Kerry King slams Slayer’s Dave Lombardo as “dead to me”

Kerry King has slammed his former Slayer bandmate Dave Lombardo, saying that the drummer is “dead to me”.

• READ MORE: Slayer film ‘The Repentless Killology’ is vulgar, gruesome and problematic – just like the band

Today (February 5), King announced his forthcoming debut album ‘From Hell I Rise’, along with sharing its lead track ‘Idle Hands‘. The guitarist also sat down with Rolling Stone in an interview where he opened up about where his current relationship stands with is former Slayer bandmate.

After being asked if he had spoken with Lombardo since Slayer fired him in 2013, King said: “No. Lombardo is dead to me.” The guitarist then went on to mention the financial squabble that led to the drummer being thrown out of the band.

“He went on that tirade when we were on a flight to Australia, and he knew we couldn’t retort for 14 hours, and he threw me under the bus,” said King. “I was the only one keeping him in the band. Tom [Araya] wanted him out before that, and [the late] Jeff [Hanneman] had just gotten the spider bite, so he wasn’t playing with us much. I said, ‘We need [Dave]. The fans won’t get it if we replace him right now.’ And then the Australia thing came up. He threw me under the bus, and I’m like, ‘I’m the guy that kept you here.’ So I thought, ‘Fuck that guy.’”

He continued: “He’s super impressionable. He was listening to this woman that was his attorney at the time, and she thought we had Metallica money, which we’ve never had fucking Metallica money. So she’s just blowing shit in his ear, and he thinks he should be getting more than he should be getting. It’s like, talk to somebody that actually knows the situation and isn’t just blowing sunshine up your ass to make money in your commission.”

Lombardo currently plays drums for various bands such as Fantômas, Dead Cross, Mr. Bungle, Misfits and Empire State Bastard.

Last year, Empire State Bastard revealed how former Lombardo got involved with their extreme metal band.

Speaking in a recent interview for NME’s In Conversation series, Simon Neil (Biffy Clyro) revealed him and former Oceansize frontman Mike Vennart spent two weeks talking about drummers who could “play like Dave Lombardo” before one day during the pandemic they said: “Shall we just fucking get Dave Lombardo’s address and email him?”

“Within 24 hours he got back and was like, ‘This is fucking great, what are you thinking?’ We’d never even met him, but ended up with this on-the-phone relationship for about a year or so,” Neil continued.

“He really understood what we were trying to do with this album and band. He’s so busy and gets approached for a lot of things, but as soon as he came back and said, ‘This is special, I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna play with you and make this record’ – that’s when we went, ‘Right, this is fucking happening.’”

“We had to shift into gear, because if Dave Lombardo says it’s a good bunch of songs then you know you’re onto something! We’ve been doing this for two decades, but he makes us want to do it for another two decades,” said Neil. “We’re still not quite used to it though, are we?”

In other news, Slayer’s last release prior to their 2019 disbandment was the film The Repentless Killology. In NME’s review of the part-narrative, part-concert film, James McMahon commented that while the film depicts questionable violence and political imagery, Slayer proved an exceptional live band, stating: “If The Repentless Killology really does mark the end for Slayer, the world without them is undoubtedly a nicer place, but also so much more boring.”

Elsewhere, Empire State Bastard will be going on tour with Sleep Token, serving as opening support. 

The 21-date tour will commence with the band’s slot at Las Vegas’ Sick New World festival on April 27, before the band performs in cities across the country including Albuquerque, Atlanta, St. Louis, Des Moines, Chicago (for two dates), Pittsburgh and New York City, before concluding with two dates at Toronto’s Massey Hall on May 27 and 28. Visit here to purchase tickets.