Shawn Crahan recalls first seeing Joey Jordison, a drummer unlike any other

Shawn Crahan’s memory of first seeing Joey Jordison behind a drum kit reads like the moment Slipknot found its engine. Before the masks, before the arena tours, before the self-titled album arrived on June 29, 1999, Crahan saw a drummer in Des Moines who played with such speed, precision and force that he walked outside afterward to meet him, stunned by what he had just watched.

That reaction tells the story better than any tribute ever could. Crahan described Jordison as someone whose playing felt unreal, not just fast but exact, the kind of control that made other musicians stop mid-thought. For drummers, that combination mattered: Jordison was not only firing off notes at a relentless pace, he was locking them into place with the kind of clean, surgical timing that makes brutal music hit harder. The effect was immediate enough that Crahan did not need a second listen.

Slipknot was formed in Des Moines in 1995, originally as The Pale Ones, and the percussion-heavy design was baked in early. Jordison was a core founding member and the band’s original drummer, alongside Paul Gray and Shawn Crahan, with Anders Colsefni also adding percussion. Crahan’s recollection of Jordison coming down to the studio, hearing the material and absorbing it quickly reinforces that Slipknot’s rhythmic identity was not an accident of later success. The band was built around momentum, and Jordison understood how to drive it.

That is what made him instantly recognizable to fans and peers alike. Jordison’s playing had the speed and double-kick discipline that would become a calling card, but it also had a theatrical snap that fit Slipknot’s chaos without ever losing clarity. Rhythm readers later voted him the greatest drummer of the last 25 years in 2010, and Modern Drummer called him a musician with a “seismic impact” on aggressive rock. He went on to work with Metallica, Rob Zombie, Korn, Ministry, Murderdolls, Scar the Martyr, Vimic and Sinsaenum, but the blueprint was already there in Des Moines.

Slipknot’s first proper national tour, Ozzfest 1999, widened that vision just as the debut album landed. The band later returned to its roots with Knotfest Iowa at Waterworks Park in Des Moines on September 21, 2024, marking the 25th anniversary of the self-titled album. Jordison died on July 26, 2021, at age 46, but Crahan’s recollection makes clear that his impact was never just legacy. It was structural. Slipknot sounded like Slipknot because Joey Jordison played like no one else.