DAN LILKER Explains NUCLEAR ASSAULT's Retirement From Playing Live Shows

In a recent interview with "That Metal Interview" podcast, NUCLEAR ASSAULT bassist Dan Lilker confirmed that the band's appearance at the UK Deathfest in London, England last September was "pretty much our last show." He explained (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We've been trying to hang it up for a while, but people won't let us go. I know that people wanna see NUCLEAR ASSAULT and everything like that, it's just that… We're getting a little old, and — I don't know — it's different. I just don't enjoy touring like I used to. Flying isn't what it used to be. You get fucked around at airports all the time. And I don't really have patience. If my flight's delayed or if [my] bass didn't make it, for some reason, that shit's getting old."

Asked to elaborate on the reasons for NUCLEAR ASSAULT calling it quits, Lilker said: "It's hard to explain, because some of it's stuff that we don't really discuss outside the band or anything. But it's hard now, because John [Connelly], our frontman, he's a high school teacher. So it's really hard for him to get away. Obviously, he could get school vacations in the summer, but he's also got a family. Just because it's summer and he doesn't have to teach doesn't mean he's gonna run away for a month and not be able to just go do normal vacation shit with his family and everything. So it just gets more complicated like that. He's been doing that for a while now. So, obviously, he has a teacher's schedule and he cannot take off from that; they have a very strict vacation thing with the New York education system. So that alone is a big reason that it's really hard to do it."

Although Lilker was adamant that NUCLEAR ASSAULT was over as a touring act, he did keep the door open for a possible reunion in the future.

"I think we pretty much said we just did the last show," he reiterated. "The thing is if I keep saying, 'Oh, we'll do this and that,' in dribs and drabs like that… We really have to fucking draw the line… But we pretty much said we have to just starting saying, 'That's gonna be it.' And if it changes in the future, it does."

NUCLEAR ASSAULT's "Pounder" EP was released on CD and as a digital download in 2015 via drummer Glenn Evans's own Sidipus Records.

Prior to forming NUCLEAR ASSAULT in 1984, Lilker witnessed the birth of thrash metal as an original member of ANTHRAX, and was later a crucial component to S.O.D. and BRUTAL TRUTH.

While many thrash metal bands tempered their aggression with melody, NUCLEAR ASSAULT stuck to its guns throughout and in the process, released such thrash classics as 1988's "Survive" and 1989's "Handle With Care".

After an extended hiatus, the group returned in the early 21st century with its first new studio album in over a decade, 2005's "Third World Genocide".