Bruce Springsteen has a secret weapon, thanks to "The Tonight Show".

July 15, 9:07 PMPhoenix Music Beat ExaminerLauren Wise

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By Backstreets.com / Jay Weinberg on Drums

Bruce Springsteen's musical prose has influenced generations of musicians and music lovers for several decades. You would think he's seen it all, heard it all, been there, done that. So imagine the surprise of many when Springsteen unveiled his newest secret weapon on his European tour: an 18-year-old heavy metal drummer.

But this isn't just any college-age punk-kid drummer, this is Jay Weinberg, the son of the E Street Band's legendary drummer, Max Weinberg.

Jay Weinberg may as well be a hybrid drummer. He understands the classic emphaiss of keeping the solid backbone of more than 200 E-Street songs, while splashing in his own punk rock style that sends Bruce Springsteen audiences asking for more encores than usual.  Jay's intense energy, passion and drumming precision has left Springsteen with his jaw dropped, claiming, "you're not supposed to be able to do that at 18".

The fact that Jay is substituting in as the E-Street drummer was almost by accident. While Max Weinberg was preparing for the new The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, his son Jay was sitting in for him on soundcheck last summer, and impressed Springsteen so much that he was chosen to fill in for Max whenever he was gone to appear on the The Tonight Show. The touring life was not new to Jay. Throughout his entire life he was pulled out of school for months at a time to go on tour with the E Street Band, alternating between being home-schooled and watching the hundreds of performances with his sister.

The most impressive thing about Jay Weinberg filling in as the E Street Band's drummer is that he's only been playing the drums for four years. His main inspirations include rock and metal bands, such as the American metal band Slipknot he saw at Ozzfest right before he picked up his first drumstick. These drumbeats and tecniques, especially by Slipknot's Joey Jordison, influenced Jay profoundly to establish a polyrhythmic drumming style that spices up the regular E Street songs and has given him the name "the spark plug" within the E Street Band.

Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band has already sold over 1.5 million tickets on their European Tour that Jay has filled in a couple spots for. Besides playing with E Street, Jay is also in a New York prog-metal band called the Reveling.