Jay Weinberg


Jay Weinberg is an American musician and drummer for heavy metal band Slipknot. He is the son of American drummer Max Weinberg. He has played with the American punk rock band the Reveling and toured in 2009 as a drummer with Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, substituting for his father. During 2010, he was briefly the drummer for Madball. During 2011 and 2012, Weinberg played with Against Me!. In 2014, Weinberg replaced Joey Jordison as the drummer for Slipknot and is currently the youngest member of the band.

Early life and education

Weinberg is the son of drummer Max Weinberg, who joined the E Street Band in 1975; his mother, Rebecca "Becky", was a former teacher. He grew up in Middletown Township, New Jersey. His mother was a Methodist and his father Jewish. His sister is Ali Weinberg Rogin. As a child, he played travel team ice hockey as a goaltender. At age 9 he first saw the E Street Band on their 1999–2000 Reunion Tour, and saw shows on this and subsequent tours, especially in Europe. Around the same time his father took him to Ozzfest to see Slipknot, which gave him a strong affinity for heavy metal and other intense music genres; his father also exposed him to a wide variety of other music. He began playing guitar at age 9, bass at age 12 or 13. He then started playing drums at age 14, getting only few lessons from his father without much instruction and being mostly self-taught, using his father's old gear. By the next year he had performed a guest appearance on stage with band The Used and subsequently with punk rockers the Bouncing Souls. He played in the New Jersey metal band Chaosis. He attended Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School where he played on the hockey team for a time, played in a band called Sadie Mae, and graduated in 2008.
Weinberg graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey in 2014. He joined the New York punk band the Reveling in August 2008, which plays before small audiences in venues such as the Ace of Clubs nightspot in Manhattan, various spots in Brooklyn, and elsewhere. With them he does some of the band's songwriting and arranging.

Appearances with Springsteen

Jay Weinberg's first appearance with Springsteen was in the summer of 2008, filling in for his father on "Born to Run" at Giants Stadium after having watched many other performances during the Magic Tour. Springsteen's 2009 Working on a Dream Tour posed a problem for Max Weinberg, as The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien in Los Angeles – for which he was the Max Weinberg 7 bandleader – was starting at the same time that the tour would be in progress. Springsteen's manager Jon Landau viewed Weinberg as the "secret weapon" to substitute for his father without losing fan satisfaction. Both Landau and E Street guitarist Steve Van Zandt attributed Jay Weinberg's skills to a genetic gift.
Once the initial portion of the tour began in early April 2009, Weinberg played from several songs to half the show on most of the dates. He received a very positive reaction from both audiences and reviewers as a re-energizing "spark plug" for the much-older band, with his vigorous, long-hair-flying style inviting comparisons to Dave Grohl and his potential for replacing his father drawing allusions to Wally Pipp. He began playing complete shows in mid-May 2009 during the tour's American first leg, as his father went to California to prepare test runs for The Tonight Show start. Modern Drummer magazine's editor said that a college freshman playing on one of the year's biggest rock tours is "certainly a unique story". Weinberg played a number of dates early on in the European second leg of the tour, including at the Dutch Pinkpop festival in Landgraaf, the Netherlands in addition to Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tennessee. He also played during a few dates of the American third and final leg. When not needed for the Springsteen tour, he continued to play for the Reveling, often before audiences that were three orders of magnitude smaller; he said of the difference, "I liked the duality of it all... I like doing this just as much as I like doing that."

Madball

In February 2010, Weinberg began playing with Madball, a legendary hardcore band based out of New York City. In June of that year, it was announced that he would become the drummer for their upcoming album Empire and a tour. However, in September 2010 the group discharged him, with Madball vocalist Freddy Cricien saying, "I'm letting Jay go in Canada because I just feel he doesn't represent this band well on a character level." In response, Weinberg said that he had already quit the group by that time, and that "while I really enjoyed playing the music, I do not subscribe to their choice of habits and lifestyle. This past August while on tour in Europe, disturbing events within the band indicated to me that it was time for me to move on." In any case, Weinberg said both he and the group should be proud of Empire.

Against Me!

In November 2010, it was announced that Weinberg would be playing drums with punk rock band Against Me! for their upcoming 2011 shows, covering for regular drummer George Rebelo while he tours with his other band, Hot Water Music. As 2011 unfolded, the arrangement looked to possibly be more permanent. Weinberg also sat in a bit with the band Fences during 2011. In late 2011, Against Me! began recording their first album with Weinberg on drums. However, in December 2012, Weinberg announced via Twitter, without notifying the other members beforehand, that he was leaving Against Me!. Using Twitter, he wished the band well, but the other members in return tweeted a picture of a drum machine.

Slipknot

In 2014, Weinberg became the drummer for Slipknot following the departure of Joey Jordison in late 2013. Although the drummer's identity had not been officially revealed by the band itself, preferring to keep the identity of the new members a secret as they were not official members at that time; a former drum technician for the band leaked their itinerary, revealing that the drummer is Weinberg. Venturella was also named on the itinerary, though fans had identified him earlier via his distinctive hand tattoos. Weinberg was eventually officially revealed to be the drummer by Jim Root in an interview with Ultimate-Guitar on May 13, 2015.

Discography

The Reveling
Madball
Against Me!
Hesitation Wounds
Slipknot