Sid Wilson Out Of Slipknot

I have not been a big Slipknot fan for a long time, but I still found it shocking that they seemingly fired one of their original members. I couldn't even begin to imagine the drama involved in a band with 9 members, but after nearly 30 years you just assume some guys are going to be there forever.

There aren't many details available, just some cryptic social media posts and a TMZ story indicating it was due to personal conflicts with the rest of the band. Who knows how much we'll ever find out, as Slipknot's history is littered with dismissals only ever discussed in the vaguest of terms.

The current configuration of Slipknot is very far removed from the group that made two extremely important albums in the metal canon. While I do like some of their newer work, a bunch of essentially hired guns aren't going to recapture the magic and mystery of the old days.

Now, Sid Wilson wasn't the most integral part of the group's sound, but I do think his scratching and sampling did contribute a lot to the atmosphere and overall vibe of some of their better songs. I don't think his absence will affect the quality of future material one way or the other, but it's not generally a good sign when founding members leave a band.

It's also a weird coincidence that this all went down in the same year Look Outside Your Window finally released, which is an album written and recorded by Shawn Crahan, Corey Taylor, Jim Root and Sid Wilson in 2008, during the All Hope Is Gone sessions. (If the title doesn't ring a bell, it's because it made precisely no impact despite years of rumours teasing its release.)

Given all the rumour mongering, it's tough to not make the cynical read that it's a band shedding longstanding members, to replace them with hired guns making significantly less money. There's always a chance there's something more dramatic at the root of all this but, to me, this feels like the inevitable outcome in the later stages of a band like Slipknot's existence.

PUBLISHED: 2026-08-01