SLIPKNOT parts ways with keyboard player CRAIG JONES
shares video for eerie new instrumental 'Death March'
09-06-2023
SLIPKNOT has parted ways with keyboardist Craig Jones.
The band released the following statement via social media: “To our fans, SLIPKNOT is announcing that we have parted ways with Craig Jones.
“We wish Jones all the best for the future.”
No reason was given for Jones‘s departure from SLIPKNOT, and it is not clear if he will be replaced for the band’s spring/summer 2023 European tour, which is scheduled to kick off tonight at the Nova Rock festival in Austria.
Jones joined SLIPKNOT in early 1996, shortly after the band had finished the recording of its demo album “Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.” He was initially brought in to replace Donnie Steele, one of the two original guitarists, though he quickly moved on to the role of sampling and keyboards. Following the departure of drummer Joey Jordison in 2013, Jones was the second-longest-serving member in the band.
More than a decade ago, SLIPKNOT singer Corey Taylor was asked why Jones never speaks publicly. Corey said: “There are several joke answers I can give you, one of which is that he’s an android. Another of which is that he’s secretly a serial killer. Which we all call him, like, you’re just a killer, dude. And he just goes (nods yes) and he doesn’t say a damn word.”
He added: “The honest answer is that’s just the way he is. I mean, I’m talking about a dude who I knew before SLIPKNOT was even a band, you know? We used to go to ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ back in the day. He would come out. He wasn’t really a part of the crowd that I ran with, but he knew people that I was friends with, and he would just show up and he’d just kind of sit at a table, you know? And it was like two years before we had an actual conversation. I’m talking about a cat I sat at the same table with him… I can’t even remember if I ever just looked at him and said, ‘Do you say anything?’ You just knew he wasn’t going to say a damn thing. But when he did talk, it was like it scared the hell out of you. Like he’d pipe up and be, like, ‘That was a hell of a show.’ … Jesus Christ, really? I didn’t even know you were there! That’s just the way he is, man. He’s a guy that when he says something, you listen, basically. Because he doesn’t say anything. There’s a reason we call him the killer because you never know when it’s going to come. So you’re just, like, ‘God, I can just feel his presence.’ Without that mask, he’ll just come up behind and he’s strangely, strangely strong. Okay, he’s deceptively strong. He’ll put you in a headlock that you weren’t prepared for, and you can’t get out of. You’re, like, ‘Get off me, Craig! I’m trying to get on a plane.’ That’s true. It’d be right in the middle of the airport, he’ll just take your hat and throw it and put me in one of these (headlocks) and I’m, like, I’m gonna kick you right in the gooch, dude. Get off me.’
“So yeah, there’s no real reason that he doesn’t talk… He just doesn’t,” Corey added. “And if you asked him, he’d go (shrugs shoulder) and that would be it. He’d just move on his way.”
SLIPKNOT has just released a music video for a new song called “Death March”. The eerie instrumental was shared earlier today, just hours after the band made its live debut with a new mystery member at the Nova Rock festival in Austria.
Watch “Death March” below.
The “Death March” visual features nine dummy humans lined up against a wall before they get their heads get blown off one by one.
SLIPKNOT played their first shows with a mystery new member last week.
SLIPKNOT is continuing to tour in support of its latest album, “The End, So Far”, which was released on September 30 via Roadrunner Records. The follow-up to “We Are Not Your Kind”, it is the band’s final record with Roadrunner after first signing with the rock and metal label in 1998.
Five months ago, SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor once again shot down the rumor that the band would break up after the release of “The End, So Far”.
Ever since SLIPKNOT announced the title of its new LP in July, speculation had been rife that the name is a reference to the fact that the LP will mark the end of the band’s recording career.
Taylor, who turned 49 in December, addressed the rumor during an appearance on an episode of SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”. He said: “People have been talking about the end of SLIPKNOT since 2003, so it doesn’t really matter. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve had to straighten fans out, I’d have a shit-ton of nickels, let’s put it that way.
“Nothing sells albums like drama, let’s put it that way, and even drama that doesn’t even come from us; it just comes from the fans,” he continued. “But at the same time, I kind of started saying onstage… explaining what the title is. It’s the fact that it’s… It’s the end so far, which just means it’s the end of one era and the start of the next.
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