“I have a really, really spiritual feeling about this next one”: Slipknot’s Shaun Crahan on the band’s next album

Ex-Slipknot drummer Jay Weinberg has made his return to recording, appearing on his first Suicidal Tendencies record since joining the band earlier this year.

The track is called Nos Somos Familia, a Portuguese language re-recording of the thrash punk icons’ 1999 track We Are Family. In addition to Weinberg and fellow new recuit ex-Dilinger Escape Plan guitarist Ben Weinman, it features a small army of Brazilian musicians from bands such as Torture Squad, Dead Fish and Planet Hemp.

It’s been scheduled to coincide with the band’s five-date Brazilian tour, which kicks off this coming Friday and includes a video which features all the guests, plus a number of prominent members of the Brazilian skate community.

Meanwhile, Weinberg’s erstwhile bandmates have not been idle. Slipknot’s percussionist Shaun ‘Clown’ Crahan has been talking about the group’s next move and in an interview with Des Moines, Iowa radio station Lazer 103.3 that he has a “a really, really spiritual feeling” about their next album.

Not a phrase you’d expect to hear about any Slipknot record, it must be said.

Crahan elaborated by saying “We’re very fortunate right now. Covid did really kind of screw everything up. We were supporting 2019’s We Are Not Your Kind COVID hit, ended that cycle. We decided to write during that whole lockdown. We came out with The End, So Far. This time, we’re gonna go out and celebrate 25 years [of the release of their debut album] and kind of end The End, So Far. And then yes, writing is very soon,”

He continued: “The good news is, like, we’ve reached a point where we’ve accomplished everything we wanted to try for ourselves. So we wanted to leave the book open to everything. And I think that we’ve really accomplished that. So now I think because of the line-up and where we’re at and what we’ve done, I have a really, really spiritual feeling about this next one.”

“So, I feel like it’s gonna be - not that anyone has not liked or liked what we’ve done, I’m just saying I have a feeling this one is much needed for everybody. And I think it’s gonna be widely accepted. So I’m very excited. Especially with Eloy [Casagrande] being in the band and the other guys, there’s a lot being brought to the table, and that is very, very exciting.”

Sepultura alumnus Casagrande is the third to sit in the Slipknot drummer’s chair after founder member Joey Jordison and Weinberg, who was sacked in November last year. It was unclear what reasons lay behind the sacking – on social media the drummer said that he had been “heartbroken and blindsided by the news .”

Meanwhile Slipknot return to the UK at the end of the year for a six-date tour that ends with two nights at London’s O2.