The Downbeat - Jay Weinberg (Slipknot)

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

My guest this week is Jay Weinberg, drummer for Slipknot. Coming from a musical background, (his Dad is Max Weinberg of The E Street Band) Jay is a super humble, hospitable human and phenomenal drummer. We talked about his time in Slipknot of course but also about learning 200+songs for Bruce Springsteen at 16 years old. We also chat about drums, tattoos, doom metal, and much much more. This episode of the Downbeat is the first of a trip to Nashville, which was actually born out of Jay himself expressing an interest in doing the show. Thanks to the patreon we were able to make it work. Enjoy

Hello, some new faces, I imagine, some old faces. Welcome back. If you're old, welcome in. If you're new, I imagine there's going to be some new maggots in here. If you've read the title of who the guest is, I imagine you know it's going to be a whole audience of maggots. If you don't know who the guest is, you think I'm being incredibly offensive there by calling people maggots. And maybe this podcast is not for you, because I can be much more offensive than that. There's going to be new people. Let's just, Let's get an intro out the way. Bish-bash-Bosh, straight into the episode. Warning, these intros are designed to annoy an alienate you.

I don't know why. I've just got a running in joke. Some people are in on the joke. If you sort of are a bit perplexed by it, do me a favour. Just laugh and be like, oh, that was funny. I enjoyed it and tell your friends. Okay, before we get into the guest, let's talk about the sponsor of today's podcast. Don't you go anywhere.

It's Displate. Displate make metal posters. If you're watching the video version of it, podcast you can see them in the background of all of the episodes. They make posters literally made of metal, as in they're not made of paper. We're living in the future. No need for paper posters, no need, that's quite hard to say, no need for this like eco, unfriendly paper waste sticking stuff up. There's not even any need for frames and hammers and nails because displates mount to the wall with a magnet.

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internet when I was a kid searching for death metal and beheading videos. Again, if you were just listening to that, I'm really sorry, just imagine really cool posters that you can mount on the wall at displate.com using the code downbeat, between one and three disc plates you get 22% off and three and above you get 33% off. Display.com and the code is downbeat. That's that, done. My guest this week is Jay Weinberg. He plays the drums in a band called Slipknot. If you like heavy music, you know who Slipknot are. If you don't like heavy music, guess what? He's filled in for Bruce Springsteen.

This was all news to me. 300 songs set. I don't want to ruin it for you, but the man so hospitable. The whole reason I was in Nashville is because he said he wanted to do an episode. Really nice, down to earth and seemingly stress-free. We were going through his career and just talking about all the stuff he's done. And I was like having a panic attack. I could not do what he does.

high stress, high energy, unbelievable drummer, unbelievable dude. We went for tacos, as Americans call it afterwards. So I feel like I could tell people we're mates. If you fancy supporting the podcast, patreon.com forward slash the downbeat. It's one pound. It allows me to go to Nashville and do nine episodes of the podcast with guests. It allows me to pay for the flight there, pay for the hotel there,

probably pay for me going out to get drinks after every single episode there. If you don't like giving me money without getting something physical back in return, you can go to www.the-downbeat. The Downbeat. You can pick up some merchandise. You can pick up, you know, hoodies, t-shirts, clothes, bits and bobs. There's a US store that ships from California. There's a UK store that ships from good old Redding.

Reading, Redding will kick your head in. It's Jay Weinberg from Slipknot on the Downbeat podcast. Jay, hi. Hey. Thank you so much for coming. My pleasure. Continue your question. Oh, so what happened with the Paul? Like, what happened with that? Because you mentioned it in the beginning of the episode. Yeah, never again. I hate that shit when those things go sideways. It's like, and I was so stoked. Like, that episode I did, I hit the press agent up, which is, you know, the normal way to do it. And they were like, Camber Corps does not do any interviews and stuff. And I was like, I can see why they don't.

there's, you know, there's stuff they don't want to talk about or whatever. And I was like, let me just hit Paul up. Yeah. So I just, I don't know him. Hit him up. And it's like, can you do this episode? Do you want to do an episode? I'm a drama.

Blah, blah, blah. I love Camber Corps. Then, as you can say. And he was like, yeah. Yeah. So we come and do it. And I'm like, I'm still like, I would say the Paul Cannibal episode, this episode, Matt Garska yesterday and Mario Gojira is like, they're like episodes.

I'm but the bucket list episodes because and Lars which is the only one that hasn't come yet but he's coming okay um bucket list stuff because I just know like I don't know each other but I see you we've got mutual friends I see the stuff you post online and I'm like we got shit in common that'll be a great chat yes yeah so stoked on it do the whole thing and it was before if you if you look up there there's that that screen that it says I are recording and all this shit shit is before I had one of those up. Yeah. And I just fucking even getting anxiety thinking about it. Just freestyling like. Yeah. I hope this works. Look back at the far as I lost half.

Damn. Oh, that's just heartbreaking. So I've had stuff like that. Not the same kind of thing, but like I've had stuff like, you know, doing the drum cam stuff that I've done where I'm like really excited for a show. Like it's a big show for us or something and I want to capture it in that way or whatever. And then all the cameras just like, after the first song and I'm just like, what did I do?

Are you singing them up yourself? Well, Justin will like press record and stuff. But yeah, I mean, for the most part, like I have them, they live on the drum set pretty much. So it's all mounted together. You know, just and luckily, you know, we travel for the most part on most tours, we're able to just set up my drum set once. I just, you know, play on it the first day, make sure everything's good.

and then it just gets drilled into the riser and then it just rolls in and out of the truck. So it doesn't have to get set up. It really is. So back when I started, I mean, like I started videotaping myself back on our first couple tours. Mainly kind of in a way,

it was similar to, I used to be a hockey player, used to be a goalie, and I would set up a static camera facing myself as a goalie and then I would have like a friend or a parent you know one of my parents like turn it when I go to the other side of the ice just to make sure I could I could like objectively watch myself play a game and and be like oh you know I lower my glove too much here or whatever and then I would be able to kind of like work on that because I can view it

objectively like that so that's kind of why I started recording the the GoPro stuff back when I I mean, I wasn't really doing anything with the footage. And I was inspired then, because shortly after that, Ben Kohler started doing this crazy chest harness GoPro stuff. And he's one of my hugest inspirations and like, freak drama. Total freak. And so, you know, it blew my mind seeing him, even though it's like really hard to process because you're just seeing that weird, like, it's the angle that's right here. And it's a converge song. Yeah, yeah.

And your arms look like, his arms look like spaghetti. doing the whole thing, but it was really cool for me to watch that. And at the time, like, you know, this is probably almost 10 years ago, maybe a little over 10 years ago. There wasn't as much, like, you know, drummers recording themselves in that way. Like, you know, sick drummer would do stuff and that was always really round to watch. Or like, Ziljan had done stuff with me and, you know, guys before me before that. But at the time, when I was watching Ben do it, I was like, this is so crazy. Because all you, you know, you normally see like BMX guys.

Or it's a studio drum video. Right. Yeah. So to get that, like, frenetic energy of a converge show from that difference perspective, I was like, that's so sick. So I kind of wanted to try a little bit of that myself. And then, you know, once I kind of got the hang of like, actually I would put the trust of where the GoPro would go in my drum tech's hands.

So I wouldn't know night to night. It was like, you know, eight or nine years ago, night tonight, I wouldn't know where the camera was. And then he would just like, you know, he would just give me the, you know, the SD card after him and be like, oh, you know, find out where it was. But then that kind of led me to thinking like, well, if I could like, if I could try to get like a GoPro hookup and try to get a bunch of cameras, then I could figure out like video editing software and I could sync them all up together. and then I could do crazy, you know, multi-cam edits and stuff and just like, just have artistic fun with it. And that's all it's really ever been. But that's a long-winded way of saying like, yeah, so I'll position them all around me. And I think like right now I have six, but that's because I have 12 cameras.

And I used to do all 12 at one time. It was like, it was ridiculous. Like I have like one per symbol. Yeah, yeah. I had a bird's eye. I had one behind me. I had like two on my sides, two in front, one in the center. It was like ridiculous.

But now I have two, I have two kits. And so basically I have like GoPro rigs for each kit. So I don't have to like travel with them. But then, yeah, so I'll basically, you know, I give the SD cards to Justin. Justin will like clear them, make sure all the gopros are on. And then when I walk up, they're already, you know, they're rolling. And then he'll just give the SD cards to me after the show and be like, well, see what you got.

And then one day you'll be like, all right, I absolutely fucking nailed it. And then you'll go, oh, something went down on the main. Well, exactly. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, so, you know, if I want to capture a, you know, a specific moment in the set and like, is that a really cool venue or something? And then, like, of course, that's always when shit goes sideways. And now I'm literally, I have paranoid. I'm just I've got a red button there and a red button there as long as they're all red, then I'm good. You've been posting those videos a lot more frequently now. Yeah. Well, I, you know, I've gotten into it a flow with it. It feels like, you know, and I, and I think, yeah, what started

out as like a single camera. Maybe I could like, you know, I was figuring out how to shoot, you know, I can get one song and then I'll figure out I movie of how to color treat things and try to get the audio a little bit better, you know, it's, it's difficult. You just raw, raw dog's a GoPro audio. Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, that's like, that's like the easiest way to do it. It's just to rip, you know, the basic audio just from the camera. And I try, what I've found with that is that the one over my left shoulder sounds the best. Yeah. It sounds the least worst. You know, that's the best stage sound because it gives kind of a realistic capture of what it is.

You don't get much of the kick drum. You don't really get much of the tombs. You get a lot of symbols and snare. Kind of love the way the snare sounds for a GoPro camera. Oh, I know. It's rat. No, it is rad. But so, you know, that in a pinch or if I'm just like doing a quick clip that was from a

really cool moment in a show that we just played or whatever, I can edit that super quick together and then just throw it up. But I've always wanted to just like expand like how can I push this, you know, this element of like what I feel is like heightening the, you know, the overall experience of anybody who either was at that show or who wasn't at that show or whatever. And as we're going through the course of a tour, you can see things start to change and evolve. If I post, say, you know, like this last tour, we just started playing a new song from our newest record. which from the start of the tour, the first time we play it, to like, you know, 20 shows later or something at the end of the tour, it's kind of a little bit different. I'm more sat in the, you know, the experience of playing that song.

So I find that interesting to be able to show, you know, anybody who's willing to check it out, that progression of that. And I think that's a cool thing to be along for the ride, along, you know, for that kind of ride. So with all that said, there's kind of the quick edit that I can make, which is just to basically take it, color, treat it, and just throw it up online. But I've also wanted to expand that to just be better and more comprehensive of the sound and have it actually sound the way I want it to, have it like properly mixed and this and that. That's more time intensive and it just takes a lot more. Justin can do that. I know Justin. Come on.

Pick your heels up, bro. Yeah, of course. But so I've gotten in this cool flow where it's like, you know, like say, you know, we had a great show at grass pop or something like that. And we played, you know, whatever song really well that night. I'll be like, okay, I want to make a specific cam of this song because we really nailed it. Yeah. And I'll basically just like get all the raw tracks and just like trim it to what that song was

and send it off to my friend Will Yip, the amazing Will Yip. Unbelievable. I hit him up before this and I was like, you don't live in Nashville, do you? And he was like, no, I don't. Yeah, I know. I love Will. Will's like one of those guys that I just wish I lived near because I feel like if we lived near each other, we'd hang out all the time.

But I hit him up because I wanted, it was the first time I wanted to, like, present something. I think it was from when we played Vaken last year. Yeah. And it was like, and that was one of the most. epic shows we've played in the last 10 years. And so I wanted to showcase it correctly and not just the raw GoPro audio. I want to showcase this the right way.

And Will's just one of those guys who I know. And we've done some things before where I've kind of hit them up randomly. Like can you get me out of a bind in a pinch? Like for example, when I made one of my signature snares, I wanted to record it properly in a studio, show people what it's. sounded like, you know, in that setting. And, uh, and it just so happened that I had, like, I had the time and I was already planning a trip to go to Philadelphia. And I just hit them up randomly. Um, and I was like, hey, can I bring my snare to your studio and can we just do a quick,

like, 10 minute like demo of this? I'll come like Justin, you know, Justin lived in Philly at the time. And, uh, I was like, Justin will come film it. We'll just be like in and out, whatever. He's like, absolutely bring it on by. So Will is always. been down for those like jump down the rabbit hole kind of guys and I love him for that for many reasons but he's just always been like that um so when it came time to be like okay this is a little more in depth but you're the guy that I trust with like you know how I like to do this stuff I know you will know what to do with this like can you mix this? do you just get the stems from your front of house guy yeah yeah yeah the latest YouTube videos that

you've done. That's got Will on it. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. So and I'm always telling him, I'm like, let me know if I'm being too much of a nuisance, if I'm thrown too much at you because I just love the way, you know, we do this. And it does showcase, you know, like, I'm able to show my playing in a way that you wouldn't really be able to see otherwise. And you know, it's like, you know, when you're able to kind of not necessarily like strip away the veil because you're not hiding anything but like when you're able to give that perspective that nobody else gets you know justin gets it that's it that's really it uh so to be able to provide that in a way that i feel like you know does give people something to tune into on friday night it's like that's a you know

that's a fun thing to you know to give away i think it's cool like back in the day before any of this like who wouldn't have killed to just see like like imagine there was an option to watch like a 80s Dave Lombardo from behind that there wasn't. So it's so cool. Yeah. Do you find when you, because I love recording myself, obviously I'm a fucking peacock man. But I mean like, look at it. But I mean like drum wise, I love recording myself.

Like you touch on it slightly a bit. But like, because I can see with your goalie stuff, I can see, there's two double edge sword. I can see like, oh, I'm speeding up there. And at the time I don't realize it. And the next show, sometimes it bums me the fuck out. But the next show, going into that section, I can go, oh, well, I knew I sped that up last night. And then I don't be, I consciously try and pull back.

And then it's easier. I'm like, fuck. Yeah. That objectivity is, it's everything. Because it doesn't lie, you know. It just. And you use it as a way of like, you know, I think it's like, because I have to balance that with like, you know, it was the energy of the moment. you know it's the we always call it the temperature of the show you know that's one thing that's always been

really important i i you know i've i found it to be important in any context that i play but especially in slipnot um we always talk about it's just like it's that instinctual instinctive moment that we're living in where you know because we're not playing to a metronome we're just listening to each other question on that that's coming sure yeah um you know so we are living in that moment and and And to me, my favorite music and the music that I just respond to is always that like frenetic feels like it's a train that's about to go off the tracks. But it doesn't. Like, that's an important element to capture and have it be like purposeful and driven like with intent. It is intentional that it's like, you know, wild and crazy like that.

But it certainly is up to, you know, the moment. And as the guy kind of driving the pulse of things, sure, I mean, you know, when we're, like, we played a show in Amsterdam, um, a couple weeks ago that was like, it was one of the hottest most humid shows we've like ever played. And we have, we, we've had a preposterous amount of pyro on this last tour. Yeah. And the ceiling was like just low enough to where like, I was indoors. Yeah, yeah. So when the pyro goes, it's like, it, it raises the temperature. And then it's, it's, like, it, it's. doesn't come back down. So every time it blasts, it's just getting like hotter and hotter and hotter. Oh, I don't even think about that. Dude, it's, yeah, so by the end of the show, it's like, you're just cooking. And the temperature, there's even like a temperature shift or like a difference between the guys in front of the stage and then us on the top. Even though we're only like, whatever it is, like, it rises, not even 10 feet, eight feet maybe off the ground. It's like that much

hotter up where we are and it's right by our heads and stuff. So it's like, when all that stuff feeds into it, you start to lose that objectivity because you're not, you know, we're not playing to anything predetermined. Yeah. It's like we are, it is total survival mode. I mean, so much of a slip knot is does feel like survival mode. Yeah. Um, in a good way. And so that's all to say that it's like, I think if stuff feels like it's like totally crazy and off the rails and it's wild and it's fast, you know, faster than, you know, than it is on the record or whatever. Like we kind of always reference, it's like, oh, well, that's, you know, that's live tempo. And it's always feeling the temperature of, you know, that's what we call it, the temperature

of that night, that show, that moment, you know, and on that case, the literal temperature. Literally, the temperature. Yeah. And, and, you know, when you're, when you're getting into those moments where like, you can't breathe because of this thing on your face and you can't, you know, it's just like. fuck, I didn't even think of that. You're telling me it's really hot and I'm like, yeah, it probably is really hot. You have a full mask and boiler sewer. Yeah. Yeah. So all that stuff kind of feeds into it.

But to bring it back to what we were saying, the objectivity of being able to reference something that it's like, okay, that's going off the rails in a way where, you know, where I'm losing control of it or whatever. I'm able to kind of analyze that. And yeah, just like you said, like I draw it back to being an athlete where you can objectively look at what you're doing. doing. How can I improve? How can I, you know, alter what I'm doing? What are my mechanics? How am I doing this mechanically where I can, you know, just observe it? Just spot something and go, oh, what the fuck am I doing that? Exactly. Yeah. So, so I find that to be a helpful tool. And I think, you know, as I, as I can track, even the progress of like one song, like, I probably play duality much different now than I did 10 years ago, you know? And I could, I would be able to look at a video from 10 years go and balance it against it and be like, do I prefer what I do now? Do I prefer what I did then? And, you know, I think there are a lot of musical choices made like in the moment that it's like, oh, wow, that felt cool. And I'm going to kind of follow that thing or whatever, you know, moments where we intentionally like put on the brakes and all of a sudden it's a crazy

slow down gear shift, whatever. Because that's one of my favorite things that we do is like a lot of a lot of moments often feel like this like slingshot that it's like it's all about tension to me and and and i think that's one of my favorite things about you know what we're doing is that there are so many moments to create tension and like on purpose space where if this guy's ahead of the beat but i'm behind the beat it makes that note like so much fatter yeah um i love that and that's just I'm able to witness that by analyzing like what I did in the show the night before and be like, oh, that really felt cool. That really felt like I, you know, I sank into that kind of slingshot moment.

Yeah. And I think you feel that impact. You know, I couldn't do it, right. Like, I have literally, I have it written down there. I can see it from here. I have the word click and then I have the word anxiety written after it. Like, I couldn't do it. Let alone, let alone playing to that many people.

in general, I don't think I can do it without freaking out. But without a click, like, if there will be people listen to this, I don't even know what we're talking about. A metronome or a click is a beep noise, basically. The drummer will play. Most of you know this, but come on, my mum and dad, they know it. But your dad certainly knows it. But like the, and it essentially keeps you in time. It keeps the, traditionally, maybe the drummer would play to it, keep you in perfect metronomic time.

now when you play a show live for me at least it is there's a complete correlation between the amount of bodies in the room and how fast I want to play and I can't do it I can't play without a click so like I'm just wondering

was it ever a discussion or were you just on board with no click because I know they'd never played to a click that's right yeah because I would have tried I would have tried If it was me, I'd have got in and be like, anyone mind if we played a click? Yeah.

No, initially, yeah, there was never any kind of conversation of like, do you want to? Do you not want to or whatever? It was just like a, this is just what we do. So, no, there, originally, there was never a conversation.

Excuse me, there has been like, and it's not to say that I'm resistant to it or never would or whatever, because I find there's advantages and disadvantages to like every tool that we have at our disposal. because I'm a big fan of bands that use it and drummers who use it in a way that enhances things without distancing yourself from your bandmates in a way where you're not like all of a sudden because you're listening to this predetermined thing, then you tune out the guitar players or you tune out the vocalist or whatever. Like I've had that experience before where you start to focus on the thing rather than the chemistry. there of trying to make an impulsive, you know, one of one moment, you know, for better or worse.

That's a good way of putting it. So, but with that said, it's like, and I also have had live experience, like my whole time playing with Bruce, I did play to a click. What's really cool about that situation is that it was a click that could be varied at any time based on what Bruce was basically music. dictating to me and to the whole band. How did it vary? Wild. So, you know, I had to learn several hundred songs for that experience. And I mean, you know, learn in the sense of like, I already knew a lot of that because

I had been traveling with the band since I was a kid. I've been watching them play these songs hundreds and hundreds of times. Yeah. So. And everyone knows Bruce Springsteen songs. So there's a lot in there. Yeah. The minutia was important to.

dial in. So there was a lot of homework that I had to do, but a lot of it was kind of like in my head anyway. But so with this whole catalog of songs, every single song that in Bruce's catalog and covers, you know, and like there's so many songs that he would pull

out at any time. They all have charted out like, oh, Born to Run is this BPM, you know, typically. This is the this is the general BPM that it should be at. Depending on, like we're saying, the temperature of the moment, he might count it off a little bit

faster or a little bit slower. And what I would do is he would count off a song. You know, we'd all start it. And I had two buttons. And this is actually, I was piggybacking on my dad's system because this is my first, like, formidable touring experience. Yeah. I'm sorry to interject really quickly for people that don't know.

Sure. Max Weinberg. Correct. your father plays for Bruce Springsteen. That's right. There we go. Continue. So, yeah.

And to kind of connect to where it got to this point, he was the drummer and band leader for the Conan O'Brien TV show. He had to be in two places at once when the late night program became the Tonight Show. And Bruce had a tour starting. And it was at the same time that he had to be in two places at once. So then I got asked to cover for him. And I was 17 at the time. And so... 100 tongues.

17 year old, 100 tongues. Yeah, I mean, I think it was like, it was like 300 to start with for sure. Oh, my God. It was ridiculous. But, you know, and that's my family. Like, that's my blood family, you know. To this day, like, I mean, we were, I was just spending a couple weeks with them in Europe. And it's the same as it always has been since I was a little kid, you know.

But so anyway, so I was piggybacking off of my dad's system where he would have, he had two buttons. to the left of his high hat that he would click with his left heel. One started and stopped the click at, you know, at the press of a button. Yeah. The other button signaled to my drum tech, his drum tech. It would turn on a light that would signal to him match what I'm playing now because that BPM that's been predetermined that he would, he would, you know, born to run's coming up.

So he would put up the born to run click in my ears during the whatever program he was running. Sorry, Springsteen or your drum tech? My tech. Yeah, so he would, you know, like we'd finish a song and be sustaining that last note. He'd pull up the next tempo on the doctor beat or whatever. And then, but some nights would be like, that click is, I'd turn it on and it's too

slow. Like, it's, it's, Bruce counts off every song. So then I match that energy of where I can see. And he's off, he's oftentimes like, like pulsing. with his heel. And that's where I know where the tempo is. That's where he wants it. And everybody in the band,

like it's a much different experience to Slipknot in that with Bruce. It's all a flying V right to him. Yeah. And everything starts and stops with him. With Slipknot, it's just nine guys all pushing forward at the same time. But so if I tell him with that light, match what I'm playing now.

I'm going to match Bruce. And then in five seconds, or whatever, I'll click that on and it'll be the tempo that I'm playing to match what Bruce wants and then we're set for the rest of the song. But for, I mean, this is blowing my mind. But like, so for a time, are you turning the click off and matching Bruce or are you just like ignoring the click? I would start the song and play the first couple bars.

Like once we're in the meat of the song or whatever, I would hit, I would, you know, with my, uh, with my heel, my, my life. left heel, I would turn on the click as were in the song. If it matched close enough to what I was playing, I would stay with it. If it was jarring in some way where I'm playing ahead of the beat or I'm playing ahead of that click, but I see it's what Bruce wants, I would turn it off and then hit that light and then that would signal to the tech, okay, match what he's playing now with the tap tempo thing.

But Bruce doesn't have the click. No. It was only me and perhaps. other people who were on ears as well. But Bruce isn't on ears. That is so, because it's never going to match up perfectly. That's such a skill.

You're going to have to, you will have to, because even when you turn that on it, even if it is the speed, Bruce doesn't have the click. So he's going to be very slightly off. So you need to listen to him, musically bring him to you without,

but whilst after you've brought the band to him, because it's different from the click. Yeah. Yeah, but it's nice in that. It is like variable in that way. So you do get a little bit of that like that one of one kind of experience where if you're a fan, which their fans are wild, you know, they go to 30 shows in a row and stuff. I do as well. Like when I'm like, especially this year, you know, they're back on tour and I'm trying to see as much of it as I can.

And every night feels vital and in the moment. and I think it is because they keep that that looseness about it but I think what's so fascinating about the way my dad approaches the instrument and especially when he's playing with Bruce it's like they have such this

telekinesis that's happening in so many ways like you know I was very fortunate and you know obviously you know it's like I'm family and that was why I was able you know why Bruce and the band asked me to fill in for my dad with that.

But he's the only guy who can play with Bruce in that telekinetic way. Yeah, they've been doing it for how long, look. Since 1974. Wow. Yeah. So they have this shared brain that is just, I've never seen anything like it. Like, Bruce will shoot him a look and he just knows exactly what that means. That might mean we're playing a different song than is on the set list.

And he's like, I got it. And he knows what song it is. Like that literally happened like two weeks ago. I watched that happen. I'm like, how do you do that? That's insane. Did you think any of it passed down to you when you were filling in was around? Did you get any of that?

Not to get a witchcraft, but I'm pretty witchcrafty. Yeah, yeah. I would hope. I mean, I definitely had to, as I was learning as I was going, because, you know, to be able to deliver on what that show necessitated. It was like, you know, and Bruce told me at the beginning of the tour, he's like, you know, our, our commitment is to this experience that he's, he's like, we know you know it because you've been watching it forever. Yeah. But we're not, it's like, just because we're choosing you does not mean you get a pass or you get it easy or you or whatever.

Like, uh, and I knew that. And I wanted that. I wanted the full experience and I wanted to try to the, to the. best of my ability to rise to that occasion of what had been asked of me. Like, that's a lot. They took a real shot in the dark because I had only been playing drums for three years at that point. No way. So. And there's nothing worse than disappointing your dad either.

No. And my uncle, you know, my uncles and aunts in that band, it's like, I, I didn't want to do a bad job. So they knew that I, you know, I was taking it seriously. And Bruce was giving me a list of like five songs a day to, to learn on the way to a show. and then we... Extra. Oh yeah. On top of like...

So, you know, we met up prior to the tour as we were kind of experimenting with this idea of what we were going to embark on because it was a big ask. It was a lot to undertake. He gave me a list of probably about like 200 songs and was like, this is what we're definitely playing through the course of this year.

Did you write like charts or anything? For some. Yeah, for the very, like, nuanced, much of his, like, earlier material. I think before it became, you know, with Born to Run, I feel like his songwriting took this stride of more the storytelling, more, it became more about the story of the song, less about, you know, guitar gymnastics and stuff like that. There was more of that on his first two records. But we still played material off those records that it's like,

there's songs that are like 13 minutes long and there's all these changes and it's very proggy and avant-garde in that way so yeah i definitely like i wrote charts and like stuck them onto my floor tom to like what is this you know i'd have to yeah oh yeah um and i yeah so i did that for pretty much everything and i mean that that truthfully became how i just under i i think that actually gave me um the tools for working with like everybody who i I've played with ever since. You know, say, for example, if Jim from Slipknot had an arrangement, and this is very true, this is exactly what happened when I started playing with Slipknot, he, you know, he had a wealth

of material that became our first record we did together. And it was kind of like he wanted to kick me in the deep end of like, here's all this stuff I made, going to that studio, going to that, you know, live room and just do what you'll do to it. You know, you have 20 minutes to learn this. song or whatever. So that's what I would do. And I think I honed that muscle memory or whatever it is that, you know, we kind of get into and I'm sure you might, you might be able to relate. It's like, when, you know, your bandmates are kind of like, here's a sketch of a song.

It's like verse and chorus and bridges and whatever. And you kind of figure out like, okay, this is, I don't know how to write music or read music. So I just write, you know, bouncy riff. I do that. I do that. To or whatever, you know. I can read music, but I always revert. to that. Yeah. The thing that your brain will remember the quickest is the best. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Death metal blast, you know, stomp, mosh part. Slayer beat. Stomp mosh part, not in mind as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Slayer beat, which means wide bell. See, you know. Yeah. We could read each other's charts. Uh-huh. Yeah. Um, so, so I had to, I had to do that every day for like five songs a day

before the show. And then like two or three of them would make it into our set that night. Um, So that got me to learn like songwriting habits of whoever I was playing with. And that was really cool to be able to be like, oh, this is how he constructs songs typically. Or this is how, you know, the second verse will then morph into the chorus in this interesting way. And he does that in a bunch of these songs or whatever. And that's how I kind of learn like, oh, the habits of songwriters. And, you know, I take that then, you know, okay, I see what Jim is doing here, how he's kind of thinking this will, you know, more for whatever. And that was what I think was my initial, you know, when we started jamming at first,

that was kind of how I was holding on by the skin of my teeth of just like, okay, this is what it's like creating new slip knot material as we were just kind of figuring out what this record is going to be, what our dynamic is and stuff. But it was all, and all that kind of muscle memory and stuff, I think was, I was given that jump start through the, you know, the whole experience to Bruce. I can't believe how many songs that is. I think if I was young, if I was 17,

I'd probably, and you did that and someone, I mean, it's Springsteen, but like if someone was like, learn 100 songs, when I was 17, I said, yeah,

fuck it, I'll do this. 36, I'll go, uh, yeah, I don't know, I'd like second guess myself.

I actually, funny you said about Jim, I made a joke once with Jim that fell flat on its face, and I don't know if he hates me. Like, it was surprising that we haven't met because I'm friends with V

from when we were kids. Yeah. And then like I came on three shows of the, uh, 26, no, 2020 tour in the UK one. I remember seeing you backstage. I was like, oh, there's that guy. And then he just, and that was, whatever. But I actually jammed with Jim on your kit, on your practice kit and rolling kit backstage. Oh, okay.

At that thing. And, uh, I don't know if it was just me being British or it just wasn't a funny joke, but we were just jamming. It was me, him and V. I was just on the kit and V was there. And Jim came in and picked up a guitar. We had a cool jam. We had making some time.

And then Jim turned to me and was like, I think if we did that thing with the, you were doing with the kick drums, with the guitar going like in and out of that, that would be really cool. And I went, you do know I'm not just Jay without the mask on, right? And he just stone cold,

didn't laugh, didn't do anything. And I was like, oh, no. That's funny. I'm fucking blown it. But that was cool. That was the first time actually.

I've seen it since, but that was the first time that I've seen like, a full jam set out backstage. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, we're incredibly fortunate to be able to travel with that. How long are you on it? Well, I like to be on it for a couple hours a day.

Lately, especially with this tour that we just did, we're getting to shows like two hours before we play, you know, just with all the festival travel and all that kind of stuff where you're, you know, flying in the day of a show. And that stuff always really stresses me out because I don't get into, you know, I feel like, and this probably goes back to me being a goalie because I'm like, so I'm, you know, I'm not very superstitious, but I have, you know, my things that I like, my checklist that I kind of like to go through throughout the day of making sure what I'm able to.

Real it off. Real it off. Sure. Well, you know, hydrating correctly is like that I learned that pretty early on, you know, especially just with such demanding music, it's like I have to be well hydrated or my arms and legs just are like cement blocks and then you end up playing just the worst, the forearm cramp. Yeah, it's like, you know, I could get away with that in Madball. I could get away with that and against me, but like not, you know, not with slip knot. So I learned pretty early on that like I just

need to be constantly drinking water. And then, you know, if you're if you're, if you have like this last tour where you have like two or three hour drives in a van to the show. then it's like okay then I don't want to be the guy peeing in a bottle and stuff so you know your your routine is just like thrown off like that but um I typically try to eat the same thing same exact thing you know oh you're real superstitious yeah like almost like same thing eat the same thing at the same time like all that kind of stuff oh nice Matt gasker in here yesterday complete opposite because I'm like that I'm neurotic with it I'm like and if I and it's dumb because if I play really good I'm like well I had a banana that's exactly yeah

And it's all from like, oh, I had a great show. Well, yeah, so I always have a banana, like probably about like two hours before we play. Yeah, it's all that kind of stuff, you know. It's good that someone else has that. Yeah. But then you have a shitty show and you're like, well, what did I have the banana? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But so there is a lot of that.

But so my, you know, preferred way of doing it is like, you know, I'll wake up, have an easy kind of afternoon. You know, just having coffee, drinking water, probably go up and check. check my, check out my drums. If there was something that was bothering me about my kid, I'll, you know, address that or whatever. Have you got coffee? Cut off time before stage? No.

I'll have, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll have coffee. Like, if I'm, like, really dragging ass, I'll have coffee right before, like, literally walking to the stage. Same. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. No, and it's all, it's, like, all in service of the show, you know, like, that's the most,

that's the only reason we're there is to deliver that. So if it's, like, especially, like, late in the show. tour and we're all just like, oh, man, like it's, it's difficult to get that energy up. I'll do whatever, you know, like, yeah, you know, reasonably. I'll, yeah, I'll be having coffee. Yeah, I'll do whatever legally. Yeah, reasonably. You know, yeah, so I'll be having coffee and it's like, okay.

And if I'm just staying up till five in the morning, you know, afterwards, it's like, well, my adrenaline doesn't come down until three or four in the morning anyway, you know, so I've become, you know, I'm a late person. I'm a late night person just anyway. And then the rock clock kind of dictates like, you know, just how I'm able to exist or at least like find what works for me. So, you know, because when I come off stage, like I can't eat for a couple hours afterwards or it makes me sick. Like, you know, I get kind of weird like that. But I like, I prefer to have, you know, a half hour or an hour of like playing with a metronome.

know earlier in the day and just doing kind of boring rudiment stuff yeah whatever and then um but i haven't been able to really do that lately with our festival travel and stuff on a headlining tour where we're like in buses and stuff that's a lot easier to do um it's a lot easier to just sleep as long as you want as well yeah dude and sleep is i mean sleep and hydration are just i mean it's like it's cliche but it's just so true it's like if i get enough sleep and i get enough water in me, then I'm good. I'm a terrible sleeper. And in order to combat being terrible at sleeping, like, quite often I'll drink.

And it's like, this is just no hydration and poor colleagues with sleep. It's tough. It's, you know, yeah. And then that vicious cycle just starts when you're like, you know, and sometimes, yeah, you don't get any sleep. And then you wake up at seven at night and you've got like an hour to get ready. Like, shit just sucks. But anyway, I like to, you know, I like to just kind of get sticks in my hands around like three in the

afternoon if we're playing at nine. Yeah. And then probably around like six or seven, I like to start just getting a sweat going. Because I hate hitting the stage not being already like hot. Yeah. You know, not being in a sweat in the show already. Like by the time we play the show, I'm already an hour and a half or two hours into what feels like playing a show. That's my preferred, you know,

of getting into it is I want to hit the stage feeling like I've already played like 15 songs. That's great. You don't get tired from that. Mario Gojura does the same thing. He's like, I play the song. I feel way more tired if I don't do that. Yeah. I've got a rigorous warm up routine, but it's still like 20 minutes.

But it's mainly feet based and I don't play anything near as complicated as you on my feet. Well, so what we've done lately is, um, and I find this to be great, you know, and like you said, like having a mobile studio set up. Originally, the idea was, it was born out of like, well, we have the space and the ability to travel with kind of a mobile studio setup, have electronic drums, going into Pro Tools. And that was born out of we were in such a creative mode coming out of creating the Grey Chapter that we just kept going. And, you know, and Jim especially had like all these rifties. going like we there were there are songs that are on our newest record that were born in the first tour that we did after the gray chapter wow yeah that's a long time ago yeah so it's like songs

that have been gestating for like eight or nine years or something um so it was that was the that was like the purpose for having that room the jam room uh but then it just kind of morphed into our warm-up room and you know much like Metallica does with you know their well-documented tuning room it's like this is an amazing tool and we're able to have this why don't we get in there a half hour before we play especially towards the beginning like at the beginning of a tour we're playing a new set list we want to do the stuff that we're you know that's freshest to us that we want to feel like we you know like oh what's that riff or like oh what's this beat that I'm playing in that I forget um we're able to just hash that stuff out and we'll you know usually play

It's like myself, V man, Jim and Mick, we'll run through five songs, four or five. Like on a good night, if we have enough time, we'll do like four or five songs. And then we're just like in it. And I'm ready to go. And then we get out. And that's my favorite way to start a show. The first song goes great. And then everything is just, you know, I'm stoked.

The worst is when you're like under the gun. You just have to put on your shit and go out there. I feel like that just smokes me out of the gate. Yeah. I play terribly. I'm in my head for the whole thing. thing just and there are there are guys who do who totally do that like like Dave Lombardo I think he'll have like sip of coffee get his drumsticks walking to the stage and

he's just in it I'm like I just I marvel at that like that's amazing to me but I don't I can't do it I watched Inferno from behemoth oh my god have seven shots of vodka as is warm up and then fucking smoked it he's the man it was we did a bunch of tours with that's where that's where that's yeah yeah we were playing with beemoth I love touring with Behemoth because he's such an interesting I've never met him I just I saw it this was like I'd say this is 2007 like old old Behamuth so maybe he's stopped now he's uh he's the man like we've we've had a couple brief you know conversations and and he's just really really sweet amazing in what he does and

my friend has has done merch for them and she would say how like watching him is like like watching like an orchestral conductor the way he hit his his fluidity. Even you're doing that thing. You know, it's that thing. It's like, like, that's my favorite thing about like, you know, when you, when you get to spend time with these guys and like really watch and study these things and see them play the same set over and over and over and how they're approaching it.

I'm like, that's such a unique way that I would never think of approaching the drums, but it's so that guy. You know, I'm fascinated by it. It's, you know, Inferno is just one of them, you know, like same thing with Mario. like I would get to watch Mario when we're on tour at Gojira and it's just like you freak in nature

like it's just so thick just a goat just a goat I was super stoked when he sat down just because I thought you know he's a little bit older it's not massively older he's a little bit older he's got family and when I was like how often

which I'm going to ask you in a minute and we'll go straight into that like I was like how often you practice when you're at home and there's like a lot of it talking to you talking to Mario like talking to Matt I mean most people I have on it

is because I really want I'm on here, but it's like, I want to know these things. And I'm like, someone like, Mary, I'm like, you're at the top of the game constantly, but you're in a, you know, in a life position that I will possibly be in later on. I'm like, how often do you practice? Like thinking, does he slow down? He was like, probably about two hours. And I'm like, and how often do that thinking he's going to be like, you know, every, you know, every weekend or whatever?

And he was like, oh, every day. Every day. And I was like, when you're home from tour, every day. He was like, yeah, every day. I was just like, and that's why. That's why you're a freak. Yeah, no, he's the man. And especially when, you know, when you're able to, like, when you have that discipline

and him especially, he's going to, he's going to laugh if I do an impression of him. But we would be on tour and like, hey, Mario, like, he's walking the stage. I'm like, yeah, like, so, you know, stoked to watch you guys. And he's like, oh, Jay, I'm so tired. I'm so hangover. And then he just goes. And then he's like, I don't know. about today, we'll see, whatever. And then it just goes,

like, you're amazing. I, yeah, I love. He's a glovesman. You're not a glovesman, aren't you? You're a glovesman? From time and time, I hate playing with gloves. I only do it if I've opened up, if I've opened up really painful blisters on my hands. That's the only time I'll do it. And you can, you can just switch between you two, because I tried once, because I love the way

they look. And I was like, post-pandemic, I was like, I'm going to come back, glove guy. I'm going to have shirt off, bleach blonde, gloves. I'm like, I'm doing like a little glow up, mid-career glow-up. Yeah. And then I, fuck, I didn't think, should I do a band practice with these things? I went straight in, straight in, sweating inside the glove. Yeah.

It's a whole different world. Yeah. Yeah, the only reason I'll use drums is just pain management. Like if, you know, usually it'll happen on my index finger or maybe like my thumb. Do you do a fingerless or a full? Full. like the Zildren gloves. Shout out Zildren.

Yeah, yeah, totally. Eric, Eric, Eric says hello. Oh, awesome. Hey, Eric. So I'll do that pretty much at necessity

just because it's less painful to do that. And I, like, I tape up my fingers, mainly my fingers that are just in contact with the stick, um, with a, with a band-aid and then this kind of like a foam rubbery kind of wrap. Um, that just keeps the band-aid in place.

Because like, with the band-aid, I find that it doesn't help me grip the stick and then I'm holding it tighter. Excuse me, and that will lead to, that just leads to like wrist issues. Yeah. And whatever. So then I started putting this next care wrap on top of that. And I find that that allows me to relax my wrist a lot more. And I don't have to hold the sticks nearly as tight.

And I don't develop blisters that much, especially at the beginning of a tour. just because as much as I'll practice at home, nothing will be the substitute for like that first show. That's, that's where. There's nothing, you can't replicate it. People, there's people that are like, oh, it's like I've posted before when I've torn my hands up from a show that was too hot, not warming up enough. Usually just, I was on vacation for a week before the tour.

And then I went straight to the drums. And people would be like, you should learn this technique and you won't get those blisters, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, no. Go on the stage and then tell me that. Yeah. You can't, you can't prepare.

Yeah. But it definitely is, like you said, it's like a tactile difference. Like, it definitely adjusts how I play and I have to get used to it really quickly. And the only reason I'm trying to do that

is just because I'm trying to let a blister heal so then I can get these things off of me as fast as I can. Do you ever use the liquid bandage? I fucking hate that stuff. Just the pain or just it's insane, isn't it? It's like, yeah. It works. Especially when I get the gnarly ones.

Like I, like, there was one time where this whole section from like, that span from like in between my, my thumb and my index finger from here to like all the way to my middle finger, it just lifted up. And it was like deep red. It was like deep red, like probably a couple layers of skin. Oh, I've seen one of those. Yeah. Oh my God.

That was the worst. I got the one like I got to the tall album one. Yeah. Literally right in the skin. So. And with that, I didn't really know, you know, it's the beginning of tour. And I remember I did it because that happened because we started a tour in West Palm Beach, Florida. I remember, like, it was like traumatic because I remember exactly where we were when I did it.

And, you know, to get moisture off my hands, and so my sticks aren't just flying all night. I'll use mountain climbers chalk. I've tried this as well. Yeah. And it's, you know, yeah, it's like, okay, your sticks aren't going to go flying. But all of a sudden now it's like, you know, you know, you're, you're, you're, you have no moisture on your hand and you have this wood and whatever. So I remember that tore up and I would have to put like neosporin, multiple gauze,

athletic tape around my hand and then try to play a show like that. And it's just like, shit sucks. So, um, so then finding gloves, it's like, it's okay. And I know, I know the difference. I know how I kind of have to adjust to the tactile feel of what that does. And, and part of it is actually kind of cool, uh, where, I feel like a fast roll from my snare and up onto my racktoms. I have more of, it gives me kind of this more feeling of like stable control.

But at the same time, I feel this like separation from it, you know, it's really weird. I mean, I had to get, it was an adjustment going to even having anything on my fingers. You know, like I used to not have band-aids or anything. It's like a prophylactic measure against blisters. but now I pretty much never play without it just because I hate blisters that much. Oh wait, so you'll just put it, you'll preemptively put it on.

Yeah, yeah. So it takes me like 10 minutes before. If it fucking works, it works. Yeah, and I have, you know, I have my whole routine of like, you know, get my coveralls on, get my mask ready. I put on my makeup. I put on all my tape things and I put on my mask

and I'm ready to go. Pouring your own makeup? I guess it's eyes, eyes and... Yeah, or like our kind of panda that we do. you know yeah so it's a whole routine of i thought you would have had a guy thought you'd go just in just just like we go into a makeup room like i don't know or even just like just like just like justin uh justin doesn't have to do that that's not in his job description you just told me he wheels the drums into a fucking thing and with the minute i the minute you said that

like he doesn't have to pack down the drums i was like on on the occasion that he that you know to say we play like a one-off show and i mean i fucking, I'm very fortunate to have Justin in my corner because he's just like the best. This is the first time he's drum teched for another person. He's the best. He's been on the downbeat. He's the man, you know? And I just knew, like, I hit him up as a friend because I was just like, I think you're

going to be good at this. And, you know, don't feel any pressure to do it. But I just knowing you as a friend, I would love to have you in my corner with me. And I just know you approach the instrument in a way where it's like, I don't really care that you've never teched before. I just know you're going to be great at this. And he's amazing. Yeah.

I mean, he's a drummer as well. I feel, I feel bad. I mean, I feel bad. I feel like I got him fired from his band when he was on a downbeat. He was telling me about him being, you know, he was in his band. Not even going to say the name of the band. And you can go through the episodes and quickly find out. and he told me he didn't have a drum tech

and he was doing like Brickson Academy and stuff and I like laughed so hard and I kind of dogged I guess I dogged on the band a little bit or something but in our conversation some elements of the band that I found or like him being a drummer I don't know if I didn't agree with whatever

I just I went in on it and then shortly afterwards he was no longer in the band that maybe it's unrelated but I was like fuck I hope that wasn't me well I you know I think I mean, having someone as capable, like Justin, you know, in my corner is just like, takes a lot of guesswork out of, out of it. I know it's going to sound great.

I know it's going to feel great. Meticulous. Yeah. And, but I do feel for him when, you know, when we are doing those shows where it's like, you got to set up that whole thing and then I play on it for an hour and a half and then you got to tear it down. And then, like, that's fucking gnarly. So I'm super appreciative.

And we're lucky that, you know, we are able to. And that goes down the line for our entire crew. Like we have the best fucking crew in the world. You know, many instances where they've gone so far above and beyond, you know, for the guys that they cover in the band. And it's just like, you know. Super friendly as well. Because we watched a bunch of shows.

Again, we didn't meet. We played a bunch of festivals together. And I watched side stage slip mark every time I could. Yeah. Whole crew just so pleasant. That's true. Like just really, really, really. nice. The guy that's the guy that's head of security, I can't remember. Just like super nice. Yeah, we have the

best people around us. And that, you know, that helps it be sustainable. That helps it be, you know, just move along well and have everybody in a good mood knowing that everybody, I don't know, just is, um, he's a good person, you know, like, and it's, and it's all like relatively, you know, even of the last four years, like, you know, Justin came on board with us after, with our first tour since COVID, which was also that provided its own set of just like difficulties. And I feel like we were one of the first bands of, you know, playing the kind of venues that we do and whatever and of our size that I feel like we were kind of leaving the charge of like, you can tour intelligently and safely and, you know, do it by the book of what all these new

guidelines are that we have to abide by. And we did it without incident. And it was sick. We had great shows and our crew was a huge part of that you know we couldn't have done it without the pro crew that we have my second the set i mean obviously i'm very very lucky that this is my only qualms my second biggest thing that covid took away from me number one my girlfriend spleen that's in the top spot blood clot from having covid in it like gone that's depressing not that number two we were supposed to do Notfest at Sea. Stray was on Notfest at Sea. Boom, gone.

Could you met like, okay. So when we all saw that we were in a new Notfest at Sea, I was like, that sounds like the most insane idea ever. Designing a, are you talking about mid-pandemic or just? Oh, no, just like period. Like that sounds like the, I mean, I was very excited for it. And I think a lot of us were, but it was just like knowing us and knowing, just like how difficult it is with our machine and just all the people involved.

I mean, yeah. Trying to do it on a boat. Well, yeah, it's just like, okay, it's going to be everybody in an enclosed space on the same boat. And it's like, can you? I was like, I don't even know if we can do that. Like that's, that's insane, you know. Is that and I think you should leave, quote.

Yeah. But it was, but it was kind of, you know, it was, I love that we, you know, I love that we even attempted to do it and it's sad that it wasn't able to happen. Sad for me. Yeah, man. But if I was going to design an incubation chamber for COVID-19, it would be a boat. Yeah. Oh, for sure.

A cruise ship. For sure. Or none of us would have gotten it and we would have been our own traveling private little rock and roll oasis that didn't get affected. They might have kept us there? Like, we're going to stay here. And then it was not life. Have you seen, have you seen that movie, uh, the triangle?

of sadness. No. It's on prime. Woody Harrelson. Okay. Lost at C. That's all I'll tell you. Okay. It's awesome. All right. If you're into like, it's not an A24, but into like just slightly quirky weird, weirdness, which I don't want to typecast you, but I'm in a quick I think I think you are. Yeah. For a man who said he doesn't like the pain of liquid death, talk to me about how many tattoos you've got in the last month or whatever. Uh, let's see. So I try to take advantage of like wherever I'm going to be just based on touring or whatever. So it's like, okay, you know, we're coming to Europe for a tour. So what can, what do I have this unfinished that I can get done?

And I was like, I have quite a lot that needs to get done. And maybe this is born out of me just being like super cheap and I don't want to have to buy my own flight back over to Europe. So I'll just piggyback on, you know, on my activity with the band and be like, Okay, I'm going to, you know, end up on the tour here. I'll just get my tattoos finished and then I'll go home. So I had to finish my arm with Thomas Hooper. Unrealized. Yeah, he's the best.

I'm so fortunate to have been able to connect with Thomas and his family and become friends. And just like he's one of my favorite artists, period. And he's become, you know, a very good friend. And, you know, I'm just so lucky to be able to poke his brain. about art and whatever the way he looks at the world and and you know when you spend time with him you almost start to see how he sees the world and you see things around him and the the spirals that are in you know plants around the around you and you're just like oh my god you're you and I share that with a lot of people that I you know I'm just drawn to what they do creatively and you spend time

with them and you start to kind of see how they like see the world and it kind of makes these like micro adjustments and how you how I see things you know um so uh I had Thomas started on my right sleeve like two years ago or a year or whatever like a year or two ago um and then we went as far as we could last like or this January back when you visited the States and he was like I have like four more hours to go on you but like you're just cooked like your arm's like a bleeding stump right now how long do you sit for uh For that, that was probably, that was like this blade, everything except for the fire here, really. I don't know, that might have been like seven or eight hours, something like that.

No, I'm not learning 200 songs. I'm not seeing for seven hours. So my first tattoo, like I started getting tattooed kind of late, I feel like. I got my first tattoo when it was 24. Oh. Um, because I mean, I'm just like, with stuff like that, I'm incredibly indecisive and I can talk myself out of, you know, whatever idea. Um, is that because you're an artist and you, and you think, maybe I won't like this or maybe. Yeah, I kind of had like a rule of thumb with myself of like,

I forget who told me this, but they were like, this is before I started getting tattooed. And they were like, if you have an idea and you really want it, wait a year. And, and if you still, want it, you're probably going to want it for a longer time than that for the rest of your life. Great advice. It's good advice. I wish I'd had that advice. Well, and I had a lot of ideas from when I was like 15 that I was like when I'm 18, I'm going to be a nautical stars.

Yeah, no, and band logos and whatever. Like, no, it's not, you know. So I'm glad I waited, but what struck me in this moment, we were, we were on tour in Budapest, which I knew had. these statues that were on the cover of my favorite neurosis album given to the rising what a fucking album what i mean yeah we could we could be here for like four more hours talking about that album uh but uh so these horses with these like war tusk kind of things that were that are incredible in heroes square in budapest i didn't know that's where it was yeah uh

so i went and that's one of my favorite things about like touring and traveling is to be able to see stuff where it's like I never would have gotten the opportunity to be in Budapest randomly and I'm going to go to Heroes Square and check out these statues that are on this album cover from this album that I like um so I was there and it was 24 right it was like I think my first European tour with Slipknot and uh and I was like I was like looking at this statue and I was like I must get that tattooed on me and I was and it must be done by Thomas I didn't I didn't know Thomas at the time. Nice.

And here's a funny story. So I was like so inspired. And I got back to the hotel and I immediately called Rock of Ages a tattoo shop that I knew he he tattooed at in Austin. And Steve Byrne was there as well. Yeah, yeah. So Steve, Tony Hundall, Katje Ramirez and awesome. What a liner. Yeah.

And Thomas and like, you know, just it's like one of the greatest. communities of tattoo artists, they converge there. But so I called and I'm like, I'd like to schedule an appointment with Thomas Hooper. And then the guy answering the phones, he goes, all right, cool, call back in two years. And he hung up. That's like American Psycho, like the Dorsey scene when the guy just starts laughing.

I was like, oh, man. Because I didn't know anything about, I didn't know anything about tattooing or like the world or whatever. I was very excited about this idea that it just come to me. So I hit up a mutual friend who I knew New Thomas and I was like, hey, I would never, I would never ask this of you if I didn't really have a passion for this. And I like, could you please ask Thomas if he would tattoo me or whatever. And so then Thomas was like, oh yeah, totally. Yeah. So and that's where, but so anyway, my, this goes to just, you know,

length of tattoos or whatever. That tattoo takes up my entire side. Um, because I told me, side. You went straight and on side. Yeah. You are by far one of the most psychotic individuals I've ever met in a good way. But you get that stuff over with and then number one. I only have painful places left. Yeah. So, okay, so we've approached this from opposite ways. Yeah. So I, well, number one, I was like, I hear that ribs are terrible, but I don't know any better. So this will just be what it. The baptism of fire. Yeah. I'm like this little this I don't know. I don't have a. reference point. If I had, if I had gotten, you know, I don't know what's a least, what's a less painful place to get tattoo, maybe like up here than less painful. Super easy. Give me that again. Yeah, yeah. So it's like, if I had started with that and then I went to this, I would have been like, oh my God, just stop. Like, I'm not doing that. But, but if, but if I start with this, then I won't know any better or whatever. So he did both my sides, like kind of initially or whatever. And then I started to. In one thing? No, no.

no. No, I did, I did my, he did that given to the rising kind of piece. And it's like, you know, it's inspired by that, you know, that was one thing that I, that I love about Thomas is that he'll take a seedling of an idea and then filter it through the way he perceives the world and the way he does stuff. And he'll just do something that's completely his where I'm like, that's better than anything I ever could have imagined. So, uh, so he did that. And, um, you know, he's kind of, He's kind of getting a feel for who I am. And I think that's one of his massive talents is he learns, like, who you are and what he feels like you can have, what will suit you on your body for who, like, what suits you, you know. And he doesn't do that with just me.

He does that with everybody. It's like, it's a true talent of, like, you know, of just, like human relationship and how that translates to art that you're then putting on someone forever. So he did the horse here. He did a goat and like there's ravens that go down from there. So I got both my sides done. And then I, um, but yeah. So once I had that done, then it was kind of like, you know, it was, it was kind of the typical like it takes you, you know, five years to, to think of your, your first tattoo and then five minutes to think of your second tattoo. Yeah.

Yeah. So, um, so that was kind of my experience. And I have taken a little bit of my time with it. But as I've gotten to meet more artists through this, you know, community of just like learning more. And when I was getting tattooed by Thomas, I'd check out the other people at Rock of Ages and learn about where they, you know, come from and their tattooing history. And then I would just learn more. And so, for instance, I met Mishla, who tattoos in London. We met and he did a piece on the inside of my thigh.

and then it took me a while to kind of figure out what I wanted to do with like big real estate because I didn't want to just kind of have like little I didn't want to really connect little things here and there which is rad and I do like patchwork kind of stuff my wife has some kind of like disparate little pieces that kind of fit or whatever but for me I was like if I'm gonna go for like doing my back I want it to be a cohesive unified, fucking bold thing. And that's like Mishla's strong point. Like he's such an incredible talent with this lack of a better way of describing it, kind of like woodcutty kind of way of approaching tattooing where it looks like he's like sculpted this piece out of like cutting wood. Super interesting and the way he tattoos is different where it's not just like, like all, I mean, like I had my back completely lined, but like when he did my thigh, it was like

a little bit of lining and then shading and then more lining and then more shading. So it's like very different to how I had normally been tattooed, but that's the way he builds his pieces, which is kind of cool. So anyway, um, I got my, I got this arm finished, uh, at the end. I went right from, oh my God, can I tell you about the last, like 48 hours of our last tour? I need everything. You can tell me whatever you want. This was insane. So,

um, so our, we played, our last two shows of this tour that we just did. We played in Portugal late. I think we were on stage at like midnight. And, um,

and I was already kind of having like a freak out of a day because we were playing with Fever 333 with Thomas Pridgen. Yeah. My all time favorite drummer. Unreal drama. Of all time. Nicest fucking guy. First time.

Dude. as well. First time I saw Thomas was, was on a tour for the Bellam and Goliath with the Mars Vulta. Before the album came out. Damn.

I didn't know anything about him. And my dad and I went to Terminal 5, and I'd known the Mars Vulta. And actually I got into the Mars Vulta through my sister, through the album, two albums before that,

Francis the Mute. And I love John Theodore as playing. But then when, but I never saw them play with him. And then we, my dad and I went to Terminal 5 in New York City to see them play the bedlam and Goliath. And both of us were just like, I'd never seen anybody.

It was like watching like Buddy Rich for the first time. That wax some ultra intro. I mean, it's like, like, you know, I'd obviously had many drummers who inspired me up until that point. I think it was like 15 or 16 at that show. But that was when I made this like hard turn of like, I didn't know that you could do that on the drum. Like, I didn't know that was possible. And then, and then, you know, luckily got to meet

Thomas and become friends. So, anyway, this show in Portugal, we're playing with fever, and Thomas is there. And then Mushugah's also playing, and Thomas is there. I'm just like, I saw both of them before the show. I was like, can you guys just both leave so I can play this show in peace knowing that you're not here? You're not watching me. You know, I, like, I have this yin-yang. Well, you didn't actually ask them, though.

Did you ask them to go? In a joking way, but I'm like, I'm like 20% I'm like 80% joking, 20% kind of wishing that you guys were in here. Just to, I mean, I get, I don't know if you feel the same way, but it's like, I get that, you know, that duality of like, I'm super pumped to be playing with, you know, shows with, with musicians I really admire and really respect.

But then I'm also like, fucking, like, you guys mean too much to me, where I'm like, I don't want to be doing what I do knowing that you're also here. Yeah. You know, like there is a part of me that is seriously like that. That I'm like, I don't, I just don't want to be also thinking that like, oh, I botched that Phil and Thomas saw it or whatever. You know what I mean? Like that kind of weird psychological psych out kind of thing that we tend to do when, you know, sometimes.

Well, yeah, but also I think it's probably, you know, there'll be kids listening. into this who jay weinberg is there thomas bridging or thomas heart and like i think it's cool for them to hear that you have moments like that and you're the drummer in fucking slimmed on well and ben i think it was uh i think it was ben coler who who told me because i've said similar things to ben and he's you know we play with like converge and stuff and he's like no like don't he's like be psyched like we get to do this together like this is awesome and i'm like

that is the way to look at it i suppose It's tough to actually do though. I had exactly those experiences, but separately, we did three shows, two of them got, one of them got canceled, but we did three shows on a festival with Meshugger on this same run that we just did there and Thomas Pridgin as well. Luckily, the Pridjan one for me was, I don't, I didn't know that he followed me. Like obviously he's Thomas Pridgen. I follow him.

I love everything he does. But like one day out of the blue I got a DM where he was like, and this is when I knew that he followed me, he was like, hey, bro, what's your workout routine? And I had one of those moments like, fuck yeah, Thomas Bridgett. And then again, before this run, he hit me up and was like, hey man, what? Like, I've got this new rock gig. So it must have been just pre-feber. He's like, what symbols do you recommend?

And I was like to have one of your idols like asking you shit is fucking. Like I don't know. Maybe you would know guy who got endorsed by Zildjian at nine years old. You know. So sick. Listen, I know what you're thinking. Craig, don't interrupt the episode. I've got to interrupt the episode.

I also know what you're thinking. You're thinking, I'm watching this episode, Craig, and you look insanely healthy. You look quite energized for someone who admittedly was going out every single night while in Nashville. How have you done that? It also looks like your gut health is supported with pro and prebiotics. Your immune system has been built with vitamin C and spirulina.

It's almost like you've been drinking AG1 by athletic greens. every single GD day of your MF in L. Life, L for life. Well, thanks for saying that because I have been having that. AG1 by Afflitt Greens is a foundational nutritional drink containing 75 concentrated superfoods, antioxidants and adaptogen extract. Every time I say that, I've struggled to say antioxidants. There we go, that was a really good one, good alliteration.

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We, you know his, well, recent, like four years ago, his Zildjian live performance that he did. It's one of the best videos on the fucking internet. We were recording an album in the other room at the same time. That's cool. And I was going to go over watch, but I got the, like, from our producer, I got the, like, you know, you're recording this record.

Like, you can't be distracted. And I was like, no, you know, you're right. And I am there to, you know, to do our thing. I'm not there to get distracted or whatever. But when you're in these, like, creative hives, it's like, it's like, fucking, you know, here's Aaron Spears and Thomas and, you know, Sput is, is arranging the whole thing or whatever. It's like, I'm like, okay, whatever. But so I didn't get to watch it in real time, but then I saw it afterwards.

I'm like, thank fucking God. I didn't go into the other room and watch Thomas just annihilate everything. And then me go back into the other studio. I'm like, oh, my God. Wow, you might be inspired. And I grapple with that. I think, like, you know, I think just as like any artist or any musician, I think kind of tends to, you know, maybe not.

um that's the word i'm looking for i don't know like you've used someone who's like that's like my hero you know like thomas is is like he's the man and uh and so then when i'm like working on stuff that i've brought to creation and and tried to you know push as as far as i can you know you can't help but just be like like benchmarking it against what thomas just like did in that thing and it's like what the fuck um but you know that's just i think that's

just a creative struggle of just like you know whatever just and then and then you kind of have to shut all that stuff out and just be like no I just got to be me I do my shit yeah and and I you know I've had many instances where that's been my life is just like you know fine that was one of the the things that I was very fortunate coming into slipnot was knowing that these guys have my back in in like we want you to be you and that's why we asked you to join our band it's just like you do you and so so I've very much appreciated that but um Fuck, where was I going with? We were at East West and doing that.

Oh, no, no, no. So, you know, so we play this show in Portugal. Back to the Portugal story. So we play this show super, super late. We get done at like two in the morning. We have to fly to Spain the next day, next morning, get to the airport, fly. We have like a three-hour drive.

It's at a festival. Have you played at the Resurrection Fest? Amazing festival, but it's a challenge. should get to because it's like a three hour it's like a three hour drive from the nearest airport excuse me so we we like you know we land obviously I can't get into my you know my warm up thing we go basically three hour drive to resurrection fest play at like midnight I think and I had you know an hour or two to kind of just like catch my thoughts and just like do it um and then play got done at you know 1 30 or 2 in the morning then like a three hour drive

back to the airport. Yeah, you never sleep on that one. And then the early flight, the next day, I basically went right to Thomas Hooper. No, the worst. Yeah, so I went right to Thomas from there. He has a studio kind of outside Brighton. And he even hit me up. He was like, because I got it.

I got there late at night. And he was like, hey, if you want, like, we could just do it tonight. And I'm, or like, you know, lay over, whatever. and I'm like, dude, I can't do a tattoo tonight. Like, I'm so smoked from the last like 48 hours of this whole, you know, the last. And it was like the end of the tour, you know, long festival tour of just, you know, you don't get sleep. You basically don't sleep for a month, you know, or you don't sleep correctly as much as you'd want to.

So anyway, so then, yeah, he did like four hours on this and got this over the finish line, which I'm psyched on. And then I had a day to rest. and go back up to London and then I met up with Mishla at Red Point to just bite the bullet and just get my back done. He had, he did the lining of it

last year after another summer year, after my summer European tour, I went right to London, got that, got my back lined out. And then we were going to try to push on with like some of the shading, but he was like, I'm going to need like four days. with you to do this.

And I'm like, okay, yeah, I definitely don't, I don't want to do this. Yeah, I was like, I don't want to do that. I was like, and he was like, well, we could, you know, he thought that the lining was going to take two days. It actually just took one. It only took like six hours. So.

Lining, I have my back lined and it isn't even finished. And it's not even, I have my back, like, I've got a back piece in progress. And it's like, but and back. And it's all bloodlined currently. And so. So Jim Gray, shout out of Jim Gray. Amazing Japanese eyes.

Japanese tattoo eyes. He's not Japanese. He like the way he does it is he'll essentially sketch it on your back with really light lines. Which still fucking hurt. Yeah. Then does all the color. Then at the end lines it. And I am dreading it.

Back, back. And you know by now you've got a bunch of toes back for me. Worst. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty gnarly. So, yeah, this one goes on to my butt as well. So that's hot laser beams. Terrible.

Terrible. Well, especially, and then when it like presses up onto your like butt bone is just awful. I found the lower back was way worse than the upper back. Yeah. Like across shoulder blades, there's like an area where it's like, oh, this isn't actually that bad. Yeah. Well, right now, so right now I'm like, I got, I'm like three days having just had my back finished. almost finished i have like a couple things left to do but um the gorilla yeah yeah before i

found jim jim jim is my girlfriend's brother okay and before that i wanted to go do you know the guy maurs mors mors tattoo he did he did this on my name's very specific traditional style amazing tarry was yeah i wanted a gorilla by him gorilla back piece is fucking hard yeah and uh i wanted it but then i you know met jim amazing japanese japanese stuff lives and grouse girl i like yeah fucking dishes to it. Yeah. So, so back when I got it in line, he was like, hey, you know, we booked two days. I booked two days with him, and he's

like, hey, you know, I think I, we were probably about like halfway through the lining, like probably like three hours in and he was like, I could probably finish this today. And then we could do some shading tomorrow. And I was like, I kind of don't want to just like walk the earth with, like, I didn't know when I was going to come back. I was like, I don't want to

walk around with just like a partially shaded thing. So I was like, I'd rather commit to just just do the lining now and then at some point down the line I'll come back on a European tour and then we'll just do the shading so after Thomas finished my arm I thought he was gonna I thought he was gonna be able to do it in two days because I thought he was like overselling it like I'm gonna need four days I was like you could probably do it in two yeah and then we did two days after I got Thomas to finish my arm and he was like he was like I'm definitely I definitely need more time

than this because he like he just packs in the black so much and and you know I respect him for that but I also hate him for that because he's just on the one such like 10 minutes on like every square inch and then when they come back oh there's just a oh there's just a little bit more yeah so so we got the bottom half of the shading pretty much done and he was like I'm gonna do what I think is going to be the worst for you which is your butt and your lower back. That'll be the worst for you and then it'll be a little bit better for your upper back. I was like, okay, so we did two days, eight hours each day. Back to back. Back to back. This is what last week? No, this is about a month ago.

This is right after our European tour. So the way I was able to kind of like dance around this and kind of make it like, okay, this will make sense. We finished our European tour. I got my arm done. I got half the back shaded. Then we had two shows a week later in the States. And it just kind of happened where I would get my tattoos finished in the UK. And my dad with the East Street band, they were playing at Hyde Park. And so I was like, okay, I'll make a whole trip out of this. Like I'll get tattooed.

I'll see them play a couple shows. My wife came out and met us there. We traveled with the band to Copenhagen, Southern Portland. playing Copenhagen. My wife went with my mom to hang out in Europe while I went back to the U.S. and played these couple shows. Did that. And luckily, that was like a week after I had done my back.

So it was pretty much like, you know, you can play a show or two. You take time off after you get tattooed. I mean, it depends. Like, I don't like to get tattooed on tour like during like an active tour. Like, I don't like to get tattooed and play that night or the next day. I have before, but I don't prefer it. Just because I don't know what it's going to physically do to me. Like I got my ankle tattooed while I was on tour in Europe, like the day, you know, on a day off.

And I could play and I don't feel like it inhibited my playing, but I don't prefer it. But so then I came back, you know, did the U.S. shows, went back to, went to Italy, had a family vacation, you know, hung out with my wife in Italy. and then went back to the UK, finished up the back piece. Jet lag with days of tattooing. Yeah. Hell. Yeah. So then it was like two seven hour days back to back to almost finish this.

He has a couple dot gradient things to do and a couple of the exterior lines that he just wants to bulk up. And he was like, I could do that. He's like, I have like three more hours left. But he had been working on like the last place he finished up where I'm like feeling pretty exhausted after seven hours was like my right shoulder and he's like I'm going to have to go to your like

lower left back he's like you're you're gonna hate it like because I get you get used to that like the motion of it like okay my right shoulder is killing me yeah but I can focus on that and kind of I can deal with that but then all of a sudden if you're going to jump to a place on my body that's like

totally different I'm like oh fuck that Thomas did that to me once where I did I did my shin He did this joy division piece on my shin and then blacked out my kneecap because I had a piece there that I wanted to kind of just black out. And then he was like, and neither of those were like all that bad. But then he was like, I'm going to absolutely murder you for about 20 minutes because I need to finish this part on your ribs. He's like, I know both of those weren't bad.

This is going to be worse than both of those, but it's only 20 minutes and then I'm done. And then he just did this like circle on my ribs that was just absolute torture. It's like all I've got left is... Yeah, but it's... Terrified. But when you, like, switch, like, body parts like that, I'm just like, I so would have rather not done that. But so, anyway, I have, like, three hours left on that, but I'd just rather get it done.

No, you don't have to tell me. Any numbing cream? Any... Backteen while, like, while he's going. I'll save your back team is the fucking one. For sure. I hate it when... If I get tattooed by someone new...

sometimes. I guess it doesn't happen that much now but like the resistance to using Bactin like earn your stripe shit no.

Are you gonna get I'm gonna see it better if I'm not in so much pain if anyone doesn't know quite a lot you probably don't know back teen is like a it's like an antibacterial spray

that has a mild anesthetic quality to it it's not like it's not getting rid of everything but it's just like it helps your stamina

It helps you be able to, because like, my whole thing was like, I don't know when I'm going to come back to the, you know, hopefully it's soon that we come back to the UK or Europe, but it's like, I don't know when I'm going to be back. So I'd rather endure, you know, 30 hours throughout this month and just get it done rather than like have to come back and forth. I'm like, I'd just rather get it done. So, you know, and you get into that that flow where it's like, okay, it's like 10 minutes of hit, because it only works if your skin is open. It only works on tattooed skin. Yeah, you have to get it done. So you have to endure somewhat. And then as he's like, so a lot of this piece is like, you know, it's a lot of dark shading. And then a lot like he has, he, he hadn't done it in a long time in his tattooing, but this like heavy dot work where it's like, you know, it's shading with just very thick dots. Narnly. Yeah, I was going to say, what does that feel like?

Because I haven't got anything. Just little individual stabs forever. Just like for. a long time. But so, you know, what he would do, and I'm grateful for it, is that he would, you know, do a lot of the lining, which, or the shading, rather, which sucks. But then he's able, you know, you do that for 10, 20 minutes, and then he'll be like, okay, the skin's open enough here. I can hit it with Bactine. And now when I'm doing the dots around that, it's like, yeah, it sucks, but it sucks a little bit less. And you're able to kind of catch your breath again, reset, and then as he moves on to a

different part than you have the stamina to endure that or whatever but you know i mean it all sucks you just got to do it you just be enduring you got super hard hot sets you got pyro 48 hour flights if there's one if there's one thing that being a slip knot it's got me accustomed to is learn to be okay with just being uncomfortable like all the time i mean that that's also just being in a band i agree we should probably talk about drums okay yeah sure sure we both played the drum I sometimes I get I get told off for not talking about drums enough. It all feeds into it though, doesn't it? Like your creative life and the things that you love to do find ways to,

that's how I feel like, you know, tattooing inspires me as much as, you know, like painting does for me or whatever, watching another band. It all funnels into drumming or making music in some way. Luckily, as I'm a professional, I've got a seamless way to get this into this. Let's talk about your snare drum. Sure, yeah. like off the top of your head. Do you know the specs and stuff?

Just explain the drum to me. Sure, yes. You know, your standard six and a half by 14 inch shell. That's about the only standard thing about it. It's a 48 ply maple shell made by SJC custom drums. It's my favorite thing in the world. It's absolutely my baby. And it was born out of just like I had been not struggling,

but, just experimenting to find really getting my own sonic footing within the band, you know? And we had made the Grey Chapter and I was proud of it. On that album, I had used like a bunch of it was actually really cool.

We can gear dork out here. The kicks and Tom's were the kicks and Tom's from the Black album. Oh my God. Yeah. Amazing. So, and you don't. don't like, I underestimated how I would be so taken by like, like, like when I, when, when, when, when I was introduced, because I was jumping on to a moving freight train, you know, when I joined the band. So all this stuff was happening incredibly quickly. And I had never, you know, rented equipment to make a record before, you know, whatever. So, uh, so that was all new to me. And I'm, I'm, you know, we're making this record in LA. And there's this guy, the drum doctor. And I hear he has a cool arsenal. his drums. And so he brings these drums. Ross, he's awesome. He brings by these drums and he's like,

yeah, these are the drums used on the black album. I was like, what the fuck? Are you kidding me? And so he sets up, he puts the kicks just in the room on the floor and I hit the kick and I'm immediately like, that's sad but true. That's, that's Enter Sandman. Like it, that's the drum. And I couldn't believe how like, like obviously, you know, Bob Rock and Lars playing, you know, made that sound what it is. But it was incredible to me that it sounded that much, me hitting it like, little old me just hitting that drum.

I was like, motherfucker, that's the black album kick drum. So, I would have nutted. That is like my ideal kick drum and kick. So, uh,

the kicks and Tom's for that record were from Metallica's, the black album. And then, uh, one of the scenarios that I used for most of the record was the never mind, uh, the bell brass. Bell brass snare.

Oh. Yeah. So a lot, so if you listen to that record, most of what you hear, and that was kind of, I thought it was really cool. I was a wow. So my drum sound on my first Slipknot record is a cross between the black album and nevermind. That was very cool to me.

I've been searching for that sound. I have a bell brass town of Bell brass and I retrofitted a lot of stuff of it to be as much of a replica of that snare drum that you use, the drum doctor's Terminator. So I got the hoops. I changed the lugs out for like similar stainless steel ones. Yeah. It's not an end of mine, but I'm getting close. I've always, I've always been on the search for one.

And actually recently I found two. And my wife very generously was like, you can get them. Yes. I have two. Not like, not that. I don't know what year that bell brass is, but I got one from the late 80s and one from the early 90s. They're both very different snakes.

errors. But they have... 14 by 6 and up. Yeah. I'm pretty... With the hoops? Yeah, one has the bell brass hoops. The one from the the one from the late 80s, I think it's like 86,

has the bell brass hoops. And I think the one from 92 is the one that has... I'll send you pictures, but it's like the continuous lug. The other one has like, they kind of look like sonar lugs. It's like the two... They're like two circular. kind of tube. They're the ones that I got a guy called VK to make those.

Oh, I love those drums. They've got him to. He, but he's basically the guy that turned my towel brass into the Terminator copy. So, you know, I love collecting stuff like that. Like, I don't have, I don't really have that much of a collection. Most of my collection is my SJC stuff that I love. But I do like to get some things that are like replicant of what I've recorded.

And that record, the recording experience of the great chapter was just like incredibly special to me. Obviously, you know, it was my first record with the band. Young as well. I joined the band with 23. So I was like 24. No. No, whatever it was. We finished that record in May or June of 2014.

And then I turned 24 in September. Yeah. You grew up in Slipknot. I did all of my growing up, like real, like, I'm a man now growing up in like the last that you know my 20s it wasn't typical growing up you learn stuff then

but then you're learning how to be a real human whilst being in the biggest metal band on the planet well I definitely found that that experience of you know the fighter flight being kicked into the deep end of rock and roll was like to draw parallel back to you know my experience with Bruce

was that um the The bigness of that situation was kind of, it all kind of goes away when you're able to strip down the situation and compartmentalize and break it down to be like, this is just music. It doesn't matter how big the crowd is in front of us. You know, all those like variable factors. It's like, and that was what I learned with Bruce is that he treated it. It's like, it's just music.

And that meant so much to me to get that lesson. Yeah. Like it, you know, my first formative touring experience besides like, you know, being in a high school band and booking little tours myself or whatever, was with them. And to have it be with like people I've known since I was a kid who didn't want me to fail. You know, they wanted this to be a good experience for me. I was really lucky with that. And the fact that it was so huge, you know, I was 18 and we were playing for, you know, 60, 70,000 people a night or whatever. The fact that they were able to help me put all that aside and just focus on what's happening on the stage, which is enough to be concerned about.

Yeah, yeah. That helped me, I think, for everything else that followed, you know, most notably Slipknot. It helped me just kind of like put the pressure of a situation, the pressure of expectation, you know, a long history of a band with, you know, a rabid, passionate fan base of which I was a part of. There's that wonderful photo. Yeah. The photo heard around the world. Simon will put it up here. Yeah.

Which, which I didn't know that was actually, I didn't know someone caught that. That literally, it was Halloween night. the only reason I was dressed up as Corey was because it was Halloween night and they just happened to be playing near me on Halloween night and I went trick-or-treating as Corey. And I was at a show and, you know, because they played, you know, they played Conan and they were like, they, my dad was like, you guys are fucking crazy. Like, my kid's going to love you guys, you know. And they were like, like, come on out to a show like whenever you guys want, whatever. And so to his credit, he took, you know, took them up on it. And so I was there.

I was immediately enthralled with, you know, it was, that was right after Iowa had come out. And I'd seen, you know, we went to a show before that, that summer before. And I was completely taken by it. And just thankfully, someone was there with a video camera. And it actually came out. I didn't know that it was going to come out on a re-release of the Iowa album, like a DVD. And it was just there. And I picked it up.

And I was just like, I was watching the DVD. I was like, oh my God, somebody got that on camera. camera. I didn't know. Is that post you joining Slipknot that you know. No, no, no, no. No, no. No, this way. You were just like, oh, that's me. Yeah, it was, it came out. There was like a 10th anniversary reissue. So that would have been in 2011. I remember I was on, I was on tour. It was so funny. I was on tour with against me. We were in Australia at the time. And that came out. And I went to a, you know, store and got it. And, uh, and I'm watching this DVD with Andrew, our bass player. and I'm like, dude, that's me.

That's like 10-year-old me. And I remember, like, we had a laugh about it, but I had no idea that it was in this DVD, and that was, you know, two, three years before I joined the band. Crazy. Kind of crazy. But, you know, many things in Slipknot are like that. That's not the, that's one of thousands of moments where, like,

a lot of crazy energy. A lot of synchronicity with this band, and that's just one of them. But it's all over the place. Like that's some of the, this kind of energy that's really like once you're in the middle of it, you start to realize like how connected all these things are. And you kind of just have to accept that it's like, oh, all this stuff is like, you know, all that like time is a flat circle kind of stuff. Like it's, we're very much aware of that within the band.

got any like thoughts on that like i'm i'm pretty into magic sure and like manifesting and all this we're getting away from talking about the snare drum i know but i don't want tell tell me about the magic well just like anything anything good that's happened to me i have i believe i've willed it into existence right yeah and synchronicity is a huge thing and i'm noticing more the older i get the more weird coincidences and stuff. Like I used to be, I don't want to put you on the spot here or anything. Especially in America, especially in Nashville where people, I wasn't allowed to say goddam at a karaoke night last night. Is that right? In fact, Jeremy wasn't allowed to say. Jeremy wanted to do break stuff and they said, I'm sorry, you can't drop any GDs. And I was like, of course, GD.

God damn. Anyway, so like the more, the older I get and the more of this synchronity stuff happens, I used to be like staunchly atheist, like the most atheist person ever. And now I'm like, I don't know. Like, I don't know about like man in the sky or the Bible or shit like that. But like, I think there's something else. This energy is. Yeah. I think I'm kind of along a similar line of just like, you know, I don't know what I don't know.

But I like to think that if you're open to seeing signs in things, you can hopefully take some positivity away from it. That's kind of how I like to see things like my wife and I just the other day had like a string of things like all in one day of like kind of crazy stuff happening and there are, you know, changes happening, whatever. But there was this crazy example, I'll give you. You know, we just watched a couple shows of Bruce and the East Street band where they're covering a song by a group called the Commodores called Night Shift.

And Bruce made it for a recent record, like a soul record of his. Anyway, they're covering it. Chloe and I had never heard this song in our life before we started seeing the band play it. We've seen them play it a number of times on this tour. It's a rad. It's like a soul tune. And we're kind of like dealing with some stuff in flux. And then all of a sudden we heard on the radio this song.

night shift in the restaurant and we were and I was just like I hear this song I'm like wait that's night shift we just been seeing them on tour playing this cover song I'd never heard it before in my life and all of a sudden we're kind of like dealing with some life stuff and then like I hear this song and we were both just like we're both very open to to that kind of stuff I'm like that's a sign that's like something I I do I don't know if it's a faith thing or like a or a belief that's like if you're open to seeing those things happening and you're paying attention that some kind of cosmic weirdness like I don't know where it comes from but I think if you're open to it and you're open to the magic of it you know I like to think

that there's something in there I mean it's more exciting than maybe believing like ah it doesn't mean anything yeah maybe it maybe it's something I don't know I'll tell you I'll tell you my one I don't get on a real fucking downer but i'll tell you my one and it's like the minute that happened i was like okay this isn't so tom sell from architects who passed uh we're at his brothers uh like you would call it a bachelor party we call it stag do stag do the man is well i have enough british friends so um we're like we're going out for drinks and we're like on the top of this uh like cliff where we are and there's no as a beach underneath there's no one on the beach and uh well there's one kid on the beach actually just walking along the beach and we're like sharing the joint up on this

hill thing just chilling and no one was saying anything but at the time i was thinking like tom should be here like that was and i imagine everyone was because it wasn't you know wasn't a party atmosphere at that point it was very chill the kid that's walking on the beach and there's a photo to prove that we weren't like massively high away whatever, only kid on the beach writes the name Tom in huge letters across the entire beach. Wow. And no one said anything. Yeah.

And like just as we were leaving together, everyone just went, that was weird. And someone took a photo and it's like, and now I'm just like, I don't know anything anymore. Yeah. Yeah. There's something in that, you know, and it's like it's not up to me to figure out what it is. of that synchronicity, but I like at least, it gives me some, because I've had, I've had moments like that in my life too where I'm like, it gives me some semblance of comfort, whether that, whether that's, you know, real or I'm just making it up, I don't know, but I think if you're

able to sense these things and have it affect you in a way where it can comfort you or it can give you some kind of, you know, maybe that was Tom, checking in. way maybe you know. I just like the, maybe I don't know everything. Yeah. Yeah. And that's perfectly fine, you know, but I like being open to that kind of stuff. So anyway, my snare drum. I'm sorry. No, no, no.

It's partly me is partly just the nature of talking. We don't, we didn't fucking know each other. So we're like getting to know each other publicly. Dude, yeah. So, you know, and I love that because like the, you know, we can, we can gear talk as drummers and as musicians and stuff. But the reason we do what we do is because we have reached out to those parts of our brains that are, we're trying to connect to something. We're trying to search for answers to things that we don't know.

And the way we best know is to create something out of nothing and give it all our energy, give it all we got. And that somehow makes us connected to each other, to ourselves, to our bandmates, to people that we're might never meet but there is something there you know so it's all part of it you've got you've got you've got to be a very very specific type of person to be a drummer yeah because for the longest time you do the most work you have the most gear you have the most athletic job on stage like you have to be a very certain type of person to be okay with doing that long enough to make your career out of it and i found comfort in that, like, the responsibility of what our position in the group is, you know, I feel like, like, as a goalie, always the weirdest guy on the team.

Drummer, always the weirdest guy in the band. Drummer is the same. There's a very similar last line of defense, you know, like, if you have a bad goalie, your team's going to suck. If you have a bad drummer, your band's probably going to suck. You know, it's just like, that's just how I kind of view it. Getting it back to the snare. Okay.

So, so I was, you know, I was finding. my sound. Okay, black album, never mind these drums. Okay, so I had experimented with, you know, with these amazing drums and mostly metal snares in the studio for that album. And then we get on tour and I'm trying to figure

out what works well. I tried a steel, not a steel, maybe a titanium drum, I feel, an acrylic drum. And I was kind of getting my bearings about what was working and what wasn't working. And I wasn't quite getting the response. and like a quickness out of out of those the pop that real pop you know because everything with us is like

it just has to have that quickness in and out pop pop pop kind of kind of thing um not much resonance or whatever um and i wasn't quite getting that with like acrylic or metal snares so mike from s jc um who was helping me kind of troubleshoot these problems he was like what if we bring it back to like early 2000s drive-through records fucking you know like early Adrian Young Travis Barker type snare you know very influenced by Orange County

kind of that what we grew up being you know I grew up being fascinated by you know by watching a guy like Travis play and and how that was that was a very new thing you know John Otto even in some in some cases

first first record obviously maybe not on the record But Joey played Orange County. Okay, yeah, yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, it's like super, super early. There's like a couple of videos. He had like a purple, purple and black thing.

But I'm sure he had one of the, one of the holes. Do you put holes? Yeah. Uh-huh. So that was Mike's kind of intent. He's like, let's bring him back to this like early 2000s approach, fucking really thick shell. He's like, we haven't made any of these.

But like, I think this could be really cool. They've done some like, you know, heavy ply like 15. or 20 ply, whatever. He's like, I'm going to make you one that's just so incredibly dense that it allows you, when you really crank it, it is that just gunshot of a, you know, of a snare. So he made this 48 ply maple snare with two two inch vents. Um, love, love a vent. It's thick wood snare. Oh, you know, like don't even need to mic it. It's so loud. It's offensively loud. And, you know, for, for me, it's like I have so many layers to cut through. you know, two very heavy distorted guitars, gnarly bass, vocals, DJ, samples, other, you know, the other percussive elements. Fire. Yeah, all this stuff. So he brought that.

It probably took a while. I think he made that in like early 2015, maybe mid-2015. And he brought it to a show. And I was like, this is, that's everything I've been looking for. And I've been using not like that specific snare, but that type of snare ever since. So we developed that into becoming like when it felt like it was the appropriate time to be like, let's create a signature snare drum for you because this is clearly your thing. Like you're not deviating from this much at all. Let's make this your signature snare.

And I always, that always would have been a really cool thing to do. And I'm honored that SJC felt it appropriate to do that, that they asked me like, do you want to make a signature snare? and I was like, yes, but I don't want to make it a lesser version of than what I actually play. So it was a little bit of a tricky kind of like, how do we do that? Because it has to be 48 plies. And I wanted to add my own things to it. I wanted to make all the artwork on it. Which is fucking awesome, by the way.

Thank you. So that was important to me that, like, I wanted to have my hand in every detail about it, you know, as much as I could, you know, change the lugs or the throwoff or the, whatever. whatever. Like I wanted my, I wanted to be involved with it. So that's what we did. And, and that, I think we came out with that, uh, through the pandemic. I want to say, um, you know, we, we had a lot of time on our hands to come up with like to come up with projects and just like, what do we do? What do I do with my time? I want to make a shit ton of artwork, which I did. And, um, and use that with SJC to just heighten this experience and like be able to deliver

to anybody who wants that snare because I would have a lot of people. say like, your snare sounds awesome. I want it. I'm like, okay, here it is. You know, it's an American made made in their USA shop. It's a, you know, it was very important to me. Um, because I think, you know, when I joined the band, um, I had to tell Mike something of, I couldn't tell him what I was up to because I was sworn to secrecy. Because you, you, you were with SJC. Um, yeah, prior to that. I've been with SJC for about three years up until that, or two or three years up until that point. And I told Mike, I was like, I was like, look, what I'm going to tell you is insane. The first and foremost, I can't tell you what I'm doing. But I need you

to please, I want to stay with SJC. I want to play these drums and I want to grow with you guys. That was my whole reason of like being with SJC is because I was a little guy and SJC was at the time a much smaller company than it is now. And I was like, I want to, I want to team up with people who I feel are like-minded, come from the same kind of community, punk rock and hardcore and whatever, and grow together rather than kind of just being a small face on a roster of like very amazing, well-accomplished drummers. I didn't really have any interest in doing that. I wanted to just start, you know, I wanted to start something with somebody. So I was like, I want to play SJC. I need you to make me two giant double-based drum sets with three rack tombs and two floor

tombs and a gong drum and a marching snare drum and like eight snares and i cannot afford that so i need you to make it on the house but trust me wow it's going to pay off and he said yeah and mike was like i'll figure out a way to make it happen and that was that was what we that's what we did and uh and that was the basis from which we were able to then grow from there and i was like i'm always gonna it's always at the fore from my mind like i never want to take it's always to take advantage of SJC's generosity and ask for too much or whatever. And we've even done things where it's like, I want to do something different, but I don't want you guys to go in a pocket.

So I actually gave them back those drum sets that I used on, you know, those first bunch of tours. In retrospect, I actually wish I kind of held on to them. But I wanted to do. What did they do with them? They sold them, you know. But not as like these are, because at that time, I was still kind of a secret guy. so they couldn't app, you know, and I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that.

Does the person who bought them no yet? Probably not. Someone's out there. I don't know. I don't know. History. Yeah. I think, I think SJC held on to the first, the first kit that, um, that I use on stage

with Slipknot. They, I think they did keep. Because I think Mike was like, I'm sure I've seen it. Yeah, I think they did keep that one. But like the, I had two because it was the same thing we do now where we'll, you know, I'll be playing on one kit one night and then we fly to another place. And I'll play on that kit. another night and you know our A and B rig so we were doing that back then that's why I needed two

at the same time but so I think they kept that one but one of them was just like you know it wasn't advertised as what it was it was just I was like I want a different drum set because I wanted to try just something different to find a better sound for myself and I wasn't getting it was like a a Bbinga kit that I wasn't quite happy with I'm not a Bambiga fan yeah why everyone is yeah it's cool for maybe some stuff but just for us it was like I know needed maple. And so they made the M5 shells for the kit that I used in the latter stages of our touring for the Grey Chapter. But, uh, but so I was like, I'll give this kit back to you. You'd sell it and make the money that you need to keep things aflox. I don't want to you to just,

oh, yeah, just make me another kit. And then, oh, we're that much more money in the hole. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, so they sold it to like, I don't know somebody, but it wasn't, advertised as such. It's just like, these are just drum, you know, use drums. used drums, I mean, pretty fucking used. Yeah. But that's always been the basis of like my stuff with SJC is every time we approach each other of like, let's do something. Like let's make some cool shit, you know.

It's always been just what can we do that like is giving back to kind of our community of drummers. And that's why I really love, you know, what we've built together with SJC. Because I really feel like a part of it that, you know, You've definitely helped the growth. Well, for instance, so just the other day, like I was chatting to a guy who had gotten one of my signature kits. So that grew from, you know, just a snare drum. Then throughout the pandemic, I was like,

Yeah, so I was like, what if we did a whole kit? And I was like, not only what if we did a whole kit, I'll make all the artwork, right? But I won't, because when we recorded, We Are Not Your Kind, my whole drum set was like mismatched. It was the same rack toms from the black album, but then the floor tombs were different, and then it was two different kick drums from like two different kits. I just mismatched everything. I thought that was really cool. So I wanted the kit that I made to, once we had released that record, I wanted that kit to be also mismatched.

And I actually worked with Thomas. So all the artwork for the drums I use on the We Are Not Your Kind touring, which wasn't all that much. It got cut short by COVID was all. Thomas's artwork. So I worked with Thomas Hooper. He gave me a whole bunch of his art and I just kind of retrofitted it around shells and I was like, that was cool. And then I got the thing and I was like, well, what if I do a kit that's all my artwork? Like, and it'll just be an extension of me. And then Mike was like, I think Mike and I were both like, okay, and what if all the mismatched, you could make any piece of art be on any shell so you can make all these different permutations.

So there's two kicks, three racks, and two floors. There might be 50 of these kits out in the world, and none of them are the same. And I was like, that's a really cool idea. So then it took me, you know, like whatever, the process of just like making all the different dimensions of artwork. And so I just met somebody. And with that, we've included an experience where if you get this, it's like, I want to talk to you about it. You know, I want to know what drove you. to get this kit or this or just a snare whatever so to just baked right into getting the

SJC kit or a snare or whatever there's a thing it's like okay and you set a time to to talk to jay and then we're talking so i was just talking to it a nice guy yesterday and i was just like oh my god and he's got the kit i'm like that the green artwork on that kick drum i'm like damn that looks sharp there like i don't have that i want that so the the person who buys it got to pick where or gets to is it still a thing oh yeah yeah yeah it's ongoing they get to pick which drum things. That's cool. So like the artwork that I have on my 12 inch rack tom,

he has on his left kick drum. But it's the same kit to the same specs. Yeah, everything's exactly the same as what I use. And we were even hoping that someday it'd be really cool. We were thinking of like, I mean, this probably like gives away my idea.

But like it'd be really cool if I could make stencils of figurative parts of my artwork because it'll have like, you know, kind of this washy, you know, watercolor kind of background with a figurative thing on it. It's like,

well, what if I do like the washy background? That's the wrap on the drum. But then we provide stencils of the thing. So then people can like use that and like spray paint on the drum. And they get to make their own stuff on the drum. That was like kind of an idea that we've been, you know,

toying with and you know, we'll see if that happens. But I would fuck it up though. I'm so smashing with shit. No, I'm not fucking up my Jay Wimberg. fucking um but so you know and and and i wanted yeah so like i i just wanted to go as far as we could with it and then we kind of exhaust every aspect of of what we're able to do with that and then

we kind of and then mike and i kind of like high five like all right we did it i'll talk to you in a year about maybe another idea but so so it's been it's been really really cool i met him i met him recently and he was super nice like he came up he actually came up to me at a festival and was like, we got to get Jay on the pod, man. And I was like, of course. Sick. And here we are. Yeah.

So all that stuff has been, you know, an effort in finding my own sound, what I, you know, what I like about some things, what I dislike about some things. And now that, you know, because playing in Slipknot has been such a process of like self-discovery and what we're doing and what my space within it is. and how I can make that uniquely me, you know, like anybody does and anything they do or whatever, this has just been an extraordinary opportunity to then dive into the tools that I'm using. And how do I heighten, you know, so it's like the drums that I use on stage with us. It's all my artwork. It's all, you know, just an expression of what I'm bringing to the table to like the nth degree. And not to, you know, disparage any other company, but it's like, I don't know if anybody else would be

down to go on that journey with me because like Mike and I bash our heads against the wall trying to figure out these creative problems and and I don't know if anybody else but him would be up for it. Did anyone, I mean they must have done. Anyone swim around when yeah, of course everyone did. But that's why it was important to me that you know and you know I'm a big fan of many drum manufacturers and they all have like unique qualities like you know it was really sad Jeremy passed, you know, because I was such a huge fan of, because he was an Orange County. He was a builder.

He was a builder. Yeah. So, you know, and what he and Alon did with Q was just amazing. I nearly went with Q before I went with Tamer. But it came down, you know what it came down to for me? Because I wasn't joining Slipmall. I was joining straight from the path. So it was like, I kind of need this because I live in the UK with the bands in the States. And Jeremy, we kept in touch.

He was like, and I only had one other company that wanted to go with, which was Tamer. And Tamer were like, we can give you two kids. Yeah. And Jeremy was like, I can't match that. And I was like, I am got the money, man. Yeah, no, totally. Do this. Yeah.

And I love Toma. Like, we're talking about bell brasses and stuff. Like that's, you know, I'm a big fan of all these different companies for the unique things that they bring to the table. SJC just felt like, you know, this guy's as psychotic as I feel. feel I am with this stuff. He loses sleep over the same things I lose sleep over. We're going to get along great. And we have. I've been with SJC for 14 years now. You know. And you know what, though? I mean, I'm a time of guy through and through. Nobody come and get me. The SJC Bellbrass is pretty sick. It's awesome. Yeah. It's funny. I borrowed one. So I didn't have been asking Mike to like,

can you guys make Bellbrasses again? And he's like, ah, maybe one day. Um, but I borrowed one for a friend to use for my virtual instrument, the mix wave, uh, thing that I did is I borrowed one because I wanted to just supply everything I got. Like, you know, really sounds like you that that plugin. Thank you. I'm so happy with it. Again, like Justin was there with me through the whole process. And that was the first time I'd ever done anything like that. Obviously I've like captured samples. Yeah. You know, after a song just in case you need to like fly one in because you flubbed a it or whatever. So I've done that, but never like every single velocity. So you did it. You actually did it. Yeah. Oh yeah. No, that was important to me. Like, people, they don't do it.

They say they did it. Yeah. Well, and, and I know that about, you know, about that aspect of like capturing, you know, a virtual instrument and, and have heard like, oh yeah, and like, you don't even have to be there. I'm like, what? And it's not me. Why would you not? Why would I do that? It's not me. Yeah. And so. And so I was like, and so when I was approached by Luke Holland, who's awesome and their team, and they were like, you know, you'll be like, you're the guy and you'll be in there playing. We'll have your drum tech. And so the reason it sounds like how I'm, I'm so confident in putting it out there is because it's like Justin was there tuning everything. And he's my dude who knows, like he knows better than I do how to get what's in my head sounding on the drums. Like he's that talented with that. I'm just hitting them. but it was really cool to do that experience where it's like Justin you know it's funny he would be like in the control room it was actually while playoff hockey was happening so I had like playoff hockey on the screen there and I'm doing a high hat hitting a high hat for like three hours and then we're like

yeah and then dude capturing capturing the like the bell that I have and just all like you you just tap it and then it has to resonate for like three minutes or whatever and you're like oh my god it's so thorough you have to do it for completion but you know full well no one is playing the bell programming the bell at one velocity but you have you got to do it you got to do it well and how many is there per velocity as well there's like it's like it's fucking ridiculous and and there's like 10 i want to say it's 10 round robin so for every snare hit if you have if you have like if you program like 10 snare hits at the same velocity, it's going to be 10 different at that velocity. So it's never the same exact hit.

That's why I like it. And I've been demoing stuff with us for a lot of, no, no, our new record, I was using other libraries, because I hadn't made mine yet. But that's how I got used to, like, demoing at home, a lot of the end so far was like us file sharing. I would get something sent to me by guys, and then I would play stuff using a library that I really liked and send that back. I'm like, oh, I'm getting kind of, I'm learning how to be a self-engineer

with electronic drums and using my rolling kit. At the time, that's what I was using to practice at home. I didn't have my acoustic drum set set up at home yet. But that was a huge tool in making that record. And so I was like, okay, next time I'm able to do or if we have to do something like this, hopefully there's not a pandemic. But I want it to be totally my sounds to where I can send something back to, you know, Jim, for example.

And that's going to be pretty closely resembling what we will capture. He can hear what you would sound like. Yeah, it's like, oh, that will sound. That's going to be what it pretty much sounds like. So that was really important to me. And, yeah, so I was like, we're going to do my 48 ply, the metal snare that we did. I want to borrow this SJC bell brass. That's going to be in there.

Kurt Ballou made me a snare and I'm going to use that. You know, now I'll have these. I'll probably do like a software update with like the, you know, these new bellbrasses that I got. I sampled my dog, you know. How do you get to the dog on the... So that's how I was like, because Mario had done one. Thomas Prision had done one and I was next. Luke had done one.

And so I was... I saw what they did and Mario had his artwork in there and stuff. I was like, this is really cool. And I know how these guys are so particular about this stuff. Like we're saying, like Thomas and Mario and Luke, like they're so dialed into the details, how I like to be. And that was the first time a project like this has spoken to me where I was like, these guys get it. And I want to be a part of this. And I was like, they're going to laugh at this.

But I was like, okay, we're going to have my drum set. And then off to the side, we're going to have my dog. in my dog bed because my dog is my life. I have her name tattoo to my arm. I love her to death. And I was like, my dog is going to be in here. We're going to sample my dog. How many velocities of the dog?

Like as much as much as any snare drum in the thing. It's like a lot. Oh, it was a whole experiment because I had to like get her quiet. Like, and then I had to get her bark. So it is literally you can drag the thing up and it's like, foo, foo, foo, foo, foo, whu, whu, like that. Like that. Like that.

So, since then, I've gotten another dog. So I need to do a update. Yeah. So you can choose it just like you can do this snare. I did the maths in my head while you were talking about it. I just so if anyone doesn't know how many times you would have to hit the drum, this is why people sometimes don't go. But if they don't go, it's not them on the thing.

If there's 127 velocities and you're doing, you said 10 per if you're programmed 10 at the same velocity, there's going to be 1,000, 12,000, 700. no, 1,750 per drum. And then obviously you just listed off how many snares. You've got a million tombs. Then you've got a million symbols. And then you've got a dog. Yeah, I have no idea how many times I hit everything.

We spent, let me see. We spent one day on kicks. A whole day. I think so. Well, so we went in, dude. because I wanted beater options as well so I wanted

I play with the plastic side of a standard DW just like what you get when you get a DW 9,000 pedal I use the plastic side but I wanted if you know maybe someone want the felt side that I

do you remember it was like really popular in like the early 2000s those red like cherry apple Denmark so I went and found some Denmark um beaters because that's like a different It's a different thing, you know. So I wanted that.

And then I want to say we did one that's like a smaller head, that's a plastic side. That's kind of more like Chris Adler, Ashes of the Wake kind of, kind of sound and thing. Oh, like the Axis style. Yeah, kind of like that. What's takes do you by? Vader. Yeah. Which was another thing that I was able to design.

Actually, when you had seen us on that 2020 tour, I was doing shootouts every night. night for my signature stick where my tech would give me, I had like three prototypes and he would hand me, you know, I would have like a, you know, I would walk to the stage with some and then I play a song, you know, okay, what's this prototype? I was like, I don't really like that. Okay, that was prototype number two. I was like, oh, I really like this. Oh, that was prototype number three. So I was on that 2020 tour. Thank God I had that experience to be able to decide what I wanted the stick to be. Super interesting. I think it's cool. for me to hear and it's probably going to be cool for other people to hear like the amount of

effort you're putting in to everything to do with your craft is like admirable thanks I mean a lot people could have just you know join a big band become a become a part of the big band and then just like be like I don't care do whatever yeah make me some money put my name on it yeah well I mean to me I think I think it's kind of my you know, my upbringing and knowing what it was like being around like the E Street band standard. And then to me, you know, when you when you then focus on this type of music, and for me, I feel like there's a slip not standard. And there always has been, or always will be. And I had to get accustomed to that very quickly and jump on this moving freight train of what's expected.

We don't settle for anything less than our standard. And the standards, and the standards, standard is no stone left unturned, no option left, you know, whatever. Like it is being in Slipnod is a completely exhaustive effort because it's just, you know, it is incredibly detail-oriented and that goes with everything. You know, that's why things like take so long with us because we, we are that, you know, and I learned that through my, you know, through, you know, starting to play with these guys to where, you know, they are the freight train that that I'm jumping on to. And I had to learn how crazy intent they are and intentional about all these decisions. And that just rubbed off on me on, and I was like, that's how I want to approach what I do. So it's like, you know, anything worth doing is worth going completely in on. And not to mention, it's like, what an amazing. opportunity it is. It's like I'm so grateful for the opportunity that someone would want to do this with me.

Like, I'm not going to take that for granted. Like the fact that mixed wave approached me to do this, it's, it's on me not only to like show up and try to do a good job, but it's like I want to overdo it to the point where like it's it's just, you know, that's just how I like to approach things. So yeah, so we spent probably a day on the kick drums because I had to do like three different beater combinations with my right foot, then with my left foot. I wanted that TikTokiness, you know, I want. So it's two different, it's two different kick channels because I didn't want, you know, if you're programming something with just one kick, it is kind of samey. With this, you do get that tick-tokiness of two different kick drums, which I really like. And then I think probably one day on snare drums, one day on all the toms, and then I think two days on symbols, just because the resonance takes so long to do.

You know, high hats and all the different expressions, it's, you know, you have to get the shoulder of your stick, the tip of your stick, open, semi open, closed, semi-close, all that. And you got to wait for it to go. Yeah. No, Justin was in, Justin was in the control room. I got done with a high hat. He was like, I just watched an entire Harry Potter movie. Fucking rare by him.

Yeah, yeah. The Harry Potter had. What I was going to say? One last thing on that, and I completely lost my train of thought on the, too excited about, yeah,

too excited about symbols. I don't know. It's gone. I have collected more that I'm like, I've gone to like revival drum shop in Portland and like, gotten some really cool unique things

that are just bells and whistles, literally. I remember what it was going to, I remember what it was going to be. you're still playing the Zildren S rock ride. Yeah, it's my favorite thing ever. That thing is unreal. The same, it's on my A-rig.

So it's like my main kit. And then we had a couple shows where I played on my different kit. But it's been that specific symbol for the last two records and every show on, yeah, I fucking love that. It's like, honestly, and I know you've put all this fucking hard work into a snare drum and a kit and all this shit. I can hear that symbol and go, oh, it's the Jay Weinberg symbol. I love it. Because it's like, I only heard it from like one of your playthrues. Like you in the studio.

And I just remember, he's like, this was pandemic. I was watching other drummers and stuff on Twitch. And I was like, what that fuck is that ride? Yeah. And that was when I was with minor and not with I was like, what is that? It's amazing. And then found out. And then now it's in my head, it's just, it's your ride.

I mean, dude, I've, you know, I've tried all the things that we've, we've probably both, you know, tried the mega, the mega bell and the, interesting. And the regular rock ride. and you know when I was in like punk and hardcore bands it's not I don't need it to be as pingy it's more for washing on for a you know a chorus like you'll play your verses on the high hat

that's where I'm out yeah and I love the sweet ride both the brilliant and the like the Matt not brilliant what I was called it Abadish yeah right but the S rock ride I forget I forget who initially was like

oh you should you know somebody from Ziljan was like I think you might like this because it's got that pinginess that you're you're liking in the rock ride, but it's like kind of different. And I tried it. I was like, this is the greatest. And it's defined,

like many musical parts that I've, like, that I've recorded and that we play. It's all, like, all my blast beats are this specific thing because I fucking love this symbol. Yeah, and all those Slayer parts.

Yeah. It's a great ride for some Slayer parts. Dude, yeah, yeah, we have to, like, how long do you think we've been going? I have no idea.

two hours and 20 minutes. Are you kidding? Oh, sorry everybody. No, no, no, man, they're still here.

But I freak out, at this point, I freak out about like, what if something fails? Sure, because I've got three cameras in 4K, a switcher,

audio, and I'm like, if it fails, the world's fucking over. Yeah. So, okay. We're just gonna,

we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna wrap up, right? All right. All right. And it's gonna wrap up,

but hopefully, I mean, we might go off on a fucking tangent. And I should, I should have warned you of this that it was coming, but I don't really like to because I kind of like people to give me their first possible answers.

Okay. Top five artists of all time. Artists. Not for you. I don't mean fucking... Not visual artists. Not visual arts. Top five musical arts.

So it can be solo. It can be a band or whatever. Okay. I'm going to say one of like the first band that made me want to become a music. musician was the Ramones. Nice. That was the first time I ever sat to,

sat out of a drum set trying to do something on the drums, was playing along to the, it's a live record. To me, it's like the greatest live record ever. Okay, the Ramones. Being from New Jersey, the misfits were very important to me. Nice. Love misfits. To this day, I mean, and go and watch them now is just like,

oh my god and seeing like seeing dave play with them just like this is the greatest thing i've ever fucking seen okay the Ramones the misfits also I just want to look like Doyle when I'm older he's a freaking age absolutely jacked to fuck it's crazy I fucking love Doyle um okay the Ramones and misfits

um let's branch out of punk rock uh you don't have to no I know I mean that's like that was what drew me into this kind of music was like you know I see like larger than life bands play and I never felt a calling to it but it was when I saw punk rock live that I was like I can do that that seems like I could I could do that and so that those two bands are very important to me um I was a punk kid

as well I was punk was punk before I was metal and then I was both and not anyone no one else in school was both and I was like why can't you both then I found hardcore yeah um Neurosis has always been so important to me. You know, I think some of my favorite musical experiences of, we were texting about, oh my God, I got to see them and Yob at. Yob is so, I replied to a story the other day because it was just like big, big song. I love, yeah. So, you're about Yob's about the way. There will be people that want to check these bands out.

yeah, definitely check out Yob. Clearing the path to ascend is just like a masterpiece. But no, neurosis. I first saw neurosis when I was 17 at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple. Wow. Two nights of Mastanon opening up for neurosis.

Excuse me. Massadon Blood Mountain was out. Sick. So this is pre-cracked the sky. And to see them, you know, Masson... What year is this? This is like 2007? or eight. So this is when they still had the projectionist guy. Yeah. Yeah. I saw him on that last

tour as well. That was the last tour. Continue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With Josh. Yeah, with Josh. Yeah, so, so I saw two nights and I didn't know what to expect. I was very familiar with Macedon and have been coming to Massadon shows for a while. And I had found neurosis through Massadon. Like, I think Troy and their DVD had mentioned Times of Grace as a really influential album. So I remember a buddy of mine and I got Times of Grace like we went to the local record store got a copy of Times of Grace

and listened to it at like 3 a.m. And both of us are just the guitar player in my band at the time and we just looked at each other like both of our lives just changed like when the doorway started the heaviest riff of all time is

the breakdown or whatever you'd call that the noises the guitar I that's like you know that's like going to church for me

you know and so when I saw them for the first time it was at a the Brooklyn Masonic Temple is a private building and so you could do whatever you want so there's no limit to the decibel there's no decimal

there's no decibel so it was 10 it was 10 decibels above the legal New York limit. And I was up in the, like, balcony. And, you know, I'd seen Macedon and they were great as, as always. And then neurosis hit. And I was just like, I was shot back in my seat when they opened with Given of the Rising.

And I was just like, absolute confrontation with sound. And I was just blown away. So, okay, the Ramones, the misfits. Just while we're on it, well, we just, I knew because the doom thing was going to come up. Do you like cult of Luna? Oh, yeah. Johannes has been on here before and like, cult of Luna for me,

I mean, I think he said it on the podcast as well. We just started off by ripping off neurosis, but then became their own thing. At some point, pretty much everybody does. That whole sound. I went to their 30th anniversary shows in San Francisco and Shalak opened one night. And Steve Albini, who's recorded all their albums

since Times of Grace, made a really good point. he was like, there's music before neurosis and there's music after neurosis. Neurosus changed everything. And it really is true. Like that, being exposed to that and being able to see neurosis as many times as they did, I'm so grateful to have had that experience because it informs so much of like the depth that you can, you know, and you can see from their lineage from when they started out as a fast.

hardcore punk band and then learn more about themselves. Like you, yeah, like you saw them, you know, from from pain of mind to word as law to souls at zero. Really, it's that like that transition from word is law to souls at zero. And then enemy of the sun and through silver and blood. Like you could, you could hear how they were like connecting just going further deeper and deeper and learning how to like that's just very inspirational to me because I feel like, you know, I often feel like I'm still just at the very beginning of this journey of that discovery.

And it's all self-discovery. It's not outward things of trying to reach for like, oh, if I can, you know, if I can do this, you know, external thing that I'm not really in control of because none of us are in control of fucking anything. You're in control of going inward and learning, you know, further defining how you're able to express yourself. And if that's one lesson that I take from them, that's like, that's it. Is that like set yourself on a path of learning who you are and expressing that? That's very important to me. So two more. Let's say, there's so many. I'll go with Depeche Mode.

Nice. I'm a huge, huge Depeche Mode fan. I think that like it seems. like you know you meet people in our kind of community that like or you go to a depish mode show even like a nine inch nail show it's I won't include nine inch nails in this but it's like similar things I was out a nine inch nail show last summer I think with my wife and we were um remarking on like look around us there's every walk of life of a black t-shirt person here like like you know you like even even with slipnot it's like I don't you know I don't know what to call it you know it's black

t-shirt music. You know, that's what it is. So it's like, you know, you've got the crust punk who's into the, who's into nine inch nails.

You've got the mall metal guy or whatever. You've got the soccer mom. They're in my top five. Yeah. I'm like wearing a kind of a good thing. I mean, they really, they really should be for me.

I fucking love nine inch nails. We played a show like separate nights, but we played a festival with them last fall. And it was just, I got to see them. God, blown away. With Depeche Mode.

with, you know, the 101 Pasadena, you know, the stadium that they play when, um, music for the masses had come out, seeing how, like, obviously the songs are that good, you know, um, that it reached that many people. But like, when you, when you really kind of dive into it, it's like, the subject matter is subversive. The melodies are dark. Yeah. Everything about it, like, especially, you know, in that time of like, what, you know, Duran Duran and, and, and whatever else was happening at the time. It's like, this stuff was like very much on the, on the darker side of,

of that kind of spectrum of pop, you know. Depeche Road is like warioed around, Duran. That's a great way to put it. I love that. Yeah, so, you know, so I find a lot of inspiration in like, you can make music that comes from like a heavy, what feels like a spiritually heavy place, dark place,

but it is beautiful melody and it's very simple. But then you also look into the textures and it's like even the stuff like the drum machine kind of stuff and the loops that they were creating, all things that are like tape. Like they weren't playing to like a computer stuff. It's like they had tape machines that were, excuse me, working this shit. Very impressive. And even today like the records that they still put out. I think I'm going to be seeing them in like November or something. I'm still such a fan.

So Depeche Mode. and then I'm going to give you one, like, you know, I could, I could say like Metallica, I could say the East Street band, but we've talked enough about them. I would actually say Fiona Apple is one of my favorite artists of all time. You know, I've been, I've been, like, reduced to rubble in a live setting, only, like, you know, like, actually, like, totally reduced to tears. I can't believe what I'm watching. It's just so impactful that you just can't help but cry.

And I've had that happen watching the East Street Band before. I've had that happen watching Neurosis. And I've had that happen watching Fiona Apple. I've rarely seen an artist go that far into performance like I have. And I've only seen her play maybe three or four times. But there was one time she played with the Count Basie Theater. in Red Bank, which is a town over from where I grew up in New Jersey. And she was playing the song Not About Love from this album that came out.

Huge moment in my life was when the album Extraordinary Machine came out. I was like 14, felt super disconnected from everything around me, totally didn't feel understood, had no friends. Like, you know, just your typical fucking punk rocker story or whatever. but I found this record, this extraordinary machine record, and it starts out with this very simple song about, you know, not letting any of that kind of stuff get to you and just making the most of, you know, whatever, you know, slinging arrows come my way or whatever.

I'm going to make the most of it. I'm an extraordinary machine. That album really did a lot for me. And when she played this song Not About Love, you could probably find videos of it on YouTube, of this show that she played at the Count Basie Theater. I was reduced to tears. I couldn't believe that she went into some other realm.

And her lyrics are so thoughtful. Her turns of phrases are just like, how does somebody think of that? I love that with me. I write some lyrics for Australia, but like some people just operating on a different level of art with their words. Yeah.

And she's so personal. Like, you know, um, it's really to see someone like, like bear that much of themselves and just put it right out there. And the fact that she's, you know, she's a very real person where she, you know, like her dog was sick and she was like, I'm not going. I had a tour going. I need to be with my dog. My dog is sick. I'm not going on tour. And I was like, I completely get that. Like I love that she's that in tune with just her

life. And I feel like that reflects in her music. So we've got the Ramones. The misfits, neurosis, Depeche Mode, Fiona Apple. A great top five. Yeah. I love it. And I'm so glad you didn't say Metallica last because I have talked about, and this counts, I've talked about Metallica on every single podcast. How can you not, though?

Stop it. Or else we'll do it. Yeah, you know, they're the be all end all. I just want to say like a personal thank you for doing this, really, because in doing this, if people don't know, the reason any of this Nashville, and there's a lot of Nashville episodes now happened, was because we didn't meet at a festival, but we knew each other was there.

And you hit me up and was like, it's a shame that we didn't meet. And I was like, number one, that's really cool. And then you said, I think you said I'd love to do the pod or some, or maybe I said, can you please go on a podcast? Yeah, because, you know,

we have so many mutual friends. It's like, you know, we should meet. And I enjoyed, you know, yeah. You invited me, in fact, to watch the East Street band at Hyde Park. You should have. I know. I wanted to so bad.

And then I was like doing the math on it. And it was, it was going to cost me like nearly what this whole trip did for one episode. And while I would have done that, if when I was like, let me just hit him up and see, would he do it in Nashville? And you were like,

oh yeah, definitely. And then you told me you were also getting tattooed like real close. And I was like, okay, if I can get one other guest, I'll just do Nashville. Uh,

and then it worked out. So thank you. And everyone watching and listening. If you're just listening, to this. Fuck you because this costs me a lot of money. Thanks, Jay. Thank you.

Check out is, well, I don't have to tell you to check out Slipknot, but you've got the Mixwave plugin. You got the SJC snare. You've got the kit. You got your art. Dude's an enigma of art. Trying. Trying out here.

Thank you, mate. Thank you. Bye.