We were all shocked when earlier this year drummer Dave Lombardo announced that he and Slayer couldn't come to an agreement on finances, and as a result he was out of the band. Lombardo, a founding member of the band, was replaced by the same guy who took the reigns the last time he left, Paul Bostaph.
Slayer are now back on the road, doing interviews and recently, Tom Araya discussed Lombardo leaving, for what seems like the first time, and the language he chose leads me to believe that Lombardo is never coming back.
Speaking to Steppin' Out magazine, Araya retold the events that led to Lombardo leaving from his point of view"
"That whole issue came down to this: Dave had been jamming with us for a while, as a working member of the band, but he wasn't a partner, like all things like that, you have to have agreements, so nobody feels cheated. We had ongoing issues and finally he put us in a position where we had to find someone to replace him."
The way I'm reading the above statement is Tom and Kerry made more money since they were "partners" in the band, which Dave wasn't. It's understandable, Dave left for a decade when the band rose to prominence. Dave probably asked for more money and the rest of the Slayer guys weren't cool with it.
"He wasn't happy, so he decided to have his Facebook rant and told the world about a lot of issues going on within the band that are legally binding and private. I thought that was wrong and it was upsetting. A lot of the claims he made were untrue. Part of the agreement is you don't do that. Kerry, Jeff and I got on the phone and made a collective decision and we let Dave go and gave Paul a call. "
It's clear that by Dave going public with the drama, it hurt his chances to return to the band. The remaining members felt insulted and made the decision to move on, and re-added Paul Bostaph to the reigns.
Paul said he'd be happy to come back. He has brought some life back into our live performances. He's in hyper drive and kicking ass, which makes us play faster. People have commented on how energetic we've been lately. We're playing faster than we would have. It's good injection of adrenaline."
As a huge fan of Lombardo, it's a bummer that he probably won't be back anytime soon, probably never based on the way everything went down earlier this year. I consider myself lucky to have been able to see the band with it's original lineup on numerous occasions, and to best honest, I'm still looking forward to headbanging when they make their return to NYC next month.
[via Blabbermouth]
