Eloy Casagrande | Sepultura to Slipknot

In early 2024, Sepultura announced a farewell tour. Days later their drummer left the band.

Two months after that he walked out on stage at a small desert venue in California wearing a mask, and metal’s worst-kept secret stopped being a secret: Eloy Casagrande was in Slipknot.

He is, by a fair margin, the most technically complete drummer either band has had. Here is how a teenager from São Paulo became the best in the genre.

Who is Eloy Casagrande?

Eloy Casagrande was born on 21 September 1991 in São Paulo, Brazil.

He was a prodigy in the genuine sense — competing and winning at national level as a young teenager, and playing professionally before most drummers have finished school. Brazil has a deep percussion culture, and it shows in his hands.

He joined Sepultura in 2011, at nineteen, and stayed until 2023. That is a formidable run: The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must Be the Heart, Machine Messiah, Quadra.

He also worked with Andreas Kisser on solo material, plays in Scalene, and runs the duo project Casagrande & Hanysz.

Slipknot

In April 2024, Slipknot confirmed him as their drummer. His first show was on 25 April 2024 at Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown, California — a 300-capacity desert venue, which for a band of Slipknot’s size was a deliberate joke.

He has since played the Here Comes the Pain 25th anniversary run, taking the band’s entire back catalogue — Jordison’s parts, Weinberg’s parts, all of it — and playing it better than it has been played in years.

What Eloy Casagrande actually does

His feet are the best in metal. Not just fast — even, articulate and dynamic. He can play a quiet double-kick passage, which almost nobody can.

He is a technician who grooves. The Brazilian influence is audible: there is swing and syncopation in his fills that a purely metal-schooled drummer would not reach for.

He plays with his whole body relaxed. Watch his shoulders during a fast passage — nothing tenses. It is why he can play a two-hour Slipknot set at full intensity.

He honours the parts. He plays Jordison’s material with real fidelity, and has spoken warmly about him. That was not a given, and the fanbase noticed.

He is quietly one of the best readers and clinicians in the genre. The teaching and clinic work has run alongside the bands for years.

The awards

Drumeo’s voters made him Metal Drummer Of The Year in 2022 and again in 2024, plus Drum Performance Of The Year in 2024 for the Slipknot debut. He also took Modern Drummer’s readers’ poll the same year.

Eloy Casagrande’s drum kit

The Slipknot rig is enormous even by that band’s standards.

• Drums — Tama Starclassic Bubinga and Bubinga/Maple, in a piano white finish for the anniversary tour.
• Four bass drums. Two 22”x16” and two 24”x14”. He runs an “A” rig and a “B” rig across the show.
• Toms — 10”x7”, 12”x8” and 13”x9” racks, with 16”x14” and 18”x16” floor toms.
• Cymbals — Paiste, across several series.
• Electronics — Yamaha pads integrated into the kit for triggers and samples.
• Sticks — Promark. He has played a 5A-based model, with a signature stick in the works.

Every era, with buy links, is on Eloy Casagrande’s Rig Vault page.

Want the sound without the rig?

You are not buying four bass drums. What is worth copying is his technique, and it is free.

Play your double kick quietly. Set a metronome at 100bpm and play sixteenths at conversation volume, evenly. Most drummers cannot, and it is the single best diagnostic of foot control there is. Speed comes out of that, not the other way round.

Then check your shoulders. If they rise during a fast passage, you are working against yourself.

For the gear side: a good double pedal matters more than shells here — our direct-drive pedal guide covers what the feel difference actually is, and the Gear Guru will spec a metal kit to a number.

Where to start listening

• Sepultura — “Phantom Self” (2017). Brazilian percussion and metal, fused properly.
• Sepultura — “Isolation” (2020). The one people send you to prove the point.
• Slipknot — the Pappy & Harriet’s set (2024). The debut, in a 300-cap room.
• Slipknot — “Duality”, live 2024. Somebody else’s part, played immaculately.
• Casagrande & Hanysz. The instrumental side, where the chops go on holiday.

Final thoughts

Slipknot’s drum chair has now been held by three very different players: Joey Jordison’s clinical rudimental precision, Jay Weinberg’s controlled chaos, and now Casagrande, who can do a convincing impression of both and then play something neither could.

At the moment he is probably the best drummer in heavy music. The remarkable part is that he is barely into his thirties, and both of his big gigs so far have been someone else’s band.

The record he eventually makes from scratch with Slipknot should be worth waiting for.

See Eloy Casagrande’s full rig in the Rig Vault, or read about Joey Jordison and Jay Weinberg — the two drummers he followed.