Jay Weinberg is making up for lost time. The former Slipknot and Suicidal Tendencies drummer just put out a heavy collaborative track with Coliseum vocalist Ryan Patterson called “Another Head on the Pile.” It’s the fourth single he’s released since he began teasing an in-the-works “anti-solo project” in 2025 — songs that have him playing most instruments, yet joined by a rotating cast of vocalists including Deafheaven’s George Clarke, Code Orange’s Jami Morgan, and the members of Canadian shoegaze duo Softcult. Though it hit streamers in early September, the Patterson team-up actually dates back to 2012, and the post-apocalyptically bench-pressed noise-rock groove brings Weinberg back to a simpler time — when a crazed hardcore musician and future friend was looking to smash Weinberg’s skull through an in-house speaker. “[Coliseum] were opening up for Baroness,” Weinberg recalls of how he met Patterson, who currently doubles as the driving force behind industrial-punk veterans Fotocrime. “I was right at the front of the stage, and Ryan was grabbing my head and faking like he was banging it against the stage monitor — this was back when Coliseum was a fast, aggro hardcore band.” The comically violent interaction was a major bonding moment, and led the pair towards becoming collaborators. At the tail end of 2012, they hit a basement studio in Louisville, Kentucky, to cut a four-song EP that has yet to see the light of day. The recordings still sound, per Weinberg, “fucked-up and awesome.” When Weinberg began conceiving his latest project, he knew he wanted to bring back one of those abandoned EP songs. The master tracks had long disappeared, though, which was a bummer, since the OG drum sound was so “raw and gnarly.” Weinberg rebuilt the beds from scratch, and then he asked Patterson if he’d growl the piece back to life. Heads will bang over the finished track forevermore. “He delivered in such a way where I was like, ‘Dude, I feel like I’m back in that moment where you’re bashing my skull against a stage monitor.’” Weinberg says. “It is hugely gratifying.” Reconnection is a huge part of Weinberg’s as-yet undetailed and unnamed album, which he says will comprise of seven songs in total. “Drone Operator,” a bombtrack of heat-seeking hardcore beats and weapons-grade mosh riffing, found him recording in Pittsburgh with current NOWHERE2RUN members Jami Morgan and Shade Balderose, whom he’d grown close to years before after lobbying for Slipknot to bring Code Orange out on the road. The uniquely intoned “Drown Fountain” likewise emerged more than a decade on from the time Weinberg first plucked it out on guitar. It’s the most leftfield of the songs thus far — its slow-thrumming melodies drenched in shoegazing tidal waves of reverb and distortion, Weinberg gently singing on the track following some ethereal drawls from Softcult’s Mercedes Arn-Horn, the hypnotic piece wholly absent of drum beats. The tune’s origins stem from a period of downtime from Slipknot, during the long process of making the masked band’s .5: The Gray Chapter. While the ‘Knot was always “humming in the background,” Weinberg began writing music at home in Nashville, Tennessee. He then started jamming with a group of friends, including his roommate, keyboardist and noise artist Conner Sullivan (Argus, Snooper). The songs all sounded great, and scratched a different itch than the kinetic fury of Slipknot. Problem was, Weinberg says he wasn’t legally allowed to share any of it outside of the practice space. “As things were, I wasn’t allowed to play with other musicians. I wasn’t allowed to release any music that wasn’t a part of Slipknot,” he explains. “Of course, my focus was working on this new Slipknot record and [I was] really excited about it. But this little pet project had these very homegrown songs that were very close to my heart.” Keeping those songs secret was a form of “creative death,” he says. Thankfully, he’s experiencing an artistic rebirth at the moment. Following an almost decade-long tenure with Slipknot, Weinberg was let go from the Nine in 2023 — he’s still not entirely sure why. He’d link up with funk-metal-flexers Infectious Grooves and crossover icons Suicidal Tendencies after that — in the latter case, touring the world as part of Metallica’s massive “M72 Tour” — but wound down his time with those interconnected outfits in early 2026, shortly after debuting his first solo single, the blackgazing “Sandstone” with Deafheaven’s George Clarke. While Weinberg has been working towards an album release with the help from some friends, it was also revealed this spring that he’d smashed drum skins on The Ringing Bell, the grave-quaking latest LP from death-metal-spiked hardcore group Fuming Mouth. They’d cold-called him to play on the sessions, and he was stoked to oblige. That led Weinberg to ask Fuming Mouth vocalist-bassist Mark Whelan if he’d help him out on a set of experimental songs Weinberg had been working on with his old roommate, Conner Sullivan. They’ve been playing out and recording as Portraits of an Apparition. Though the aesthetics vary between the projects, what connects them all at the moment is that Weinberg hasn’t been grinding it out on the road with any of them the way he did with Suicidal or Slipknot — at least not yet. That’s because the most fulfilling part of Weinberg’s life of late was the birth of his daughter in the spring. “None of these necessarily have that ‘cannonballing into the deep end’ [feeling] of ‘Let’s fucking do this,’ you know? But it’s also been in this time where I’ve been preparing for my child to arrive. That was the thing I was cannonballing into,” he says. “Now that I’m on the other side — my child is alive and healthy and happy — I’m using all these random projects and affiliations to search for the thing that I’m going to do.” The timeline for Weinberg’s “anti-solo” album is unclear. It may have some even bigger artistic swings, contributing to the “compilation-y feeling” that’s already bounced between noise rock, shoegaze, black metal and hardcore. That’s exactly what excites him. “I find interesting music is made by people who have an eclectic musical diet,” he notes. “If I only listened to Slayer, I’d probably only write fourth-rate Slayer riffs. By listening to all sorts of different artists — Fiona Apple, Interpol, My Bloody Valentine, Quicksand, Discharge — it all smashes into itself to hopefully become something that’s more interesting to listen to.” He adds, though, of what this means in terms of bringing the songs to life with a full-time band: “It’s not scatterbrained… but it’s varied to the point where I don’t know if any one of these songs is the catalyst for a core group of people to play. I also really enjoy the performing of all the instruments.” Details on the next run of contributors are being held close to Weinberg’s chest, though he explains that they’ll be part of his inner circle of musician friends. “While, yes, I would love to work with Fiona Apple, or [Cat Power’s] Chan Marshall, or Kevin Shields from My Bloody Valentine, or J. Mascis, I don’t know any of them! Maybe they’ll see this and they’ll be inspired to reach out. But for now… the list is long as it is.” When pressed, he confirms he won’t be reaching out to his old bandmates in Slipknot about a guest spot (“I’ve shut those doors firmly behind me”). Then Revolver asks Weinberg if he rung up his dad, Max — Bruce Springsteen’s legendary longtime E. Street drummer, whom the younger Weinberg subbed in for on a bunch of tour dates when he was just 17 — about going toe-to-toe on a track. No plans yet for the father-and-son jam, but Weinberg’s eyes light up at the suggestion. “I have my thing, and he has his, and we’ve rarely crossed paths,” the younger Weinberg explains. Still, he’s open to the idea. “We’ve only played drums side-by-side with one another at a small handful of events… but, yeah, to do some kind of Melvins-style double drummer thing would be sick!” Revolver teamed with Jay Weinberg for his first physical music release under his own name: an limited-edition “Green & Purple Starburst” vinyl 12” of the singles “Drone Operator” (with NOWHERE2RUN’s Jami Morgan and Shade Balderose) and “Sandstone” (with Deafheaven’s George Clarke). Snag yours from Revolver’s shop.
Music Intelligence
2026-10-20