the extensive “Women & Children Last” World Tour performing shows alongside many notable acts such as Guns N’ Roses and performing around the world. The tour was plagued with many problems including the cancellation of many shows and repeated incidents of Joey Jordison storming off stage. The tour finished on April 24, 2011and Wednesday 13 confirmed the band’s split in an interview in March 2013.
On May 20, 2016, Joey Jordison announced a new extreme metal band Sinsaenum, dual fronted by vocalist Attila Csihar, from Mayhem and Sunn O))), along with keyboardist Sean Zitarsky, from Chimaira and Dååth, with Joey Jordison on drums, DragonForce bassist Frédéric Leclercq on guitar, Stéphane Buriez, from Loudblast, on guitar, and Heimoth, from the band Seth, on bass. They announced the launch of their debut album “Echoes of the Tortured” on July 29, and released their first single “Army Of Chaos” on earMUSIC’s YouTube channel. Their second album, called “Repulsion for Humanity”, was released on August 10, 2018.
In a 2016 Metal Hammer interview, Joey Jordison talked about suffering from acute transverse myelitis and said its symptoms started in 2010 while touring with Murderdolls, but the disease wasn’t diagnosed until long after. The neurological disease cost him the use of his legs and caused him to be unable to play the drums before rehabilitation with the aid of medical help and physical therapy.
Joey Jordison died in his sleep on July 26, 2021, at the age of 46.
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