Slipknot announced their split with keyboardist Craig Jones on June 7. Then a few hours later, Slipknot removed the announcement and posted a photo of who everyone assumed was Jones' replacement. We're still not clear on who the new guy is, but Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor makes it sound like he's been there for a little while.
In an interview with Chaoszine, Taylor said Slipknot took "a little more time" to figure out their situation with the new guy and that "it took him a second to kind of find his way." Which feels like weird wording for a guy who's supposedly been in the band for less than two weeks.
"Obviously, any time you have a change like that, it makes you have to kind of lean into adversity a little bit. We took a little more time to kind of figure things out. Obviously, [him being a] new guy."
He later added: "[He's] good — really good. He's a total musician. But it took him a second to kind of find his way. But now he's killing it; now he's really, really good."
As for who the new guy is, nobody actually knows. One interesting theory is that it's Nathan Church of the band DownTheSun, who one fan points out was the only band signed to Slipknot's short lived 2001 label Maggot Corps. A response to that theory reads "He was my first thought too. Also worth mentioning that vocalist Satone is part of Slipknot's crew to this day, singer Aaron Peltz was Chris Fehn’s best bud, and guitarist Bruce Swink played in Stone Sour. Plenty of links to say it's Church." There's a much more detailed version of this theory here.
Jones played in Slipknot since 1996 until present day, and has performed on every one of the band's releases from their 1999 self-titled album up until The End, So Far.
