Interview: Dave Lombardo of Slayer talks "American Carnage"
I recently had the opportunity to speak with Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo as they were wrapping up the Canadian leg of the Carnage tours. Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax were just preparing to head back home for the current leg, American Carnage, when we hooked up.
I'll be doing press coverage on October 1st at Atlanta's Gwinnett Center, but first I wanted to have a chat with Dave Lombardo, the man who created thrash and speed metal drumming, who every other up-and-coming drummer must be compared to as a measuring stick. Despite his impeccable pedigree, I didn't want to talk about drumming — I wanted to see how things were going for him, and for the band.
Slayer has been on a monstrous extended tour schedule, with only one break--to hit the studio to record their latest album, World Painted Blood. Not really a break at all. They went from headlining Mayhem Festival 2009 to the "Big Four" tour with Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax and then straight into headlining the European, Canadian and now, American Carnage tours.
You can listen to Dave talking about his own influences, touring, and music industry advice, as well as a special message he sent out to Slayer fans, in the audio interview.
Of course, Dave's history with the band has been sort of 'love 'em and leave 'em' at times. He's the only original member of Slayer to fly the coop (twice!) but he always comes back home. I couldn't help but tease him about that in the beginning of our interview, "So... what questions am I asking you today?" "Heh. Probably the generic 'How's the tour going? Any gossip? Any stories going on backstage? Are you guys getting along? Have you left the band again?" That made him laugh. "Yeah. Have you left the band again? Heheh!"
I asked Dave about the big Slayer Live DVD release coming out on August 17th; both old and new Slayer fans are wild with anticipation over the previously unreleased Live Intrusion; a live concert video from 1995 that had been lost for years. Live Intrusion features a guest appearance by Machine Head's Robb Flynn and Chris Kontos. It doesn't however, feature Dave Lombardo. It was shot during one of those periods when he had jumped ship.
He laughed and said "Yeah. Uh. You know what? All I know about that video is that... there are three videos that are going to be re-released. And that's it. It's great that they're putting it out as a package. I know it's going to be Live Intrusion, Still Reigning and one other one... War at the Warfield! He chuckled when I said, "I'll tell you a little bit about it then, okay? You can listen to me talk."
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