Dave Lombardo was on the phone with Testament within the hour upon hearing the news of drummer Gene Hoglan leaving the band, and it's all thanks to Dave's wife. According to guitarist Eric Peterson in an interview with Sobre La Dosis, Lombardo called vocalist Chuck Billy and eventually got in touch with Peterson about what was going on.
"Apparently his story that he was woken up by his wife after we had put out our press release that Gene was no longer with Testament. That happened like, maybe a month ago at like, 9AM. He was woken up by his wife at 9:30 saying 'hey, Gene's out of Testament,' and he called us at like, 9:40 I think – called Chuck. Then I called him after that and talked to him, and was really surprised because I know he's in a lot of other bands and projects. But man, it was like, open arms. We did The Gathering with him and had a lot of fun with him."
Peterson also touched on Lombardo possibly doing another record with Testament. Lombardo has already expressed interest in doing a record, and Peterson said it's not out of the question.
"As far as the future, doing a record with Dave, that would be great. We'll have to see how these tours go that we're doing with him. We're going to be touring with him until maybe November of this year. That's the plans for now. But so far at rehearsals it's been awesome. I have a lot of riffs to show him. But right now I'm focusing on getting him prepared for the tour. He's learning like, 20 songs right now. But yeah – it would be great to do another record with Dave for sure."
