We Talked With Max Weinberg's Son Jay, The Drummer In Slipknot, About The Difference Between Playing With Them, And With Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band
Louder - Slipknot's Jay Weinberg has spoken about the lessons he learned while subbing for his father Max as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, and shared his thoughts on the differences between playing with 'The Nine' versus playing for 'The Boss'.
Weinberg sat in with Springsteen's legendary band in 2009, five years before he joined Slipknot.
Interviewed on the Barstool Backstage podcast, Weinberg was asked by co-host Kenny Carkeet, formerly a member of LA rock band AWOLNATION and now a music producer, "What's harder, Springsteen shit or Slipknot shit?"
"They're both very different," Weinberg replies, unsurprisingly. "With Bruce, everything on stage is a flying v [formation] to where the apex is Bruce, so we're all hinged on that... he has an amazing physicality about him that kinda dictates like a conductor, like a rock 'n' roll conductor: he would call out songs that I have never heard of before, and I'd just have to follow his physicality and the way he was kinda guiding everybody onstage through a piece of music and four minutes later you're like, Oh man, I've just improvised a song that I've never heard of in front of, like, 60,000 people.""It was a huge learning experience," admits Weinberg.
Not to pat ourselves on the back too much but the Barstool Backstage boys are on quite a little heater recently in terms of the interviews we've lined up.
That streak continued last week when we got Jay Weinberg on the podcast.
Jay is the son of Max Weinberg, from E Street Band and Conan O'Brien's band, "The Max Weinberg 7", fame.
Being a huge Springsteen fan, I've actually had the opportunity to catch Jay filling in for his dad at a show once. I remembered thinking how insanely cool that had to be but what an incredible amount of pressure he had to be under as well.
The E Street Band has been playing together for half a century. That's not just chemistry, that's total and complete synchronicity with your bandmates by that point. Talk about being able to play your number in your sleep. Filling those shoes, especially your father's, has got to fucking terrifying.
But Jay is a fucking boss, has probably been playing drums since before he could walk, and comes from a strong musical bloodline. Things 99.9% of us schmucks can't boast.
So it was no surprise whatsoever (to us) that a band he had known and been tight with since he was a little kid, Slipknot, came to him when they needed a drummer, and asked him to be that guy.
There was obviously not a ton of crossover between the two styles, but Jay managed to take it all in stride and adjust pretty easily. Equating it to simply jumping out of a plane:
"The Bruce stuff I often equate to being like that flying v, with Slipknot it's just like a nine-person, full-on assault, everybody going full-tilt all the time. There's definitely a crazy energy, a lot of guys in the band equate it to jumping out of an airplane, and at the beginning of our shows it does feel a lot like that.
"It's different music stylistically, for sure, but to me it all comes from the same place… both are high intensity situations that demand 100 per cent of everybody on stage. So that's a commonality that both projects have. And when you approach everything with 100 per cent dedication, playing with Bruce is as difficult as playing with Slipknot… I've never seen that drastic a distinction between the two."
Jay Weinberg is the man. He couldn't have been cooler, more down to Earth, and a nicer guy to shoot the shit with.
Check out the full interview here
Listen and follow us on Spotify -
And apple music
And be sure you're following us on socials -
and Instagram