In 2011, we interviewed all the members of Slipknot — minus sampler and keyboardist Craig Jones, who, as then-drummer Joey Jordison told us below, “doesn’t talk” — for a special collector’s issue of the magazine dedicated to the Iowan masked metal juggernaut. We spoke to Jordison about the ‘Knot’s history, the passing of his longtime friend, bandmate and songwriting partner Paul Gray, and looked ahead to the group’s future. In the exclusive outtake below, the drummer, who split with Slipknot in 2013, breaks down the band’s creative process.
“If you really look at our stuff, every record is different. The first one is what it was, Iowa got darker and heavier and more disturbing, Vol. 3 still is heavy but then we start putting in some really odd stuff like ‘Prelude 3.0,’ ‘Circle,’ ‘The Virus of Life,’ you know, started to expand our sound. And then with All Hope is Gone, you know, that record … I mean, you listen to a song like ‘All Hope is Gone,’ nothing but double bass and thrash beats and just super heavy riffs, and then you’ve got ‘Snuff,’ you know. And then you’ve got ‘Gematria,’ like one of the best Slipknot songs we’ve ever played. And a funny story about that song is, like, the guitar players and Paul would be in rehearsals … those guys would get in such heated arguments about how the riffs go, because they’re so technical. So I’m like, ‘All right, wait till the next time so you guys can all sit down and figure it out.’
“You know, a song will start with just a stem of drums and guitar. And then we’ll demo it: I’ll record the drums, we’ll get the guitars on, then we’ll put the bass on it, and that will be the template of the song. Corey [Taylor, vocals] will write his lyrics, or I might have some lyrics, as well, or Shawn [“Clown” Crahan, percussion] might have some lyrics, and, you know, then we get the lyrics on. Then we get that done and then we start, you know, adding the percussion, that goes next. And we get that, us three drummers all work, like, in a triangle on that, and you get everything where it needs to be. And then Sid [Wilson, DJ] comes in with his quirkiness, and you never know what that guy’s gonna come up with — he’s an alien. And then Craig — we call him the serial killer, he doesn’t talk — he comes in last with layers of, you know, noise and whatever that we need to make the song even more disturbing. So that’s how it works.”