Dave Lombardo says Tom Araya wanted to retire for years already

The drummer Dave Lombardo was part of the legendary Thrash Metal band Slayer from 1981 to 1986, 1987 to 1992 and from 2001 to 2013. The group continued without him and decided to retire in 2019 when the final concert was done. But as Lombardo revealed in an interview with Revolver, the band’s bassist and vocalist Tom Araya already wanted to retire almost one decade earlier.

From 2013 to 2019, the two original members Tom Araya and Kerry King (Guitar) were accompanied on stage by the guitarist Gary Holt and drummer Paul Bostaph.

Dave Lombardo says Tom Araya wanted to retire for years already

Lombardo was asked by the interviewer if he didn’t regret he wasn’t part of the band at their final tour and he said: “No, not really. I was already doing so much… I’d known for years that Tom [Araya, bassist/vocalist] wanted to retire, so it was no surprise. During the later years — I left in ’13, so maybe around 2009 or 2010 — Kerry [King, guitarist] and I were thinking about putting together another band. It might have been at Hellfest when Kerry and I said, ‘Hey, let’s go see Exodus.’ We walked to one of the other stages and we saw Gary Holt play.

“I said, ‘Dude, that guy’s a badass.’ And Kerry was, like, ‘Yeah, that’s who we need to recruit for this new project.’ And again, at that time we knew Tom wanted to stop. He was tired. And then the whole Jeff Hanneman thing went down and the first person that crossed our minds was Gary Holt,” Dave Lombardo.

Since Lombardo left Slayer in 2013 he had been part of many bands like Suicidal Tendencies, The Misfits, Fantômas, Dead Cross, Mr. Bungle and Testament. He recently announced his first solo album “Rites of Percussion” that will be released in 2023.