Slipknot drummer Jay Weinberg may be the most junior member of the group, but after 10 years and three albums together, Weinberg has a laser-perfect observation of what makes the band tick, especially as it releates to their live show and how that translates once the band gets together in the studio.
Asked about this, Weinberg told The Sound Lab in a recent interview that "I think as far as the mentality and approach to writing songs and crafting them in the studio and really just trying to throw ourselves into the music as much as we can definitely does change as you get older.
"This being my third record with the band, I've definitely learned over the years, after almost 10 years of being in the band, the live show really informs what we do. Which [thinking back] on making [.5:] The Gray Chapter (2014) [it's] incredibly ironic that we made an album without even playing a single show together, because so much of what we do is onstage; it informs pretty much everything. And that definitely does affect it. I think as you get older, your tastes and inspirations change and evolve, even though what I enjoyed back when I was a kid still, I'm sure, finds its way into my own contributions to our music. It's probably that way for a lot of us.
Weinberg continued, explaining how frame of mind and perspective is also critical to the process.
"You wanna have different things that you wanna say; you have different things that you wanna express, 'cause you're that many years down the line of being a person and having life experience to draw from. So, yeah, the mentality maybe stays a little bit the same in that we wanna throw a hundred percent of ourselves into it, but the approach and the end result, I think, does change as you get a little bit older. And you just wanna do different stuff; you don't wanna do the same things you did 10 years ago — or 20 years ago, for guys in the band. So, yeah, it's always a constant kind of evolving thing, as it should be, and that's perfectly fine."
Weinberg's comments also coincided, at least thematically, with recent remarks from Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor, who also spoke about getting older but still being excited by trying new things musically.
"It's kind of difficult to get 9 people in the same place anymore because we're old and dicks, but the cool thing is that we all still get excited about good ideas," said Taylor as transcribed by Rock N' Roll Experience. "[Guitarists] Jim [Root] and Mick [Thomson] are so good at writing music, me and Clown work really well coming up with stuff together, [bassist] V-Man is actually really good. So we've done so much in our career that at this point we could sit back and just do EPs. Or I've got a good idea for a double concept record with a whole story line that goes along with it that I would love to do.
"But the cool thing is that we've kind of established our history, so whatever comes next will naturally be something that we want to do. So whether it's going in and just blasting out a couple psycho tunes and just have fun doing that, or we go in and do a very elaborate plan like the story line or something, either way it'll be something we're totally into."
Slipknot's latest release, The End, So Far, is available everywhere now. Check it out today. You can watch the full interview with The Sound Lab below.
