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Former Slipknot drummer Jay Weinberg has opened up about the therapy he sought after being fired from the Iowan nu metal nine-piece in November 2023.
Talking on a new podcast hosted by mental health non-profit HeartSupport, the 35-year-old, son of longtime Bruce Springsteen And The E-Street Band drummer Max Weinberg, says that he felt like a “tangled ball of rusted barbed wire” before seeking out a therapist in his adopted hometown of Nashville “towards the end of 2023, beginning of 2024”.
He explains (via Blabbermouth) that he needed “the expertise that I didn’t have for sure, the know-how, the ability to see life on a trajectory that brought some or that maybe quelled some anxieties and frustrations or that challenge or whatever and live a more peaceful, happy life”.
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He eventually saw the therapist of a good friend of his who married Weinberg to his wife Chloe in 2020, “and it finally felt like an unlocking of a door, like a door that I’d tried many keys trying to open and it just wouldn’t”.
The drummer continues to seek therapy once a week, saying that it helps him process “events and life circumstances that are difficult to process”, including becoming a new parent. He and Chloe welcomed a baby girl in June.
“When life doesn’t make sense, when life is difficult to process, you feel like you’re the crazy one,” Weinberg continues. “And it’s an ongoing process. There’s also other beautiful things that one can find challenging, like becoming a parent for the first time, which I just did a couple months ago.”
He adds: “I’m OK with not being the person who just naturally has all the answers, and I sometimes need to reach out to my community, to someone I trust, to help me get through a challenging moment so I can – whatever it is – sit with my thoughts more easily, I can process event information more thoroughly and maybe with a greater degree of ease. Not like it’s a solution to everything, ’cause it doesn’t solve anything in life, but it at least eases the process through getting to the next moment.”
Weinberg joined Slipknot in 2013 – replacing late founding drummer Joey Jordison, who died in July 2021 aged 46 – and drummed on three albums during his 10-year tenure: 2014’s .5: The Gray Chapter, 2019’s We Are Not Your Kind and 2022’s The End, So Far. The band announced his dismissal on November 5; Weinberg issued his own statement six days later, saying he was “blindsided” by the news.
On November 14, Weinberg underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum on his left hip and “shave down” a misshapen part of his femur. He said that the procedure followed “three years of careful planning”.
Weinberg first revealed that he was in therapy in July 2024, when he told the One Life One Chance With Toby Morse podcast that he wanted to process “the last 10 years” of his life.
Slipknot replaced Weinberg with former Sepultura drummer Eloy Casagrande. Weinberg joined thrashers Suicidal Tendencies in 2024, replacing Greyson Nekrutman, who joined Sepultura to replace Casagrande. Weinberg left Suicidal earlier this year and now plays in hardcore/death metal unit Fuming Mouth. He made his recording debut with the band on July’s album The Ringing Bell.
