Jay Weinberg Reveals Slipknot’s Pre-Stage Rituals

During his last appearance with Barstool Backstage, Slipknot drummer Jay Weinberg talked about the band’s pre-stage rituals and more.

Slipknot is an American heavy metal band formed in the mid-90s. Along with their first two albums, the band has quickly climbed the fame ladder and has released seven studios and two live albums. With its entire albums, Slipknot has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.

In his brand new interview with Barstool Backstage, the band’s drummer Jay Weinberg revealed the basic structure of the band. According to Weinberg, Slipknot is more like an athletic team than a band. Given their nine-person lineup, we can give Weinberg credit for this.

“We’re more like an athletic team — we’re more like a team than we are a band in a lot of ways,” he says. “With the sheer number of people, and we all wear the same thing, and this and that, we kind of have a team mentality and a sports mentality about what we do. It is incredibly physical.

“So with that in mind, I have kind of a running checklist every day where I kind of live the exact same day every single day when we’re on tour — if I’m in control of that. Sometimes we’re flying on a show day, and that kind of sucks, and I’m not able to get into my flow state that I prefer. But I eat the same exact thing every day; I drink pretty much the same amount of water every day; I know exactly when I’m gonna have my pre-show meal; I know exactly when I’m gonna start getting into the jam room and start stretching and this and that. So that’s all part of it.”

The talented drummer continued his words by talking about the preparations the band made before the stage. He revealed that Slipknot has some rituals before every stage. Having noted that the primary purpose of these rituals is to ensure that every band member is on the same page, Weinberg said that the final turn of the key is to put on the mask. 

“I’ll run through a bunch of songs by myself,” he reveals. “We’ll run through maybe two, three, four songs together in the room. And then by the time we’re done playing the third or fourth song or something, our tour manager is coming into the room. He’s, like, ‘You guys are onstage in five minutes.’ And then it’s like mad dash, and I’ll be, like, ‘Oh, fuck. I’ve gotta put on my mask.'”

“He continued: “Sometimes that works out the best, because then you don’t have any time to cool down and it’s just, like, ‘Oh, shit. I’ve gotta throw this on and run out there.’ But the mask is the last turn of the key; that’s the last thing that happens before we’re all together. And we have our little band rituals that we do before every show that just brings us all to the… makes sure we’re all on the same page and we’re about to go out to do this thing that means a lot to us. We know it means a lot to everybody who’s there, so we’re gonna give it everything we’ve got. But we all have those individual things. I think the mask is all of our final key to that door that unlocks the stage for us. And I suppose it is kind of unique.”