Jay Weinberg has said his firing from Slipknot “remains confusing”, admitting that his “world bottomed out from under [him]” afterwards.
The drummer departed the masked metal band in late 2023 after they made a “creative decision” to go in a different direction. Weinberg said he was “heartbroken and blindsided” by the move.
He later shared that the “memories and experiences” he had during his time in the line-up were something he “wouldn’t trade for the world”. Weinberg then joined Suicidal Tendencies in 2024, but confirmed he had quit the group in January of this year.
During a new interview with Rolling Stone, the sticksman opened up further about his dismissal from Slipknot, after playing with them for 10 years.
“My world just kind of bottomed out from under me,” Weinberg told the publication of learning that he’d been let go.
“This thing that I have been dedicated to with complete focus and drive and attention and love and holding on to a dream, despite the difficulties, despite all the things that happen with entering a volatile environment like that and a dark environment at that, to having nothing but questions.
“So I went on a walk with my wife to clear my head and process what had just happened. And then 20 minutes later, they posted their own statement online.”
He continued: “I mean, how would anybody feel about that? It perfectly encapsulates the confusion of that. And like I said, it came after an extraordinarily tense year for the band, things that I could only see as an outsider in relationships that are 25 years deep.
“It came without an explanation, [with] no reason. It was confusing then. If I’m perfectly honest, it remains confusing.”
Weinberg also revealed that he’d been suffering from a medical issue during his later years in Slipknot. He discovered this in 2020, when he had a sudden pain in his hip that sometimes left him “unable to walk for several days”.
“I got an MRI done and I found out that I have what’s called a femoroacetabular impingement, FAI for short, which basically means I tore my labrum in my hip due to running and kickboxing,” the drummer went on.
“I was asked to not have that corrective surgery because we’ve got a record to make. We got to be on tour, and this and that. So I can’t hold up this operation.”
Weinberg planned his surgery for late November 2023 following the end of Slipknot’s touring commitments for that year.
He had a digital drum kit prepared based on his own, in case he wasn’t able to perform live with the band during preparations for a new album amid his recovery. However, he was fired shortly afterwards during a phone call from Slipknot’s management team.
“It took place, to be quite honest, at the end of a year that was a very difficult year within the band,” Weinberg remembered.
Although he didn’t know the exact reason for him being let go, the musician said some “preexisting tensions” from before he joined the band began “coming back” at this time.
Elsewhere in the conversation, the musician discussed his creative role within Slipknot: “My writing partner for my duration of time in the band was largely Jim Root, guitar player. He’d come up with guitar riffs, and I’d provide my contribution and enthusiasm and effort and energy to shape the song going in any direction.
“For instance, with [2014’s] The Gray Chapter, our first album together, Jim had 14 songs or something. They were loose sketches of arrangements. I added some things to them, since they asked me to help ‘Slipknot them up a little’. I’m like, ‘Those are my marching orders and this is what I’m bringing to the table’.”
Weinberg has been working on his debut solo album. Last November, he shared the single ‘Sandstone’ featuring Deafheaven’s George Clarke. Then, last month, he released the song ‘Drone Operator’ featuring NOWHERE2RUN – a group featuring members of Code Orange.
Slipknot’s current drummer, Eloy Casagrande, revealed last autumn that the band were working on new music. “We are cooking,” he said. “Since I joined the band, we have been working on some new ideas. We keep exchanging guitar riffs, drum beats, so we are always doing something. We had also some jam sessions.”
He added: “So, we have a lot of material right now. We just have to sit and put everything together, start jamming, and it’s happening. It already happened. It’s gonna happen in the future. So new material is coming, for sure.”
Slipknot’s latest studio album arrived in 2022 in the form of ‘The End So Far’.
In late 2024, Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan spoke to NME about the dynamic within the group after bringing Casagrande into the fold. “He’s a phenomenal person and I love his passion for the instrument. It’s on a level that we’ve been around before,” he explained.
“[…] Eloy seems to be the final piece and, because of that, there’s a new lease of life on everything. It’s an honest pleasure to see him perform with us every night.”
He continued: “It seems like it was meant to be because, here we are doing the anniversary tour which I had a lot of reservations about a year ago, but now I have those same great feelings that I did 25 years ago when we did it the first time around. It feels meant to be and it feels beautiful.”
Meanwhile, Slipknot are set to release their “experimental” lost album, ‘Look Outside Your Window’, for Record Store Day 2026 this Saturday (April 18). Some fans have managed to get hold of the LP early, and have been sharing their reactions online.
