SLAYER's DAVE LOMBARDO Discusses PHILM In New Audio Interview

On May 12, Rustyn Rose of Metalholic.com conducted an interview with SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo about "Harmonic", the debut album from PHILM — the Los Angeles-based experimental post-hardcore triumvirate featuring Lombardo, guitarist/vocalist Gerry Nestler (CIVIL DEFIANCE),and bassist Pancho Tomaselli (WAR). You can now listen to the chat in the YouTube clip below.

"Harmonic" is available for streaming in its entirety at AOL Music. The CD will be released on May 15 via Ipecac Recordings.

"Harmonic" track listing:

01. Vitriolize
02. Mitch
03. Hun
04. Area
05. Way Down
06. Harmonic
07. Exuberance
08. Sex Amp
09. Amoniac
10. Held In Light
11. Dome
12. Killion
13. Mezzanine
14. Mild
15. Meditation

PHILM will play a special CD-release show on May 15 at The Viper Room in West Hollywood, California.

For more information, visit the PHILMFacebook page.

PHILM will give a free webcast performance on May 16 at 7 p.m. Pacific/10 p.m. Eastern, recorded at Bob Weir's TRI Studios and streamed directly via TriStudios.com and Yahoo! Music.

Viewers of the webcast can tweet along with the audience on Twitter by using #PHILMLive.

"When people hear about my involvement in PHILM, they automatically assume that it will compare to SLAYER's sound," explains Lombardo. "They couldn't be more different. I have scaled down my drum set to a four-piece, reminiscent of the drummers from the late '60s that influenced me. Each song is unique in itself, I like to refer to it as 'rhythmic emotion.' It's almost like taking all the heavy songs of the '60s and bringing that era to a modern plateau, then blending them with the modern trance and psychedelic sounds of today."

"We decided to record 'Harmonic' in the intimate setting of a home, with various vintage recording equipment," says Lombardo on the band's debut album. "The music was written collectively in an improvisational manner, unlike the majority of recordings I've done before. This was very important given this is my first recording where I'm carrying the title of producer and performer. The album achieves a dense, unholy convergence of tones and discords. We also touch on haunting, desolate, ambient sounds. Our music tends to be written in a manner where we never know the outcome until we listen back to what we recorded. A harmonic journey."

While there are elements of metal detected throughout PHILM's sound, the band manages to also incorporate such other styles as jazz, ambient, hardcore punk, experimental, and funk into its unpredictable, cacophony-heavy style. An obvious reason for this multi-genre amalgamation can be directly linked to the gentlemen that play alongside Lombardo in PHILM — Tomaselli is a longtime member of funk rockers WAR, and Nestler fronts prog metallists CIVIL DEFIANCE. Add it all up, and you get the wonderful world of PHILM.

Ipecac Recordings is the brainchild of Greg Werckman (former label manager for the legendary punk label Alternative Tentacles) and FAITH NO MORE singer Mike Patton, who played with Lombardo in the eclectic supergroup FANTÔMAS.

Interview (audio):

Photo credit: Cammy Kinney