The Pale Ones(Slipknot)

First Episode of the season and I had to choose none other than Slipknot! Join me as we go through band history, albums and tragedies. Find out the Vinales I will get.    

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Hello everybody, we are back with another episode of Hate to Rate. I'm your host, Kyle Nelson, and today we are gonna look into Slipknot, the Pale Ones, Meld. The band formed in 1995 in Des Moines, Iowa. Uh the members of their first demo. Let's do that first. So the first demo was in 1996. It's called Mate, Feed, Kill, Repeat. Andrew's Ku Senfni. He was the original singer in 1995 to 1997. And Kun Noon. He only attended six practices, but he was the first guitarist. He wanted to pursue more of a punk rock type of thing, not metal. Josh Brainardi 1995 to 1998, he was one of the guitarists. Donnie Steele was the other guitarist, nineteen ninety five to nineteen ninety six. Sean Crahan, percussions, he was in the band one of the founding members since nineteen ninety-five. And Joey Jordensen, nineteen ninety five to two thousand thirteen was the original drummer. And Paul Gray was the bass player nineteen ninety five to twenty ten. They were all in the recording of Mate Feed Kill Repeat in nineteen ninety-six. So let's take a look at that one. I don't know if I'll give it much of a rating. So the first song on there was actually called Slipknot. So this is probably back when the band was called the Pale Ones. Uh the first song Slipknot, the second song being gently, the third song being Do Nothing, Bitch Slap, fourth song, Only One, Tathered and Torn, Confessions, Some Feel, Killers Are Quiet. I really like the song Some Feel. That was really cool. I think they should almost remake that one. Hear it in Cory Taylor's voice. I don't know if he has the rights to it or whatnot, but I'm pretty sure he does. Umly one and Slipknot actually became sick in their first album. And Do Nothing Bitch Slap was kinda horrible. It was like MC Hammer rapping and then metal randomly. They're more bass driven than anything. Their guitars were good, they flowed well, but it was more like drums, percussion, and like bass almost. Tether and Torn was really good. Confessions was good. Confessions had like the same thing almost going on. So it had like that rap that he was trying to do. So that's the album. I can't really give an overrated underrated because this whole album's underrated. Actually, fun facts, uh, Anders is touring right now with this album. Like he has a few songs in his other band called Nothing Special, Nothing to Write Home About. Honestly, he kind of sounds like a bunch of local bands. Honestly, what he sounds like. And I think if he would have stayed in the band, I think he would have evolved into like something more I don't know, like I want to say a death clock type of thing, but I don't know. I feel like I feel like he's stuck in the local jive. I'm just glad he quit that MC Hammer rapping shit. That was whew, that was stupid. So Anders, let's look into his demotion pretty much, is what happened. Cause once they got Corey Taylor, so they pretty much said you can be backing vocals or percussion. And he felt like that wasn't gonna work for him. She did not suit his growling vocal style. Yeah, you know, Corey Taylor and Anders, they really don't have a blending style, honestly. Corey Taylor is more melodical. It definitely is what Slipknot was looking for. They also wanted more of a radio friendly vocal style, and he was not it. Definitely not. And I don't know, I don't think his clear vocals were really on par either. I mean they could have evolved through the band, but I don't think they would have got as popular with him compared to Corey Taylor. So, like I said before, the band was originally called the Pale Ones. And then they switched their name to MILD. Joey Jordenson is the one who came up with Slipknot, because they decided to name it after their first song on the demo. Alright, let's talk about their lineup change. In 1996, Donnie Steele left the band and they got Craig Jones. He originally was gonna play guitar, but wanted to be a sampler and keyboardist. So then they brought in Mick Thompson, their guitarist, since 1996. He's still in the band. After that, they wanted another percussionist, it looked like, uh Greg Waltz, known as Cuddles, I guess. He was temporarily in the band. He was in the band in 1997 to 1998. He chose to leave the band due to his relationship with Joey Jordanson's sister, Kate. The challenges with life and touring, he later replaced Brandon Donner. So Brandon Donner was one of the first percussionists to take over Greg Waltz position in 1998. He was only in it for a year. And then later Chris Fain came on in 1998 to replace Greg Waltz and Brandon Donner. And he was in the band nineteen ninety-eight to twenty nineteen as the percussionist. So they have two percussionists and the drummer along with Paul and Sean. And then Joey and Sean and Mick approached Corey Taylor while he was frontman vocals for Stone Sour, invited him to join the band, and he joined in 1997. And then we have Sid Wilson, who is the DJ turntable since 1998. And I heard he also has six fingers. Yeah, we're born with six fingers on each hand. Crazy. Nephilim descendant, motherfucker. Okay. Ah, so after that long introduction of band members, let's go on to their first album with their self-titled album. I uh listen to the deluxe version, so that's the one I'm gonna go for. So let's start off the first song 7426170027 Sick Eyeless Wait and Bleed Surfacing Spit It Out Tathered and Torn. Oh that was on their demo Me Inside Liberate Prosthetics No Life Diluted Only One That was also on their demo Scissors EO Purity Get This Spit It Out Hyped Version Spit It Out Stomp You Out Mix Sick Molt Injected Mix Wait and Bleed Terry Date Mix Wait and Bleed Demo Snap Demo Interlooper Demo Despite Demo And the Songs I Added were Eyeless Wait and Bleed Surfacing Spit It Out Me Inside Liberate Diluted Only One Purity And I Rey The Snap Demo I Added That One Too I Thought That Was a Fucking Cool Song And Let's Talk A little Bit About Eyeless So I Remember That Bring Me The Horizon actually covered Eyelus. Let's Look At Corey Taylor's Reaction To All These Guys Bring Me Horizon Eyelas cover I remember the Ford About Bring Me The Horizon. Honestly, I was Reading Amen Right when they were starting to break and everyone was talking about them. I was like, who the fuck is this? And then I heard that they'd done a cover of of Eyeless, which immediately I searched out and found it. And I remember telling the guys, you've gotta fucking hear this cover, Eyeless. It's so sick, and it's probably my favorite cover that anyone has ever done of one of our songs. Because you can play a song, but it's hard to capture the spirit of it. You guys captured the frequent energy of what we were trying to capture. So that's pretty fucking cool that they captured it. Honestly, I thought it was way heavier when Bring Me the Ryzen did it. But let's go back to it. Uh overrated and underrated. Um I'd say overrated is definitely bleeded out. I was gonna say surfacing would be underrated, but they always play that in their shows. So I'm gonna go with one of their demos. I'm gonna say underrated is definitely snap. You guys need to check out that song. That song's pretty sick. This was uh Roadrunner Records. Funny thing, Roadrunner did not like the masks. So we can go into the masks. Let's dig into a little bit of the masks and what they wore. So Slipknot Wearing the Masks is like Eddie Van Halen with his guitars. It's fundamentally just to stand out from New Metal Age. Who originally came up with it was Clown. Before the band's first gig on Halloween of 1995, we were all going around the room asking what are we going to wear? Remembered Sean. I pulled up a clown mask and had said I'm wearing this. It did not go down well with his bandmates, however. A few of them were like, no fucking way, you can't be the only guy wearing some stupid mask, he recalled. So I said, I don't really care what you think, this is who I am and this is what I'm going to do. Yeah, so Roadrunner didn't like the mask, said Clown. They didn't want nine guys in a band, but couldn't tell us how many millions of dollars that the label has made off of us. I take pride in knowing that they were wrong and I was right. Corey Taylor's original mask was a dreadlock poking out of the top, ghostly faced, uh Mick Thomason. His first was a hockey mask. Also in 1999, we have Jim Root, who is also in Stone Sour 2. So I imagine Corey Taylor was like, hey, we need another guitarist, since our Greg Jones originally wanted to be the keyboardist, so they wanted another guitarist, so he brought over Jim Root, and he is still in the band. So Jim Root's mask was a black bondage mask he got from Josh. And he found it uncomfortable and then later adopted the jesters mask. Thought it reflected his personality better. Then we have Craig Jones, he had that very pokey mask that just poked everywhere. And then Sid Wilson, he changes frequently, but originally it was a gas mask. Then you all know Sean, he had the clown mask. Then Chris, he had a long Pinocchio nose mask, which isn't something weird about him, but he masturbated frequently on stage. I don't know. Then Paul Gray, he wore a pig mask, Joey Jordenson. Uh one night when he was a kid, his mother came home from a Halloween party wearing a kabuki Japanese mask. So he adopted it for a slip knot. And the mask changed throughout albums. It's there's nothing to really do with the certain albums, just something they do to express themselves. And set apart from the new metal genre. Going on, we have Iowa in 2001. This is the deluxe edition. First song is 515, People Equal Shit, Disaster Piece, My Plague, Everything Ends, The Heretic Anthem, Gently, that was on their demo. Left Behind The Shape I Am Hated Skin Ticket New Abortion Metabolic Iowa My Pledge New Bews Mix 515 Live in London People Cool Shit Live in London Liberate Live in London Left Behind Live in London Eeyore Live in London Disaster Peace Live in London Purity Live in London Gently Live in London Eyelist live in London Drum Solo live in London My Pledge Live in London New Abortion Live in London The Heretic Anthem Live in London Live in London Spit It Out Live in London Wait and Bleed Live in London 742617000 Live in London Sick Live in London And of course they always end with surfacing live in London And the songs I chose were People Cool Shit Disaster Peace such a good song My Pledge Everything Ends The Heretic Anthem Left Behind The Shape And I did add a few live ones I thought Oh I did I added uh Disaster Peace live in London And Surfacing live in London Roadrunner Records and Overrated to Underrated Let's see here So it'd say overrated definitely left behind Um Underrated I'm gonna go with Disaster Peace Listening to that again I was like this has been an overlooked song It's really sick Yeah this one was almost running for the vinyl It was so fucking close Actually if I probably did see it in a deluxe version I might pick it up It was pretty close though And now let's go on to 2004 with volume three Subliminal Verses First song on there is Prelude 3.0 The Blister Exits 3 nil Duality Optimum of the People Circle Welcome Bermidium Pulsa Maggots Before I Forget Bermidian Part 2 The Nameless The Virus of Life Danger Keep Away And this is the extended version Don't Get Close Scream Vermidian Military Date Mix Danger Keep Away Full Length The Blister Exit Live 3 Nil Live Disaster Piece Live People Equal Shit Live And the Songs I've added The Blister Exits Duality Bermidian Before I Forget The Nameless The Virus of Life And Scream 3 Nil Live And yeah That's It This was also A Roadrunner Records Um Overrated Underrated Whew Um I really like This One This O'Fighting With This One And the One After This For Vinyl This One Might Be A Vinyl This This Band Altog But I would say Hmm Overrated Would have To Before I Forget You know Guitar Hero Heard That Song Too Many Times Still Good Well I guess Before I Forget or Duality There could Be Both Overrated Um Underrated Fuck Would have To Be The Nameless I would say The Nameless or The Virus of Life Then After That They Toured A Bunch Made A Bunch of Live Alb One of the Live Albums 9.0 Live That was a Pretty Good One And then In 2010 Paul Gray dies Paul Gray dies May 24th 2010 At the Age of 38 Accidentally Odosed On Morphine and Fentanyl Found in a Hotel in Iowa Also Revealed He was suffering from a significant Heart Disease. His Death involved a Rapse into Drution with Evidence of Pills and a Hypermic Needle At the Scene. His wife Brenda Gray filed a wrongful death lawsuit against his doctor, alleging he continued to prescribe medication despite knowing that Greg's addiction history. The doctor was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter in 2014, but the civil suit from the family was later settled out of court. Okay, got wrongful death. I don't know, if they found like a hypodermic needle and stuff, and he relapsed. I hate to say it, but I think he caused it himself. I mean the doctor did, you know, was his drug dealer, sure, but that's like blaming every drug dealer for the overdose. But it's a death, so let's take a moment of silence. Alessandro Venturella was the replacement for Paul Gray in 2014. They had another live album, Rock and Rio Brazil, 2011. And then they came out with their I would say one of their greatest albums. This is Vinylworthy right here. This one and the third album I had really troubles on deciding on which one I wanted. So this is All Hope Is Gone, Deluxe edition. The songs on it like Execute, Gematia, The Killing Name, Sulfur, Cycle Social, Dead Memories, Vendetta, Butcher's Hook, Gianna, This Cold Black, Wherein Lies Continue, which this one sounds a lot of like Stone Sour's like singing style. He has two different singing styles, but this one kind of brings out the Stone Sour. Snuff, All Hope Is Gone, Children of Burning Time, Vermidian Part 2, Bloodstone Mixed, Until We Die. This was also a Roadrunner records. And the songs I added were The Killing Name, Sulfur, Psychosocial, Dead Memories, Vendetta, Butcher's Hook, Gianna, Snuff, Child of Burning Time. I really like this album. I think this one, this one I'll pick up in a vinyl. This one and the one before that. Um Overrated Underrated Songs. Uh I would say overrated would have to be either Sulfur or Psychosocial. Possibly dead memories. And underrated would have to be Butcher's Hook, uh, The Killing Name, or Child of Burning Time. But all in all, a really great album. I think it's the last CD I bought from them too. And actually, Joey Jordensen was not on this album. He departed from the band in 2013. Wow, I thought I thought he was on this album. So let's dive into why he left. Jordansen was fired from his own band in December of 2013. A decision he later revealed was made through an email. They emailed him, wow, telling him he's kicked. Think about this, he was the found one of the founding members of Slipknot. The split was driven by the band's confusion, his battle with transverse myelitis, a rare neurological disease that hindered his ability to play drums with substance abuse issues. Yeah, the condition that caused him to lose. The use of his legs, ooh, and made it impossible to perform properly towards the end of his career, damn. Yeah, so he also describes the email being cowardly and hurtful. Yeah, I would say you can do it in person. Joey claimed his bandmates confuse his medical condition with drug abuse. A misunderstanding he denied he was not using drugs. And his replacement Jay Weinberg and he was in the band 2014 to 2023. Let's go on to the gray chapter Special Edition. First song being XIX Stratus Casper AOV The Devil and I Kill Pop Skeptic Leech Goodbye Nomadic The Ones That Kill the Least Custer Be Prepared for Hell The Negative One If the Rain Is If the Rain Is What You Want Override The Burden And this was not Roadrunner This was actually The All Black USA And the Songs I added World AO V The Devil and Eye Kill Pop Skeptic The One That Kills The Least Custer The Negative One And That's It Um Overrated To Underrated I'd say Overrated Is Definitely Double and I And Underrated I would say Skeptic Yeah I'll say Either Skeptic or The Negative One I really Like That One Um This Was Good You Can Tell It Was U You Can Tell It's A Paul Gray kind of Tribute To This Album And in 2019 We have We Are Not Your Kind With Songs on It Like Insert Coin Unsainted Birth of the Cruel Death Because of Death Neo Forte Critical Darling A Liar's Funeral Red Flag What's Next Spiders Orphan My Pain Not Long For This World So Way Firth This O' Roadrunner Records And the ones I Added were Unsainted Neo Forte A Liar's Funeral What's Next And So Way Firth And yeah Before That They Dave A Single All Out Life Which was Kinda Cool It's More The Heavier Style They Kind of Went Back to Their Iowa roots Almost Iowa to the Third Vliminal Verses I would say It's Kind of A Mix of That It's Pretty Good I Me I Can See Why The Didn't Put An Album On July 26 2001 Joey Jordensen died Peacefully In His Sleep At the Age of 46 Uh No Pacific Cause Of Death Uh Could Because of his Neurological Disease That Could Main Been The Cause of Death So Let's Take A Moment O Silence For Joey Jordensen. Okay, And then In 2022 We have The In So Far The Adderall The Dying Song The Time To Sing The Chapel Town Reg Yen Hive Mind Warranty Medicine of the Dead Acidic Harloom H377 De Sade And Final This Was also A Roadrunner Records And the Songs I added With The Dying Song The Chapel Town Reg Yen Hive Mine Warranty H three Seven Seven And Final Uh Overrated To Underrated On this Album I Honestly Don't There Was One I Don't No I Don't These Is A Wnown Album Actually To Tell You The Truth Then Yeah They Kicked Out Uh Jay Weinberg Jay Weinberg officially Parted Wa's With The Band On November 5023's A Creative Decision Ending Decade Long Trio Um That He said Blindsided and Heartbroken Him. The Departure of the Band Thanked Him for Hedication. No Details were Reven On Why He Quitted The Band. It was a Creative Decision. That's Pretty Much What They Gave him. Him and Joey did play one of my favorite albums. So I also looked up who like was the songwriter in uh Slipknot. And mainly what I got. The earlier version, it was Joey and Paul, mainly, for the songwriting and making the music. And then later it was Jim Root and Corey Taylor actually that really composed the music. And actually Mick Thomas helped with the music. Sean also started jamming and helping the music. So I mean it was just a creative process with the whole band. They all wrote songs. It's not like they had a songwriting team. So Joey Jordensen actually sued the band in June of 2023. Allegedly, they profits from his death and failed to return personal items, masks, and drums. From Knot Fest Museum, the lawsuit claimed Joey was unfairly fired by email in 2013. A settlement was reached in 2024. Chris Finn lawsuit former percussionists sued the band over unpaid profits, alleging that some of the members set up separate businesses that he was not included in. Yikes. Damn. Slipknot.com disputed 2025-2026 as a report. The band sued an anonymous anonymous entity cyber squatting on Slipknot.com. The suit was barely dismissed by the band January of 2026. Uh yeah, that seems like all the lawsuits. So yeah, uh I don't know if I wanna give I want to give them justice, honestly, in the band. I don't want to say they're an unfair band. I don't want to say they're a bully band. Uh they had to do what they had to do in certain situations to evolve, to get better, to um I would like to think to think about their members, you know, their health, just the direction they wanted the band to go. And sure, a few of it was unfair, but life isn't fair. And there you have it. Here's an episode of Slipknot, the pale ones. Hope you enjoyed this episode of Hate to Rate, and I'll catch you next time. Thank you.