While Slipknot have not officially confirmed the identity of their new drummer, after a social media tease at the weekend, fans think they have a pretty good idea who it is.

The band’s longtime drummer and successor to Joey Jordison, Jay Weinberg, was unexpectedly booted out the band late last year after his nine-year tenure. He performed on three albums: .5: The Gray Chapter (2014), We Are Not Your Kind (2019) and The End, So Far (2022).

• READ MORE: Corey Taylor says Ozzy Osbourne once asked to be the 10th member of Slipknot

Now, Shawn “Clown” Crahan – one of the band’s percussionists and primary decision makers – has reflected on the decision to let Jay Weinberg go.

“I’m very excited about this idea of a new drummer,” he says in a new interview with Knotfest Australia [per Blabbermouth]. “There’s many reasons for it. It’s not to be confused. It doesn’t matter what the situation may seem like. 

“Unless you’re in the band and understand – there’s no hard feelings; there never was. We just went our way. There was really no bad things. That’s as much as I can say.”

Crahan’s “no hard feelings” comments appear to contradict the version of events told by Weinberg himself, who on social media shortly after his firing said he was “heartbroken and blindsided to receive the phone call that I did on the morning of 5 November”.

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Crahan continues: “What I can say is Slipknot decided to move on, and that’s what we’ve done. And I’m very excited for what we have done. And we’re really working hard. And there’ll be new music, there’ll be new masks, there’ll be new people, there’ll be new ideas, celebrating a 25-year anniversary. I would imagine there’d be some shows. It can be 200 people, 500 people, 700 people, 2,000 people.”

While the percussionist does hint at the possibility of new Slipknot music in the future, he’s cagey regarding further details.

“I wouldn’t look at it like new music, like [an] album and stuff like this,” he says. “I think we’re gonna have some fun. I don’t know exactly what we’re trying to do. I know that we just wanna do what we wanna do. 

“So however it happens, it happens. We’re not gonna push it and we’re not gonna mould it into something it doesn’t need to be, but I will tell you, we’re have a really good time right now. There’s some real magical stuff happening.”

Slipknot will play a series of festivals over the summer, starting with Las Vegas’s Sick New World on April 27. For more info, head to their official website.