Jay Weinberg Suddenly Unavailable, King Gizzard Calls in Dad Max Weinberg to Save the Day

On Friday night, August 21, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard played Forest Hills Stadium in Queens with one familiar face on stage—except it wasn't quite the one fans expected. E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg stepped in for his son, former Slipknot drummer Jay Weinberg, taking a seat behind the kit for a song alongside the band's regular drummer Michael Cavanagh.

Midway through the set, guitarist Joey Walker explained the switch to the crowd: "Keeping with a tradition we've had going for about a year now, we like to bring out our friend Jay Weinberg to play a song with us—it'd be rude not to. But Jay's busy this time, he's in Nashville, so Jay made a call: 'Alright, I'll call my dad.'" He continued: "So we got Max Weinberg, he drove all the way from Atlantic City to come play a song with us—make some noise for Max Weinberg." Max then took the stage, joining Michael Cavanagh for "Hot Water," off the band's 2014 album *I'm in Your Mind Fuzz*.

Jay Weinberg's guest spots with King Gizzard date back to a 2024 show in Nashville, and have since become a regular fixture at the band's gigs. Just a week earlier, he'd joined the group for "Hell" at their Field of Vision II festival in Colorado. This time, with Jay unable to make it, his father Max stepped in—turning the tradition into a rare father-son relay.

In an interview earlier this month, Jay talked about several new music projects in the works, saying he never had "the legal space to collaborate with other artists" during his time in Slipknot, and only gained that freedom after parting ways with the band in 2023. He described the split at the time as "heartbreaking and out of nowhere," adding earlier this year that the decision still "doesn't make sense" to him.

King Gizzard, meanwhile, dropped their 28th studio album, *Alien Metal*, earlier this month—with previously released tracks already hinting at the record's turn toward techno.