What Eloy Casagrande Said About Playing on First Slipknot Album

Slipknot drummer Eloy Casagrande has finished his drum recordings for what will be his first album with the band. He's offered some insights to The Downbeat Podcast about what the experience was like and what you might expect from the new Eloy-stamped album.

Casagrande, who had previously been playing drums for Sepultura, was added to the Slipknot lineup in 2024 not long after the band had parted ways with their previous drummer Jay Weinberg.

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It sounds as though the music came about very organically with the drummer's own improvisation during jamming welcomed on multiple occasions.

Breaking down some of the early writing and recording sessions and the end of 2025. "Me and Jim Root, we started exchanging some riffs, some drum beats, so we started the process back there. And I think for the first time, it was February or March, we played together," he revealed and added, "We stayed in the studio together. So the process started with me and Jim and Clown in the studio just jamming. So we would jam all day long, at least for three or four hours a day, and record everything that we could and then listen to what we played together and try to find those special moments that we felt connected. So the process started like that."

This continued for around two months according to Casagrande with the band members working off what each other were presenting before the collective grew to include Mick Thomson, V-Man and Michael Pfaff joining the previous trio in jamming.

"We were able to get some cells from the instruments, some stuff that we felt connected and we were able to chop that, to choose that, to cut that and then start something from that thing, from that little bit," Casagrande shared.

He also credited producer Matt Wallace for his involvement in the jamming process and added that between Wallace and Clown they started to choose the best bits possible for their future songs.

What Eloy Casagrande Said About His Drumming Spontaneity

Casagrande also expressed his and the band's desire to make the sound be as immediate as possible. That meant not using much in the way of overdubs or punch-ins.

"It's just like playing a show — just like playing a song in a show. And we want to keep that real. We don't want to do overdubs. I didn't want to do overdubs. I don't want to do push-ins, punch-ins. I don't want to do that. I want to just play straight," the drummer explained.

"On the future album that's going to come out, on the new songs, people are going to listen to them, they are 100 percent real," he shared. "Nowadays it's very easy to listen to perfect music, perfection, but that's not what we are trying to achieve here. We are trying to achieve reality, to be honest, to be real for the fans, for the people who are going to listen to our music. So that was my mentality since day one when I was recording the album. I want to make it sound real, like it's a human being playing the drums."

"I'm not a machine," he continued. "I'm not perfect and I want to keep that reality in the album because nowadays you see the kids that, the teenagers that start playing the drums… and they think that what they listen in a record, especially from the new metal bands, they think that's the reality. And it's not. It never is. So I was trying to keep it real — to be honest, to be like in a real-life situation, that sometimes you're good, sometimes you're bad and you've got to deal with that. So, when I was recording the songs, I was playing them many, many times — like five, six, seven times ,each one of the songs — and the best take was, like, 'Okay, I think I like the last one. That's my favorite one. Let's use it.' Sometimes I was putting some songs together — choosing half of one take, half of the other take — but never punch-ins. Never like that."

He confessed that means he may have to re-learn some things that were improvised.

How Does Eloy Casagrande Feel About His Drumming on the New Slipknot Album?

It may be a bit of the perfectionist in him, but Casagrande admitted, "I"m never [proud]. It's very difficult for me to accept the reality."

He added, "I'm proud, I'm happy and I'm really happy to see that all the members of the band are happy with the drums. The producer. V-Man, he's kind of okay with my drums. (laughs) No. I'm just kidding. But it's always hard to accept what I did [on the drums]. I always think I could've gone a bit further."

"When I finish recording the song, for five minutes I'm feeling good, but after 10 minutes I feel like shit and I want to go back into the studio and record it again," he shared. But he also reasoned with himself, "I always like to think that in the moment that is the best choice I could have made."

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Where Did Slipknot's 'Arsenal' Come From?

While Slipknot have been working toward a new album, they recently issued the stand-alone track "Arsenal," which Casagrande revealed was one Corey Taylor wrote.

"Oh, that's a Corey Taylor song. Yeah, that's a song that he sent me at the beginning of the year. And then Jim wrote the riffs to the song. So that song didn't come out from a jam. That's a Corey Taylor song."

When asked how much input he was allowed on the track, Casagrande shared that while he initially tried to stay true to what Corey Taylor had presented for the drummer, he eventually changed everything after the the band encouraged him to see what they could come up with.

"The drums, they were quite basic. At the beginning I was trying to respect the song, because he gave me a song. And I was, like, 'Okay, I'm not going to change that,' because it's ready to go. We can call it a song. So I don't want to make crazy things and Corey Taylor's going to be, like, 'What the fuck are you doing?' So I tried to respect what he gave at us at first," recalled Casagrande.

"Then we were working in the studio with Clown and Matt Wallace. So during one of those jams that we were playing every day, that song showed up, and Clown was, like, 'Let's work on "Arsenal." Let's change the drums. Let's make it more interesting.' So me and Clown, we started thinking what I could do regarding drums. And those type of bits, the first thing that came to my mind, to make it sound more aggressive, more hypnotic, to bring the crazy shit about Slipknot, the craziness about Slipknot."

He continued, "I started trying different things and until the day that we recorded the single, I didn't know exactly what I was going to play. So we started jamming, the whole band again. We had the idea, the demo of the song. And we started jamming again. We played it for the whole afternoon. And then at the beginning of the evening, I recorded the song. It's only one take. It's a full take. That's what we are trying to do right now. Most of the songs that I did, they're just one take."