JOEY JORDISON

Joey’s friends, peers and biggest fans remember the man behind the kit

OLLY CURTIS/FUTURE.ADDITIONAL REPORTING: STEPHEN HILL.

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“He was one of the most passionate people I’ve ever met about music. He loved metal, the bands, everything. I’m a bit like that, but he was next level. He was still a fan after all these years. He was very kind and, due to who he was and what he had done, he could be very serious sometimes, but with us we saw the kind man. When we are in France and we say hi to each other – before the pandemic, of course – we kiss each other on the cheek. He incorporated that into his behaviour, to the point where even in other parts of Europe he would walk up to people and take their hand and say, ‘Hi, I’m Joey’, and then lean over and kiss them on both cheeks. That’s how genuinely nice and caring he was. Very kind, very passionate, and it’s such a shame he has gone.”

Frédéric Leclercq, Sinsaenum

“What I’ve been thinking about for the last few weeks is that…I mean, he was hilarious. He made me laugh. We just had all these inside jokes and I don’t really know anyone else who knows [1986 Keanu Reeves crime thriller] River’s Edge as much as he did! Ha ha. We’d text each other these random quotes just to say hi. He would be under the riser behind my kit, yelling things at me while I was playing; he would leave notes on my kit and on my drum stool, like, ‘Don’t fuck up!’ or ‘I’ll be watching you!’, and then you look over and he’s by the side of the stage air-drumming, popping his head into our dressing room and going ‘Larian!’ He loved the song Capillarian Crest from Blood Mountain and he had reduced it to ‘Larian’. You’d hear him saying it, then he’d be gone.