Former SLIPKNOT drummer Joey Jordison has launched a new band called VIMIC. He is joined in the group by singer Kalen Chase Musmecci, who has toured with KORN as a backing vocalist and percussionist, and Joey’s former SCAR THE MARTYR bandmates Jed Simon (guitar), Kyle Konkiel (bass) and Matthew Tarach (keyboards).
VIMIC recently completed work on its debut album, “Open Your Omen”, with producer Kato Khandwala, who has previously worked with THE PRETTY RECKLESS and WE ARE THE HARLOT. The CD will be released later this year via Roadrunner Records.
A VIMIC song called “Simple Skeletons” was premiered on SiriusXM Liquid Metal earlier today and can be streamed at this location.
VIMIC, Jordison explained, was born from the blueprint of his previous band SCAR THE MARTYR, which he worked on during his off time from SLIPKNOT. After his departure from the band, he took some time to think about what he wanted to do with his music career going forward.
“I decided I wanted to start fresh,” he told SiriusXM’s Jose Mangin. “I did not want to keep rehashing old ideas. If I am going to keep going, I really just wanted to break loose and wipe the slate clean. So I renamed the band, and I got a new singer and a new keyboard player [plus] three other members from the SCAR THE MARTYR lineup. We went down into the basement and started demoing material and everything started clicking.”
Jordison said the band demoed about 40 songs, and that once 20 of them were nailed down, they shopped it to the label. Then they went back to the drawing board and into the studio with Khandwala.
“We didn’t have too many big goals,” he recalled. “There wasn’t too much pressure from the label. We just went in, like, let’s just go back to getting into the studio, jamming as a band, getting together with our instruments and not having anything too formulated and just creating from the ground up. And that was one of the coolest things about creating this record was it was really old-school style. We’re totally proud of it, man.”
The band is currently working on a timeline for their album release but is making sure not to rush its debut.
“You can rush stuff, and just get out there to get out there, but I’d rather take the time and make sure everything is just perfectly lined up,” Joey explained. “We just want to make sure that we’re doing the right thing at the right time.”
VIMIC is:
Joey Jordison – drums, percussion
Jed Simon – guitar, backing vocals
Kyle Konkiel – bass, backing vocals
Matthew Tarach – keyboards
Kalen Chase Musmecci – lead vocals
SLIPKNOT announced in December 2013 that it had parted ways with Jordison, one of the band’s founding members and key songwriters. SLIPKNOT singer Corey Taylor told Metal Hammer that firing Jordison after 18 years was “one of the hardest decisions” the group ever made, adding that Jordison is “in a place in his life” which is “not where we are.”
Taylor said he could not get into specifics for legal reasons, but admitted, “It’s when a relationship hits that T-section and one person’s going one way and you’re going the other. And try as you might to either get them to go your way or try and go their way, at some point you’ve got to go in the direction that works for you. This is me speaking in the broadest terms, with respect to Joey. I guess to sum it up, it was one of the hardest decisions we ever made.”
Taylor said that the band is “happy right now and we hope that he is . . . he’s just in a place in his life, right now, that’s not where we are.”
The singer would not answer whether drug use played a role in Jordison’s dismissal, and confessed that he had not been in touch with his former bandmate. Taylor said, “I haven’t talked to Joey in a while, to be honest. That’s how different we are. It’s not because I don’t love him and I don’t miss him. And it is painful; we talk about him all the time, but at the same time, do we miss him or do we miss the old him? That’s what it really comes down to.”
SLIPKNOT’s new drummer is Jay Weinberg, son of longtime Bruce Springsteen drummer Max Weinberg.
Source: Blabbermouth
