Slipknot sadly seems to be falling apart in 2023 as Jay Weinberg leaves

Slipknot hasn't ever been afraid to make changes. Heck, even frontman Corey Taylor wasn't the original singer of the band. But something about the changes in 2023 just seems, well...different. The band announced the departure of keyboardist Craig Jones (also known as #5) in June and now the group appears to be moving on from drummer Jay Weinberg.

After announcing Jones was leaving via Instagram in June, the band took down the social media post. Still, Jones did leave and hasn't returned. The same seems to hold true of Weinberg as well as Slipknot announced on Instagram this weekend that Weinberg was gone but then removed the post. Weird.

Weinberg had been with the group for a decade and was an important part of the band's extremely aggressive sound, especially on the excellent album We Are Not Your Kind in 2019. Weinberg has a precise and energetic style that fit well with Slipknot's live performances. The band did keep a post on their official website about Weinberg's leaving, though.

Slipknot loses another key member of the band

The post says,

""We would like to thank Jay Weinberg for his dedication and passion over the past ten years. No one can ever replace Joey Jordison’s original sound, style or energy, but Jay honored Joey’s parts and contributed to the last three albums and we, the band, and the fans appreciate it. But as ever, Slipknot is intent on evolving. The band has decided to make a creative decision, and to part ways with Jay. We wish Jay all the best and are very excited for what the future holds.""

- Slipknot1 (dot com)

That's kind of an odd post, right? If I was Jay Weinberg I might read the words like this: "Weinberg played in the band for 10 years and was solid but the prior drummer, Joey Jordison, was like...really awesome and stuff. But thanks to Jay for trying to replace a person he could never really replace."

Heck, the way the post is worded one might wonder if there was some internal struggle that caused Weinberg to simply fall out of favor with other key members of the nine-person band. That Weinberg and Jones both left with a few months of the other might make a Slipknot fan (a "maggot") wonder if there is any real direction for the group. Maybe the group is done and Corey Taylor will simply produce more albums of his own.

The group's most recent album, 2022's The End, So Far, appeared to imply a lot of different opinions by a lot of different members of the group forced into one record. The album had some excellent and classic Slipknot-type tracks, such as "The Dying Song (Time to Sing)," but overall the album was extremely eclectic and might have been an attempt to appease everyone in the group with different sounding songs. That's no way to run a band that has so many members.

Let's hope that Slipknot is simply re-thinking how it wants to move forward and changing some players means adding new voices. But Weinberg's leaving could also simply be a sign of the members jumping the Slipknot ship before it completely sinks.

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