Slipknot have always ran with a packed-out, nine-man crew, but none of those musicians have ever been expendable nobodies. Whether it was the shocking death of founding bassist Paul Gray, the sudden departure of now-late drummer Joey Jordison or the 2019 split with longtime percussionist Chris Fehn — not to mention the addition of bassist Alessandro Venturella, percussionist Chris "Tortilla Man" Pfaff and drummer Jay Weinberg — lineup shifts in Slipknot have always been a big fucking deal.
Today's (June 7th) unexpected exit of sampler and keyboardist Craig "133" Jones is no different. After a long 27 years with the nu-metal titans, Slipknot announced in a terse statement that they had parted ways with Jones, wishing him the best in his future endeavors but not supplying any details about the circumstances around the split.
Jones himself has yet to comment on his departure, but that's not a surprise given his famously silent demeanor and total lack of social media profiles (that we know of). To make matters more confusing, Slipknot bizarrely deleted their social posts announcing the split with Jones less than an hour after they went up, and (as of this writing) are still slated to perform tonight in Nickelsdorf, Austria.
While not every Slipknot fan recognizes Jones by name, even the most casual Maggots could identify him by his iconic mask. Throughout all of the 'Knot's many outfit adaptations over the years, Jones' visage always remained eerily consistent: a fully black, leather gimp mask with a zipper mouth and massive Pinhead-indebted spikes pointing out in every direction.
Notably, that zipper was always sewn shut, because throughout his time in Slipknot, Jones almost never opened his mouth to utter a word in public. In one famous full-band interview at a press junket, the journalist naively directed a question at Jones only for him to stare blankly forward like some kind of soulless murderer.
"Look at him, do you wanna talk to him?" frontman Corey Taylor chimed in. "I don't wanna talk to him and I'm in a band with him."
So much of Slipknot's appeal, especially in the early years of the band, was the sense of mystery and intensity they inspired with their masks, their batshit shenanigans onstage and their confrontational personalities offstage. Over the years, as the group got increasingly popular and more visible in the public conscience, the masks came off more often, the fans learned more about the members as people, and the eerie facade of Slipknot waned.
Jones never dropped the bit. During one of the rare, notorious interviews he humored during the band's early years, he revealed what he'd be doing in life if Slipknot wasn't in the picture. "If I wasn't in this band, I'd probably be out killing people," he deadpanned, earning him the nickname "The Killer" from that point forward.
Since then, he hasn't said much else, which has earned him a reputation as the most mysterious and unsettling (now former) member in the entire group. Even one of his own former bandmates, Jim Root, revealed that Jones gave him the heebie-jeebies.
"He even scares me," the guitarist once said. "I kind of feel I'm doing a service to the community by knowing where Craig is from day to day."
On top of his silence, Jones took his job of being anonymous extremely seriously. He would go to even greater lengths than his bandmates to conceal his identity in public, wearing eye-patches offstage and even leaving Slipknot shows early to sneak out before fans could spot him. For the first several years of his time in the group, he was successfully never photographed or videotaped without a face covering.
Jones was a vital part of Slipknot, visually and spiritually, but he was also a crucial musical contributor. While he initially joined the band as a guitarist in 1996 — shortly after the band had recorded their demo album, Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat., with original vocalist Anders Colsefni — he soon moved over to sampler and keyboards, where he remained for the entirety of his tenure with the group.
All of the strange vocal samples in Slipknot's music were mined by Jones, including the terrifying intro on their 1999 debut, "742617000027" — entirely composed by him — which featured audio that he ripped from a 1973 documentary about the Charles Manson murders. He also placed in the iconic, "Here comes the pain!," sample in Slipknot's "(sic)," which was a bit of dialogue Al Pacino uttered in Carlito's Way.
Being one of the first prominent metal musicians to use computer technology in an integral way, Jones was an innovator in that regard, and he earned his nickname "133" from the speed (in MHz) of his computer when he joined Slipknot, which was considered an advanced speed in that era.
As of now, we don't know who will fill Jones' place in Slipknot, or what the mystery man will be up to next. But if you believe what The Killer said he'd be doing if he wasn't in Slipknot to be true, then you better check under your bed at night.
