Sepultura vocalist Derrick Green recalled the “surreal” moment he found out Eloy Casagrande was leaving the band to join Slipknot.
In December of 2023, the Brazilian metal outfit announced a fall 2024 farewell tour to coincide with their 40th anniversary, but they also had a series of shows booked for March and April in South America.
In February — just prior to the start of their rehearsals for those performances — Casagrande suddenly quit the band. He’d been playing with them since 2011. In a statement announcing Casagrande’s departure, Sepultura named Greyson Nekrutman as his successor.
Casagrande was formally named the new drummer of Slipknot a few months later.
Green and Nekrutman were recent guests on the podcast One Life One Chance with Toby Morse, and the vocalist described how he found out Casagrande left the band and how shocking the moment was for him.
The singer said that he was packing to fly down to Brazil for band rehearsals when he learned of Casagrande’s decision to leave. Guitarist Andreas Kisser called him to deliver the news.
“He’s like, ‘He’s out.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean? What are you talking about, who’s out?’ He was just like, ‘Yeah, Eloy is out.’ And I was just like, kind of falling in a black hole like, ‘What are you talking about?'” he explained.
“It was totally surreal, it was like literally in slow motion. I was just trying to get my breath.”
Casagrande told his bandmates and managers in a meeting that he was taking the gig with Slipknot after he’d already signed a contract with them. Green wasn’t present for the meeting, so he was caught off guard when he heard about it from his bandmate.
READ MORE: Jim Root Explains How + Why Slipknot Hired Eloy Casagrande
“We were just panicking because we had no clue what to do. We weren’t expecting this at all,” the frontman admitted.
Nekrutman — who played drums in Suicidal Tendencies — added that he met Casagrande at a party at NAMM earlier this year, just a few weeks before he receiving a message from Kisser on Instagram asking him if they could schedule a phone call.
That phone call was when Kisser invited Nekrutman to join Sepultura. Coincidentally, Jay Weinberg took his place in Suicidal Tendencies a few months after splitting with Slipknot.
Listen to the full podcast episode below.
Sepultura’s Derrick Green Recalls ‘Surreal’ Moment He Found Out Eloy Casagrande Left to Join Slipknot
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