SLAYER Drummer On 'World Painted Blood': 'It's A Very Well-Constructed And Put-Together Album'

Peter Atkinson of KNAC.COM recently conducted an interview with SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

KNAC.COM: Since "Psychopathy Red" is the only thing anyone has heard from the [upcoming SLAYER] album ["World Painted Blood"] so far, the $64,000 question is obviously what's the rest of the album like?

Lombardo: Very punk, very edgy. It's real. It doesn't sound over-processed. It's a very well-constructed and put-together album. I'm so excited about it. It's been a long time since I felt like that. I can only compare it to our earlier records, "Reign In Blood", "South of Heaven", "Seasons", it has a real feel to me like we were talking about earlier. It's a record that was collectively put together. Whenever we had an opinion about something on a song, maybe something should be extended or shortened or maybe we should add this other part in, whatever it was it was, that opinion was heard and we performed it that way to see what it felt like. So it was a collective effort, on everyone's part, from the beginning with the foundation with the drums to now with the vocals. I couldn't be any happier.

KNAC.COM: Since you had just gotten back on board with the band, did the "Christ Illusion" process feel much different?

Lombardo: Yeah, it was a whole other feeling. Things were still new to me, things were still new to the band. I had been out of SLAYER for 10 years. They had done three records with Paul [Bostaph]. I think "Christ Illusion" was good, but I this record just has something that that one did not. It's structured well. The melodies are great. You're probably thinking, "SLAYER? Melodies?" But go back to "South of Heaven" and listen to the melodies that were on those songs. Even "Reign In Blood" had an amount melody, which made it listenable. And that's what we have here. There's a lot of energy, a lot of speed, but there's melody to tie it all together. As far as I'm concerned, to me, it's a very, very good record.

KNAC.COM: You recorded a few of the songs last fall, then went on tour, then came back and finished the album. Is it unusual for you to work in chunks like that instead of going in and banging it out from start to finish?

Lombardo: Yeah. Usually we're well rehearsed. All the songs are basically done, structure-wise everything is there. We've thought of everything. But this time around we did those two or three songs initially, and it was really cool, we kind of got ourselves prepped up for the next batch of songs. The excitement was there because we were playing and performing the songs and it was feeling good. When we got back from our tour and the holidays were over we started rehearsing with the producer, Greg Fidelman, who's done a magnificent job. He would come and listen to what we would do and record it, we would mess with it, so the foundation was really worked on a lot to make sure it flowed well. And I was getting really excited at the time because all of our enthusiasm and the collective effort we had in putting these songs together. What was cool was we went into the studio with only five songs. So we had to create and learn songs in the studio, and it was a whole different atmosphere. It added a little bit of pressure, but it brought out the best of us. It was something that threw us off guard, but then it made us work a little harder. And I think it shows.

Read the entire interview from KNAC.COM.