Best of the Blog: Joey Jordison on how to play Psychosocial

Joey

Joey

© Jared Milgrim/Corbis

Over the festive period we're presenting you with some of our favourite moments from down the year at rhythmmagazine.co.uk. Today we give you a lesson from Mr Joey Jordison as he gives you some pointers on playing Slipknot's mighty metal anthem 'Psychosocial'.

The birth of a monstrous drum track

"It was the first song I wrote for All Hope Is Gone, I put it on my eight track. As far as the drum beat, it goes from being completely punishing with the four on the floor type thing and then once it gets into the middle it comes to the militant, really odd time signatures and stuff like that."

'…sit back and lay it down'

"The actual song to play is really difficult because you gotta get right into the groove and you can't get over excited. You've got to sit back and lay it down. I don't use a click track in Slipknot so you've got to rise above once you get to the middle because it gets a little bit more exciting so once you get to that point it gets more intense."

Learn your rock

"Once you learn the beat it's all about the right hand and the right leg. Learn your rock before you try and play that song. It's not about playing fast. That song is probably one of my favourite songs I've ever written. It's very close to my heart. Don't try to play fast out of the gate, you gotta learn your rock first. I've learned from Keith Moon and John Bonham, learn your beat and the pulse. The pulse is the main thing. That's the heartbeat of a song."

Joey's style

"My style is different to any other drummer that's walked the face of the planet and I'm not sucking my own d*** or anything, I'm just different to everyone else. I just play from the heart."

Liked this? Now read: Joey Jordison's drum setup in pictures and The 20 greatest drummers of the last 25 years

Rich Chamberlain

Rich is a teacher, one time Rhythm staff writer and experienced freelance journalist who has interviewed countless revered musicians, engineers, producers and stars for the our world-leading music making portfolio, including such titles as Rhythm, Total Guitar, Guitarist, Guitar World, and MusicRadar. His victims include such luminaries as Ice T, Mark Guilani and Jamie Oliver (the drumming one).