A band’s most popular songs aren’t always the band members’ favorite, like when we learned that Meshuggah‘s Tomas Haake is over playing “Bleed.” Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo echoed that sentiment in a recent interview with Metal Hammer where he discussed his favorite Slayer songs that he recorded on.
His picks rule—it would be super easy for him to say “Raining Blood,” “Angel of Death,” “Chemical Warfare” and call it a day, but he looks a little deeper into their catalog. He also shared a few memories with late Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman, something we’re always happy to hear more of.
“Captor Of Sin” (Haunting the Chapel, 1984)
“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!”
“Ghosts Of War” (South of Heaven, 1988)
“’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. Ut 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” (World Painted Blood, 2009)
“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.”
