Former Slipknot drummer Jay Weinberg says he no longer needs an explanation for his dismissal from the band, and that he has had to find his own closure with the help of a therapist and close friends.
Weinberg discussed the aftermath of his 2023 exit in a new video interview with Frank Godla of Metal Injection. Godla noted that Weinberg has said in the past that he was never given a real reason for the decision, and asked whether he still felt he needed one.
Weinberg replied (as transcribed by Metal Stop): “No, no. Sure, there’s no easy way to compartmentalize that in your life. At the time, it was a third of my life, spent in one band. So certainly there are difficult ways of navigating that, and especially if you don’t have any answers or any kind of closure, you have to in a lot of ways provide your own sense of closure. And that doesn’t come easy. You know, that comes with like a good therapist which I’m fortunate to have, and a great friend group and people who understand stuff on that level. And then, it’s like, ultimately, what kind of comments do I have to say about, you know, just a clown show.”
Slipknot announced in November 2023 that they had parted ways with Weinberg, who had joined in 2014 as the replacement for Joey Jordison. In previous interviews, Weinberg has said he was told only that it was a creative decision. Former Sepultura drummer Eloy Casagrande took over behind the kit in 2024.
Weinberg explained that the news arrived just as he was getting ready for a long-planned operation. Asked what the period after the phone call was like, and whether his instinct was to go straight back to playing music, he said: “Well, yeah, I mean, it’s just… That’s what I do. It doesn’t stop that. But the fact that it happened right at the same time I had been preparing to have a surgery that I had been postponing for a couple years… When you’re in a band that has tours and is making records and stuff, and it’s like I had been waiting for three years to have this corrective surgery on my hip. Basically, I had an excess bone on my femur. I’m going to have to have this surgery that takes like five to six months to recover. So with all that kind of happening at the same time, I’m all of a sudden on my couch with nowhere to go. I can’t walk. I’m unable to walk for two months… Yeah, not easy in the slightest. So not only do I have to like rebuild my body, but I have to rebuild my psyche, my mind, my approach and feelings about music and collaborators and all this sort of stuff. While I was in that recovery, I get a phone call from my friends in Suicidal Tendencies: ‘Hey, we need a drummer. Do you want to play with us?’ And I’m like, ‘Absolutely.’ Because that to me is like, you know, I rely on music to get me through, difficult things just like anybody does.”
When Godla offered the word “triumph”, Weinberg continued: “Yeah, and overcoming and all that, you know, all that stuff that like a band like Suicidal represents to me too, I knew it was the right call… And my friends in Suicidal Tendencies are going to allow me, they’re going to give me the chance to do that. And I said yes to Mike [Muir] calling me, asking me that when — before I even could walk again. And I was like, that’s my bulletin board material that I’m going to use that to get right back up.”
Weinberg had surgery in November 2023 to repair a torn labrum in his left hip and reshape part of his femur. The call came from Suicidal Tendencies frontman Mike Muir. Weinberg joined the band in March 2024 and toured with them for almost two years, including dates supporting Metallica on the “M72 World Tour“, before leaving in January 2026 to focus on becoming a father and on his own music.
Later in the conversation, Weinberg said that spending ten years devoted to one band had left a lasting mark on him, and that he now tries to focus on the positive sides of that experience rather than the negative ones.
Weinberg, who recently became a father for the first time, has spent the past year releasing songs under his own name with guest musicians. They include “Sandstone” with Deafheaven singer George Clarke, released in November 2025, and “Drone Operator” with Nowhere2Run, the project of Code Orange‘s Jami Morgan and Eric “Shade” Balderose, released in March 2026. He also told Godla he has worked on a song with Soft Cult.
He said the collaborations are gradually turning into an album, but stressed that he is not launching a solo band. Weinberg also played drums on Fuming Mouth‘s album The Ringing Bell, released in July, which he said the band recorded with producer Kurt Ballou.
