BLABBERMOUTH.NET
San Francisco Bay Area metallers
TESTAMENT discussed the return of drummer
Dave Lombardo to the group's ranks during an appearance Tuesday (March 1) on
SiriusXM's
Liquid Metal with host
Jose Mangin.
An original member of thrash metal legends
SLAYER,
Lombardo was the guest drummer on
TESTAMENT's 1999 studio album
"The Gathering", which also marked the first time the band worked with then-up-and-coming British producer/engineer
Andy Sneap.
Asked if he had to physically audition for the drummer spot in
TESTAMENT this time around,
Dave quipped (as transcribed by
BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I just sent them a link to my
Wikipedia. 'I've done these records, including one of yours. Can I come back?' [
Laughs]"
Lombardo said that he reached out to the
TESTAMENT camp the same day that the band announced it was splitting with its longtime drummer
Gene Hoglan.
"I was still asleep, and my wife, she just said, 'Hey,
Gene just left
TESTAMENT,'"
Dave recalled. "And she's been always telling me, 'Man, I can't wait for you guys to get together for that
'Gathering' reunion.' 'Cause we had been talking about this two and a half, three years ago —
before the pandemic. And so I immediately — I didn't even get my other eye open and I was texting [
TESTAMENT singer]
Chuck [
Billy]. I said, 'Hey, man, what's going on?' I don't know exactly what I mentioned in my text, but it was very simple, 'Hey, what's happening?' And he immediately called me back. And I remember
Tiffany [
Chuck's wife] was on the phone;
Chuck was on the phone. We were, like, 'Hey.' It was a great come-together moment, like, 'Hey, here we go. This is the moment
we've been waiting for.'"
Dave went on to say that the timing was right for his return to
TESTAMENT.
"
'The Gathering' reunion didn't have to happen putting
Gene out, separating
Gene and saying, '
Gene, we're gonna go with
Dave for a while now.' Nothing like that happened," he said. "This happened organically. And it happened at a time where my other bands, two of the bands that I have,
MR. BUNGLE and
DEAD CROSS, [
Mike]
Patton sings in them and he's trying to get healthy and is taking a little hiatus. And
SUICIDAL TENDENCIES hasn't been touring much lately. So that leaves me with a lot of little odd projects here and there that I work on in my free time. So it just felt like the right moment.
"I know it can be deceiving because I
am in so many different bands, but there's 24 hours in a day and I only sleep eight hours, or seven to eight hours, so that leaves me 16 other hours," he explained. "And I don't take Saturdays and Sundays off. So it was a no-brainer."
Chuck said that he was surprised to hear from
Dave so quickly after
TESTAMENT made the news of its split with
Gene public.
"Right when it happened, it was within minutes after the announcement,"
Billy recalled. "And
Dave doesn't remember, but [his text message to me was] simply '
Lombardo?' That was the text. I'm, like, 'You're shitting me.
Tiffany,
Lombardo just wrote me, '
Lombardo?'' I called him right away. I said, 'Hey, dude, what's happening?' He was, like, 'Dude, I heard the news.' I'm, like, 'Dude, I would have called you right away, but I just thought it was kind of far-fetched for you to kind of jam because I know you're probably pretty busy with all the other projects going on.' And he was, like, 'No. I've got a big opening and I'd love to get back.' And we talked about
'The Gathering', doing that again. And here we are — it could be a reality to get to play
'The Gathering' like we spoke of."
"The Gathering" was widely considered to be an improvement over 1997's
"Demonic", an album that saw
Billy employ a more guttural style of vocals and was released at a time when thrash acts as
TESTAMENT had fallen out of favor.
Hoglan originally played drums on
"Demonic", but didn't stick around long enough to do any touring with the band. He officially joined
TESTAMENT in 2011 and played on the group's last three albums: 2012's
"Dark Roots Of Earth", 2016's
"Brotherhood Of The Snake" and 2020's
"Titans Of Creation".
TESTAMENT,
EXODUS and
DEATH ANGEL played the sole 2021 date of
"The Bay Strikes Back Tour" last November at the Fox Theater in Oakland, California. The gig took place less than two months after the three bands shared the stage at the
Aftershock festival in Sacramento.
"The Bay Strikes Back Tour" was originally scheduled to kick off on October 6 at the Fremont Theater in San Luis Obispo, California and make stops in Austin, New York, and Detroit before concluding in Oakland. The tour has since been rescheduled to take place in April and May 2022.