Look, Dave Lombardo is basically never coming back to Slayer. The drummer posted a lengthy Facebook entry earlier this year explaining the split from the band, saying they couldn't work out financial issues.
We've heard Dave's side of the story,we've heard Kerry's, and now, for the first time (I think), Tom Araya gave his point of view as to why Lombardo was booted.
Speaking to Gimme Noise, Arya recounts the events happening as such:
Dave left the band originally in '91 or '92. After that we brought in John Dette for two years and then we hooked up with Paul, who did four really great albums with us. Then he decided to move on. Our manager hooked us up with Dave again, and when we were putting together [2006's] Christ Illusion, Dave offered to help out. We wanted to make things fair for him, so we offered him a contract with the band. Most recently, we were offered to tour Australia. When we were rehearsing, he seemed to do a 180 and said some things that kind of upset me and Kerry. Kerry just looked at him and said, "If you feel that way, then why are we even rehearsing for this tour?" So we wrote him a letter and said, "Listen, we need to know if you're going to do the shows in Australia. If you're not, we need to do something about that." We didn't get a reply. We were put in a position where we had to do something, so we got John Dette to play with us again.
After what happened with the Australia tour, we made the decision to move forward and make him aware that we no longer needed his services. He was really upset about that. He wrote a rant on Facebook. He said some things that he shouldn't have. It really upset us. And it upset me. I was fuming. I couldn't believe that he would throw that out in the court of public opinion. After that, Jeff, me, and Kerry all got on the phone and talked about it. And Paul's name came up. It was a sure thing with Paul. He'd been in the band for over 12 years. So we gave him a call to see if he was interested and he was more than happy to. It was a no-brainer. He's an amazing drummer.
As you can see, the ultimate straw that broke the camel's back was Lombardo's decision to go public with the financial situation the band was going through. That didn't sit too well with the rest of the band members. I'm sure it brought back bad feelings for the band from the last time Lombardo left.
Either way, Bostaph is back in the fold and it doesn't look like he'll be leaving anytime soon.
