It goes without saying that Dave Lombardo is one of the best drummers in all of metal history. So much of his creativity and skill is what helped to shape Slayer into the thrashing legends that folks love to this day.
During a recent interview with Metal Hammer, Dave Lombardo was asked to name is three favorite Slayer songs; for any metalhead, this might a difficult task, but for someone who has created so many songs throughout the band’s history, we imagine this was extra difficult for Dave. However, rather than provide obvious fan favorites, Lombardo goes for deep-cuts. Below you will find Dave Lombardo’s three favorite Slayer songs.
Dave Lombardo talks favorite Slayer songs
“Captor Of Sin”
“I don’t want to give you the typical Angel of Death, Raining Blood… no, let me go into the deep cuts. Okay, let’s go for one from the Metal Blade years. I’m gonna say Captor of Sin, and the reason why is that is the first time I started to use double bass. I’m trying to get meaning here!”
“Ghost of War”
“Ghosts of War has a breakdown in the middle of the song, where I play these particular drum rolls over Kerry [King] and Jeff [Hanneman’]s riffing – it’s a certain break, and every time I played that section and that song, it would give me the goosebumps. [It] would just make me feel good. Whatever it is that music does to humans, stimulate your endorphins or whatever, that song uplifted me and gave me the chills when I was playing it.”
“Beauty Through Order”
“I have to go with something from World Painted Blood, as that was Hanneman’s last album. Beauty Through Order –. I remember recording that song, as the music had a natural crescendo, a natural de-crescendo too. We didn’t follow the grid and just stay metronomically correct, we went with the emotion of the song. The song started off, for example, 150bpm, but at the end of the song it was 175/180bpm, because it grew with intensity.
“I remember sitting with Hanneman on the World Painted Blood tour, before he got sick, and listening to that song. We would laugh at some of the whammy bar parts that were overdubbed, it sounded like some kind of bird or something flying through the air.”
What are your favorite Slayer songs? Any deep-cuts you are particularly fond of? Maybe we should do a ranking of the Slayer discography.