Infectious Grooves Are Bringing The Funk-Metal Mayhem To Australia…
Awesome news that the legendary Infectious Grooves will not only be appearing at BluesFest but the funk-metal supergroup have announced massive headline shows in Melbourne Brisbane, Adelaide and Sydney! Boasting an all-star lineup of incredible players, Infectious Grooves are set to unleash an insane performance that sees them play their first shows globally in five years and their first in Australia since playing at Soundwave Festival in 2008, sixteen long years ago!
The 2024 incarnation of Infectious Grooves is more potent than ever. Featuring original members, Suicidal Tendencies front man, Mike Muir, and guitarist Dean Pleasants who are both fresh from a sold-out tour of Australia last November that celebrated the foriethh Anniversary of Suicidal Tendencies debut album.
They will be accompanied by none other than founding bassist of Infectious Grooves, Robert Trujillo who is making a long-awaited comeback to Australia. Trujillo’s last visit was over a decade ago with his warlord band mates in on of the biggest bands on the planet—Metallica! Adding extra groove on guitar will be Dave Kushner, best known for being part of the platinum selling super group Velvet Revolver. Dave is also part of the OG Infectious Grooves team having appeared on the track, Punk It Up from the bands debut album. Anchoring the whole thing down is drummer Jay Weinberg, making his first live appearance after ten years with the iconic metal band, Slipknot. It was a huge privilege speaking to Jay Weinberg about joining Infectious Grooves and the journey to get to this point.
Not long now until you make the trip down to Australia. Are you really excited about this tour?
Yes, I am. Yeah. We’re incredibly excited to come.
Is there anything that prepares you for that long haul flight to Australia?
I think the best preparation is just having done it several times before. It’s obviously one of those things that, from my experience and so many of my peers and friends we always love coming to Australia and wish that it was closer so it is easier to get to from where we live in America. So when we come down, we really like to make it count. The flight is what it is, you find ways to be comfortable and the flight there is a lot easier than the flight leaving, because when you’re flying to Australia, you know they’re on the other side of your flight is that you’re in Australia, and it’s incredibly exciting. It’s one of the best places in the world to play live music and the flight going back home is harder because you know you’re leaving Australia.
How have the rehearsals been so far? Everyone looks pumped in the videos I have seen.
It feels amazing in the jam room. I’m really honoured that these guys have asked me to come along and be a part of this amazing legacy of Infectious Grooves and the fact that this has worked out and I was far enough in my recovery from my hip surgery that I had recently. They gave me a call and thought that this could work and we got into a room and immediately like the chemistry was right there, felt absolutely incredible. We’ve had a couple of rehearsals so far, just getting familiar with each other playing wise. I’ve known Dean and Mike for quite some time, having done tours together with Suicidal Tendencies and I met Rob probably about twenty years ago, but haven’t seen him since early on in his time with Metallica and Dave, I’ve just met for the first time, but obviously was familiar with his work with Velvet revolver and Wasted Youth of course. We have a lot of mutual friends.
Having all those common experiences there’s not much that we need to like speak about to catch each other up to speed or whatever. I think these guys understand that I know where Infectious Grooves comes from, the legacy, the music and everything. All that we really had to do was just get in the room, I sit behind my drums and we were off to the races. So much so that we that Mike thought it would be appropriate for us to get in the studio to record a new song. We’ve done that, it’s coming along amazing. I’m so excited that there’s just a lot of positive energy being injected into this whole thing. It’s a lot happening all at once. I didn’t even expect to be playing drums until April, considering the surgery I had, so to have been playing with these guys for about a month now, as we’re preparing for these shows and being in the studio, recording new music, it’s just all so exciting and happening so quickly. I’m really just honoured to be a part of it.
Does it feel a little bit like the planets are aligning at the right time with how everything is coming together since joining Infectious Grooves?
Yeah, absolutely. With everybody in the band already having other bands, other things, and I know what that’s like to have a difficult schedule to try to find room for extracurricular activities as it is from those other bands and those other responsibilities. But Infectious is certainly much more than just an extracurricular activity. It’s a band that’s been around for thirty years. I believe this is the thirtieth anniversary actually in 2024, something like that, maybe even longer. I know how difficult that stuff is, so when they reached out to me, it was a no brainer. Mike asked the only question that that was on the table, was am I physically able to do it with where I am in my recovery? Am I going to be cleared by my physical therapist to go on tour and so luckily I’ve been doing the work getting back to my back to my normal playing schedule, habits and everything. That’s been amazing and being ahead of schedule I was able to tell Mike like, yes I wasn’t expecting to be playing this soon but absolutely count me in, I’ll do whatever it takes to be the guy who is there with you guys doing this. It certainly feel like the planets and stars aligning for this incredible opportunity that I’m very grateful for.
Was the hip injury just wear and tear of just the rigours of playing drums for a long period of time?
Not playing, playing actually never aggravated and I was lucky in that sense because then I could just kind of monitor it. It was a long-term injury mainly caused by running and certain aspects of exercise. I used to kick box when I was younger and I think that motion of kickboxing was a hip injury. I had a I basically had like a malformed bone. I had excess bone on my femur that as I was kickboxing and running, running was my favourite form of exercise, especially on tour because you can do it anywhere. You can just head out the back of the venue, then just run for an hour and then run back for an hour. That was my favourite way of exercising, but the extra bone on my femur was cutting into my hip labrum, so I tore the labrum on my left hip and so I would go for a run and five minutes into running I was in unbearable pain and so I’ve always wanted to take care of it. I started noticing the pain in the summer of 2017, so it’s been quite a while that I’ve wanted to take care of this, and it was always a matter of finding the time in a busy touring and recording schedule that it is very difficult as a drummer.
To say like, hey, I can’t play the drums while I’m recovering for anywhere but in the window of four to six months. That’s the projected recovery for an operation like this. But luckily, I found an amazing doctor who does this kind of stuff all the time. He actually does this procedure on several active National Hockey League players, my favourite sport, and so I was kind of monitoring those guys and their return to playing hockey. When I saw them flying around on the ice, I made the decision I was like, OK, I think this surgeon is my guy to do this operation. It was tough. I had to do my touring and recording responsibilities. I had to push this surgery that I’ve been wanting to have it for something like six years. I’ve been wanting to have this surgery and it was just a matter of finding the time because it prevents me from exercising the way I want to and all that. It never it never impacted my drumming. That was something that I was really thankful for, as long as I protected it, I could still play at a high level and it’s just a matter of finding the window of time to do it. I went and did it and I’m glad that I’ve been ahead of schedule and what originally seemed like I would need six months to return to playing the way that I do, it’s only taking me about three, maybe three and a half months and I’ve been able to come back to playing near full capacity which is really exciting. I’m very sore, obviously because when you’re when you’re on crutches for a month and a half, you lose a tremendous amount of muscle and that’s just natural. It’s good exercise to just get back to where I was. My favourite way of just getting back into it is just to go right back out on the road and go do it as long as I’m not injuring myself by playing then that’s my favourite way to recover is just get right back on my drum set.
The new song recorded is this just the beginning? Are there plans to record an album?
We’ll see, I would definitely be open to that. It was so much fun. We really only had the intent to just go in and record a new song, just because we’re so excited about this thing coming together that it makes for this series of shows. It’s like let’s create something new and I thought that was a brilliant idea. Rob got to work with Adam Siegel, who Infectious fans are familiar with his work with the band. Those guys came up with an incredible collection of riffs and arrangement ideas then got into a room and threw it all together making something exciting happen all in half a day. Truly! It just came together that quickly. That’s one of my favourite ways of approaching music like that is when it’s like completely instinctual. There’s no time to really think about stuff. It’s just about what feels good in that inspired moment and so if there’s more of that, I’m totally down and open to it. It’s more so for those guys to make that call, but it’s so fun playing with them that I would absolutely be down to record more and see where that would go.
It is really special that Australia get all these tour dates with Infectious Grooves. Are you looking to play more dates this year?
We’ll see. I have a lot of independent stuff that I’ve been wanting to do for years that I’m able to do a lot of clinics and events that I’ve done in the past, things that are looking at the direction of my career so far that it’s had some interesting twists and turns with many different musical styles. I really enjoy that and to be able to showcase that in a setting where it is kind of an independent, more classroom oriented thing, I’ll be doing quite a bit of that this year. There are many projects that I’m getting involved in that I’m so stoked and really grateful for the opportunity to play with all sorts of different people, different styles and new styles of playing for me. Infectious is a great example of something that feels a bit familiar in that I’m still hitting my drums hard and heavy as ever but there’s something new to it. I’ve never been in a funk band before. To be able to tap into that and play something that it’s all new, I view the nuance of Infectious Grooves as a new challenge for myself and to be able to apply my playing and what I’ve done for twenty years now and try to incorporate that within the framework of a band that has a defined sound and style, and try to respect that and honour that and bring what I do and try to morph it into what this band is all about is a very exciting opportunity for me, so I’m really stoked with that. There will be a lot more touring stuff that’s going to get announced within this year and I feel grateful to be busier than I’ve ever been and it’s an amazing feeling right now.
With the Australian tour set list are you looking at going back over the last four albums? Will there be a few other surprises as well?
We’ll see, we’re crafting it. It’s a very exciting set of stuff that people who are familiar with Infections are going to love I’m sure. As a fan of Infectious I would be pumped to see this show and I’m just so lucky that I get to play. Hopefully we’re integrating this new material as well, that’s really rad, that’s always my favourite approach to anything is hitting the road with new inspired music. That’s on their radar for these guys. This isn’t strictly just the look in the rear view mirror, there is still some inspired music to be made. That’s a really, really cool thing and I’m honoured to be a part of it. It’s going to cover the gamut. I think people will leave the show feeling incredibly satisfied with the infectiously funky and groovy music that that we’re going to be bringing with us.
Do you enjoy getting back and playing smaller, more intimate venues?
Absolutely, that’s what I live for are those powder keg kind of moments that you really get in more intimate settings. It’s obviously a tremendous rush to play for one hundred thousand, seventy thousand people, whatever, but to me it’s always about the chemistry on stage and so you know to be able to play these venues with guys that I’ve looked up to my entire life, and to play these kind of places where we’re all super close together and it’s a powder keg getting ready to go off. That’s always my favourite stuff over the last twenty years that I’ve been doing this, that’s what really wakes me up in the morning, the opportunity to do that. I think for people to see these guys on a stage like that is really cool. I know what that’s like as an audience member as well. To see guys that you’re familiar with seeing on these gargantuan stages and then bring it down to this intimate setting is a great opportunity for music fans to see. We’re just very excited to get it going and I’m just thrilled to be a part of it.
Interview By Rob Lyon
Catch Infectious Grooves on the following dates, tickets HERE…
