Drummer Dave Lombardo Removed From Slayer’s Australian Tour

February 21st, 2013

Dayton O'Connor

This is straight up crazy town.

It appears that thrash metal icons Slayer have forced longtime drummer Dave Lombardo out of the band, at least for the remainder of their Australian tour.

“I want to personally apologize to all of our fans in Australia who have bought tickets for the tour expecting to see me in my usual place on the drums,” began a statement from Lombardo on his Facebook page. It’s a lengthy post, but the long and the short of Lombardo’s dismissal appears to boil down to a singular issue: money.

Last year, I discovered 90% of Slayer’s tour income was being deducted as expenses including the professional fees paid to management, costing the band millions of dollars and leaving 10% or less to split amongst the four of us. In my opinion, this is not the way a band’s business should operate…

…I was told that I would not be paid until I signed a long form contract which gave me no written assurance of how much or on what basis management would deduct commissions, nor did it provide me access to the financial budgets or records for review…

…Last Monday, I sat down with Kerry [King] and Tom [Araya] to rehearse for Australia and to propose a new business model that I felt was the best way forward for Slayer to confidently protect itself so we could do what we do best . . . play for the fans. Kerry made it clear he wasn’t interested in making changes and said if I wanted to argue the point, he would find another drummer…

Then things get ugly.

…at 6:24 pm I received an email from the lawyers saying I was being replaced for the Australian dates.

Oof. Now, this isn’t to say that we won’t see Lombardo pounding the skins for “Raining Blood” with the rest of the remaining original members of Slayer some time in the future. The drummer was careful in his word choices; only apologizing to the Australian fans while saying, “I remain hopeful that we can resolve our issues” Lombardo didn’t speculate on his future with the band past this leg of their tour.

It’s never a good sign when lawyers get brought into the mix though.