Drummer Jay Weinberg has opened up about seeking therapy following his Slipknot firing in 2023.
The revelation comes from an interview with Bryce Maopolski of HeartSupport, a nonprofit aimed at providing free music-based mental health support to those in the music scene.
Weinberg said of his emotional state following his exit from Slipknot (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), “There was a certain point that I kind of found myself as like a tangled ball of rusted barbed wire, is what it really kind of felt like emotionally.”
He continued:
“And needing the expertise that I didn’t have for sure, the know-how, the ability to see life on a trajectory that brought some or that maybe quelled some anxieties and frustrations or that challenge or whatever and live a more peaceful, happy life, all of that I viewed as the center of what was gonna require untangling that rusted over ball of barbed wire. And so for myself, that took some seeking therapy, seeking a therapist here where I live in Tennessee, which took time as well. I wasn’t a complete stranger to it. In probably my early 20s when I lived on the East Coast, in New Jersey and New York, I had experience with therapy. Nothing that felt like a match made in heaven. It helped somewhat, and that was kind of a part of an experience that I had seeking it out for myself towards the end of 2023, beginning of 2024. And I was so thankful to have a very trusted friend. He married my wife and me. He’s like our closest, closest friend. So many life experiences that we’ve had and share and continue to share that I felt comfortable. It wasn’t admitting. I was on the search for trying to find — like, ‘I need the assistance of a mental health professional to help get me through this moment in my life that’s particularly challenging. And he suggested his own therapist that he trusted. And it finally felt like an unlocking of a door, like a door that I’d tried many keys trying to open and it just wouldn’t.”
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He revealed that he is still speaking to the same therapist once a week, citing the benefits it has shown for him in sorting through his thoughts and experiences as they arise, especially how it aided him with the complex emotional challenges of fatherhood after becoming a dad earlier this year.
Regarding the window of time following his Slipknot exit where he also underwent hip surgery, he said, “When you find yourself in a transitional phase, especially in my life, especially having a significant transitional phase occur at the same time as I had to have a physical surgery to correct some issues., and I had hip surgery and was on my couch with my thoughts alone, to endure all of that concurrently was… I mean, talk about a mental and physical grind every moment of every day just to feel like a normal person.”
He added, “The experience definitely taught me a lot, and continues to. None of this is, like, ‘I’m fixed and I’m all better.’ I just view it as this is part of being a healthy person, of tending to not just the physical rigors of what it is that I enjoy putting myself through.”
Watch the full interview below.