The Truth About Slipknot Guitarist Mick Thomson's Knife Fight With His Brother

After the devastating death of Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison on July 27, 2021, Loudwire reported that the surviving members of the ungodly (meant as a compliment) death metal/rap fusion band blacked out their social media accounts in a show of mourning for their former bandmate. However, despite their gesture of respect for the co-founding member of the band, things weren't always hunky-dory between the notoriously masked musicians.

Jordison stepped away as the drummer of Slipknot in 2013, but the departure was not amicable, not from the drummer's point of view. According to Billboard, Jordison was unceremoniously kicked out of the band he started without even a meeting to discuss the move. The way he saw it, he didn't leave for "personal reasons," as the band said in an official statement, but was callously and swiftly fired in a "stupid f****** email saying I was out of the band that I busted my a** my whole life to f****** create." The drummer revealed that toward the end of his career with the band he had been diagnosed with a condition called transverse myelitis, a type of multiple sclerosis that paralyzed his legs. The band blamed it on drugs and kicked him out without a word. And that wasn't the only bad blood between people in the band and those close to them. Let's take a look at the beef guitarist Mick Thomson had with his own brother, and how it boiled over into violence in 2015.

It probably won't come as a shock to learn that the inveterately angry dudes of Slipknot, whose gimmick is to never be seen without their torture masks on, don't exactly have the most positive and fulfilling interpersonal relationships with their friends and family. For example, while all of us with brothers and sisters can relate to a bit of sibling rivalry, the Thomson brothers apparently settle their disputes in a much more dramatic way than most of us. In 2015, guitarist Mick Thomson — then 41 years old — got into it with his brother Andrew, 35, and they decided they'd try and settle the score like a couple of pirates come to port. Billboard reported that both Mick and Andrew were charged with disorderly conduct after they stabbed each other during a brotherly quarrel taken to the extreme.

The row allegedly started inside Mick's Iowa home, but the two took it outside once things got serious. Blades were involved, and Mick ended up getting stabbed in the back of the head. Both he and Andrew were sent to the hospital for treatment of minor wounds, but neither incurred life-threatening injuries. Another Billboard report adds a rather unsurprising detail to the incident: the brothers Thomson were both drunk at the time of the altercation.