Joey
Jordison was the founding drummer of American heavy metal band Slipknot as well
as guitarist for horror punk band Murderdolls. He died on Monday at the age of
46.

Born on April
26, 1975, Jordison grew up in Des Moines, Iowa with his parents and two
sisters, and was given his first drum kit at the age of 8. He performed with
many bands early in his career before he joined Slipknot.

The band
was a group of metal enthusiasts who called themselves the Pale Ones. It was
Jordison who came up with the name Slipknot in 1995. Within a few years, the
band’s lineup boasted of nine members who could be recoganised by their
nightmarish masks. The band’s music was a fusion of metal and rap aggression
that placed them at the vanguard of the nu-metal explosion.

Due to
steady touring and explosive live shows on Ozzfest, their debut went
double-platinum in 1999. Jordison’s neck-rattling rhythms and death-metal blast
beats were a crucial ingredient to the band’s sudden success.

Jordison
performed on four studio albums, and produced the live album 9.0: Live with
Slipknot. Outside his major projects, Jordison performed with other metal
groups such as Rob Zombie, Metallica, Korn, Ministry, Otep, and Satyricon. He
also did session work, which includes performances on many albums for many
artists.

Jordison
left the band in 2013 due to what he described at the time as personal reasons.
It was later revealed by him that he had left the band due to a neurological
disease. He was suffering from acute transverse myelitis with symptoms starting
in 2010, but not being diagnosed for a long time. This progressed to the loss
of use of his left leg.

He died on July
26, 2021 due to an unspecified cause.