SLIPKNOT's JAY WEINBERG On 'The End, So Far' Album: 'It's An Interesting Step Forward'

At least month's Wacken Open Air festival in Wacken, Germany, SLIPKNOT drummer Jay Weinberg spoke to Wacken TV about the band's just-released new studio album, "The End, So Far". The 32-year-old musician, who joined SLIPKNOT in 2014 as the replacement for Joey Jordison, said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I joined the band and literally the next day we started working on '[.5:] The Gray Chapter'… We spent about a year making that album and about three years making the follow-up, 'We Are Not Your Kind'. This album was a lot different based on the circumstances that everybody was dealing with — the pandemic — and we all had to become very self-sufficient home recorders and engineers and stuff. And that lends itself to a lot of different experimental stuff that people have not heard on a SLIPKNOT album before. So from my standpoint, there's a lot on there of what makes SLIPKNOT SLIPKNOT, stuff that we're not gonna get away from if we tried. But we're very happy to celebrate that — dig deeper into the things that we know are trademark SLIPKNOT but also challenge ourselves and do things that are experimentally creative that give SLIPKNOT a completely new voice and then we can go deeper into that. It just gives us more tools to express ourselves. So the new album, it's an interesting step forward."

"The End, So Far" is being released today (Friday, September 30) via Roadrunner Records. The follow-up to 2019's "We Are Not Your Kind", it will be the band's final record with Roadrunner after first signing with the rock and metal label in 1998.

Jay discovered SLIPKNOT when he was a pre-teen, through his father Max, of Bruce Springsteen's E STREET BAND, and leader of the house band on Conan O'Brien's talk show. He was hooked immediately and was a huge fan of SLIPKNOT by the time he was invited to Los Angeles to try out as replacement for Jordison in 2013.

For the first few months after the release of 2014's ".5: The Gray Chapter", the members of SLIPKNOT had declined to name the musicians who were playing drums and bass on their tour, despite the fact that their identities were revealed as Weinberg and bassist Alessandro "Vman" Venturella by a disgruntled former drumtech for SLIPKNOT who posted a picture of a backstage call sheet on Instagram.

SLIPKNOT announced its split with Jordison in December 2013 but did not disclose the reasons for his exit. The drummer subsequently issued a statement saying that he did not quit the group.

Jordison passed away "peacefully in his sleep" in July 2021 of an unspecified cause. He was 46 years old.

Asked in a 2016 interview with Music Radar how respectful he felt he had to be to Joey's legacy, and how much he felt he was free to make it his own, Weinberg said: "Having a massive respect for the band's music, having a massive respect for Joey Jordison as a person and as a player, I understood my role in needing to deliver what this band needs, and understanding what Joey brought to the table, and having this band's legacy continue in the way that the Maggots, the fans of the band, respect, and the nine of us feeling proud of the music we're creating.

"Of course, the history of the band feeds into what I think of the band, but when it came time to come up with new material, new songs, I didn't think about Joey Jordison one bit," he continued. "And I feel it would be disrespectful to do that, and the band wanted me to be completely myself. Because why would I want to be Joey Jordison, why would I try to mimic what he's done?

"Joey's one of the greatest drummers we've ever had the privilege of witnessing. So as a fan of the band and someone who respects the people and the music, I didn't want to come in and try to be a copycat. That's not interesting to me, that's not interesting to the band and it would be insulting to everyone involved, including the fans."

Prior to joining SLIPKNOT, Weinberg was a member of AGAINST ME!, having played with the Florida-based act from November 2010 until December 2012.

Weinberg joined AGAINST ME! shortly after he was ousted from MADBALL and following the departure of AGAINST ME!'s previous sticksman, George Rebelo.

In May 2013, Weinberg filled in for KVELERTAK drummer Kjetil Gjermundrod during the band's North American tour because Gjermundrod had to bow out of the run after experiencing significant pain in his arm.

Photo credit: Anthony Scanga