Testament recently reunited with drummer Dave Lombardo in the wake of Gene Hoglan leaving the band. Lombardo was previously in Testament between 1998 and 1999, and played on (and helped write) the 1999 record The Gathering. Now according to Testament vocalist Chuck Billy in an interview with Ben Ruta from WSOU, Lombardo has expressed interest in working with guitarist Eric Peterson on the new material.
"It all depends on Eric; he's the starting point of what we do. So, talking to him, he's, like, 'Man, I've got so many riffs.' He's ready to write another record, which is good. And I think hopefully bringing Dave in and just some new blood and someone to push him a little bit… 'Cause I think Dave, actually, when we did The Gathering record… Eric's always been the one who's programmed the drums on a drum machine and really worked out the songs and then presented them to the drummers, where I think on that particular record Dave just said, 'Dude, just play.'
"And he just jumped in and they just started jamming and started just creating like that. So there was something to that where Eric really focused on the guitar work instead of having to worry about the drums. And I think hopefully him and Dave can start creating some cool magic by just jamming again and see what happens."
Billy later added that working with Lombardo on new material came up pretty early.
"When we first got [Dave] back and talked about getting back on tour and blah blah blah, [we said] 'What about doing another record?' And the first thing, he's, like, 'Dude, could you imagine another record that we wrote together?' And I'm, like, 'Yeah. So let's do that.'
"I think [Dave is] down [for doing an album]. I'm not holding my breath that Dave just is in Testament only but we're gonna have to kind of maneuver around what happens. But then again, this is the beginning of the relationship. We might be busy enough and he might just be happy enough just working with us and it works out. So we're just kind of taking it one day at a time, one tour at a time. We know he's gonna be with us for the next three tours — we know that for sure — so we'll see what happens after that."
In the meantime, check out this killer Testament show from 1999 with Lombardo behind the kit.
