More than four years after Joey Jordison’s passing, Slipknot’s Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan is still talking about the drummer with the same mix of awe, grief, and bruised respect that helped shape the band’s earliest years.
Appearing on Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton podcast, Crahan pulled fans back into the smoke filled world of the Des Moines metal scene, recalling the first time he ever saw Jordison sit behind a drum kit, even by Iowa’s underground standards, it clearly rattled him.
‘I remember going out to Joey cause he got done with his set. He went outside to get some air and I walked outside and I was just staring at him,’ Crahan recalled (per Diffuser).
‘We didn’t know each other and he looked at me and he’s like, “What?” And I was like, “I just had to see if you were human.” I was like, “Whoa, you are a real person. Wow, congratulations man. In my life I’ve never seen … I didn’t know you could play drums like that.”’
For anyone who watched Slipknot erupt out of the late-’90s metal underground, that reaction probably tracks. Jordison’s drumming never sounded restrained, it sounded like a demolition job unfolding at 240 beats per minute.
Crahan also revisited the moment Jordison first jammed with the embryonic version of Slipknot after Paul Gray invited him into the studio, according to Crahan, Jordison immediately absorbed everything the band threw at him.
‘What I remember most besides what he was doing was the incredible ability to retain what those guys had just played with me,’ Crahan said. ‘It was like a tornado hit my life.’
Even then, Jordison apparently didn’t jump straight into the band, Crahan laughed while remembering confronting the drummer after rehearsal.
‘Are you in or out?’ Crahan recalled asking. When Jordison said he needed time to think, Crahan snapped back: ‘There’s no thinking about it. You’re either in or you’re out.’
Toward the end of the interview, the tone shifted from nostalgia into something heavier, Crahan admitted Jordison constantly pushed him creatively, even when the pair clashed.
‘Joey used to get on me man. He was the one and he made me the best I could ever be,’ Crahan reflected. ‘It’s not until someone’s gone that you realize they bring the best out of you.’
Jordison remained in Slipknot from 1995 until 2013 before later revealing health issues contributed to his departure, he sadly passed in 2021 at age 46.
Follow me for more on the Australian and US Music Scene:
MORE IN Music
