SLAYER's DAVE LOMBARDO On Touring, 'Big Four' And TOM ARAYA's Back Surgery

Pandie Suicide of BareBonesMusic.com recently conducted an interview with SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

BareBonesMusic.com: What's it like being on a SLAYER tour, what exactly is it like?

Dave: Sometimes the fun just falls on your lap, like you know we're having a blast. Other times you have to get out there and find some trouble, you have to be the one to start the party because it doesn't seem like the other guys do anything like that, at least Jeff [Hanneman, guitar] and Tom [Araya, bass/vocals], but Kerry [King, guitar] and myself, we try to hold the party flag and carry it around,. "Come on, let's do shots," or "Come on, let's go over and raise some hell," or whatever. It's a lot of fun but it's also a lot of work. But I don't want to sound like I'm complaining but it is a lot of work because not only the music is very demanding, but also our touring schedule is pretty brutal.

BareBonesMusic.com: I actually wrote an article for the suicidegirls blog recently on how to survive a tour, do you have any tips or advice for how to survive a SLAYER tour...or any tour?

Dave: What I do is, I try to stay as healthy as possible. I have to because if not I will feel like shit, during the show and after the show. I just recently had a little drinking binge with a friend of mine who plays in BLACK EYED PEAS and he came over to the show in Quebec City or one of the cities here in Canada. We had like four beers at the restaurant and then after that we went to the hotel bar and got together with Kerry and Jeff and some of the crew guys and drank some more, and then we went to this other bar and drank...it ended up being one of those nights where you wake up the next day and feel like shit. What I try to do is kind of get that out of the way at the beginning or the end of the tour. At least have one time during the tour where I get totally hammered, then that's it — the rest is just one constant buzz. You try not to abuse your body that much and you try to eat right, drink the right juices and have a lot of vitamins — take a lot of vitamins. That's pretty much it, that's how I do it.

BareBonesMusic.com: How does it feel to be one of the bands considered the "Big Four" [alongside METALLICA, MEGADETH and ANTHRAX]?

Dave: Awesome! It's, like, how do I say this? It's time to recognize! Because we've been around for such a long time, and METALLICA kind of went away from its hardcore fans, and now for them to come back and do these shows with us and kind of relock themselves with what they started, what we all started. I think it's great, it was really, really good. I had [Dave] Mustaine [MEGADETH mainman] texting me last night, "Come down to my room." It's a really cool camaraderie that's being re-established, everybody's getting along, it's great. It's a lot of fun.

BareBonesMusic.com: That's cool! The name SLAYER has this certain ideology associated with it, this image of a kind of a Satanic, devil-worshipping, chaos-loving thing, what are your personal views on this, is this what you think too?

Dave: Personal views, I mean, it all started to gain attention, you know. VENOM was up there they were doing it, MERCYFUL FATE, they were doing it, so you know what, SLAYER is so synonymous with being something evil so we had to kind of marry the two in a way and it's just stuck. And it's kind of cool because we dabble in the darker things, whereas METALLICA is a little more...brighter you know, they're not as dark as SLAYER is. So we've established our own personality which is really cool because some bands go through their entire career without finding themselves, or try to establish a career without really knowing who they are and I've realized that I like music with kind of like that hard edge, that's a little darker, a little twisted, it just dabbles in the minor keys I like that.

BareBonesMusic.com: With the back surgery that just happened with Tom, that meant some cancelled dates. Did you have any angry fans?

Dave: Yeah, all the fans have been really understanding. I think the response that the fans have given us on stage, you know, the applause when we walk out on stage, I think that says it right there. They understand. There's really nothing we can do; you just have to give Tom his time. You know, we're going to need our time maybe in the future where we're going to have to heal from something or whatever. You just go with it, you go with the flow and just let it be. But no we haven't got any slack or anything from any fans. And if there is one fan out there, I'm sure he'll get a beating by his friends!

Read the entire interview from BareBonesMusic.com.