First of all: Happy New Year! I hope everyone’s holidays were metal as fuck.

No that we have the formalities out of the way, let’s get down to business. One of the last major stories of 2013 was that Slipknot and founding drummer Joey Jordison have parted ways — a major deal since a) Jordison is a fan favorite who has been heavily involved in all ‘Knot songwriting up ’til now, and b) the band is still reeling from the 2010 death of bassist Paul Gray (also a key songwriterfor the outfit). Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor discussed the split, sort of, just a day after the announcement of Jordison’s departure — although he offered few details, saying that “legally and respectfully, I can’t say a lot about it.”

Now Jordison has broken his silence on the matter, releasing the following statement via Facebook:

WOW. So if we take Jordison at his word — and I see no reason not to at this point — he was fired from the band.

Which, of course, begs the question: why??? Although he and Taylor have had several public disagreements about the future of Slipknot in the post-Gray era, with guitarist Jim Root sitting out Stone Sour’s recent tour to concentrate on writing new ‘Knot, one would think those squabbles are now in the past. So did that age-old destroyer of bands, “creative differences,” rear its ugly head here? Was there some internal disagreement about the timeline for the new Slipknot release? Was there in-fighting with regards to the issue of Gray’s replacement?

For now, the cause of the split remains a mystery. But presumably all will become clear as other members of Slipknot begin to speak out about the situation… I mean, I can’t imagine Clown remaining mum for TOO long, can you?

In semi-related news, former Decapitated drummer Kerim “Krimh” Lechner has released the below videos of himself performing two Slipknot tunes — “People = Shit” and “Eyeless” — which he intends as his audition for Jordison’s old job, even though, by Krimh’s own admission, “There is no official audition going on.” Assuming the band is actively searching for Jordison’s replacement (by which I mean they haven’t already made a decision as to who will fill Jordison’s spot and they’ve just yet to make an announcement with regards to that decision), well… Krimh is an amazing drummer and they could certainly do a lot worse, couldn’t they? Check out his videos below and see what you think:

[via The PRP and Lambgoat]