Slayer 66 2/3: The Jeff & Dave Years. A Metal Band Biography.

by Ferris, D. X.

  Lawless, one of rock’s most infamous headstrong pricks, was convinced this tour would break his band into the bigtime. His team booked medium-sized theaters and small arenas. Slayer, still working from the standard play book, did what successful rising bands did: They signed on to support a bigger act, even if the fit was questionable.

  “I liked W.A.S.P.,” said King. “Their first album’s some heavy shit; I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, ‘Fuck Like A Beast!’ But that [tour’s] album, [Lawless] decided he wanted to be [Kiss frontman] Paul Stanley. W.A.S.P. went considerably softer, and we went considerably harder, and it was just strange. We fuckin’ kicked their teeth in every night.”

  Slayer slayed, but the tour was a bust. Theaters were half full at best, with crowds often south of 2,000. NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) veterans Raven rounded out the bill, but their set-trashing show didn’t wow the crowds. It was W.A.S.P.’s shot, and they were missing. Lawless was paying for two semi trucks full of lights and sets, and the band was hemorrhaging money. The trek’s chief longhair grew despondent and salty. Venues started to empty out after Slayer played.

  Lawless brooded in private, but the rest of his band mingled with the openers after shows. King still wasn’t drinking much. WASP’s Chris Holmes – the guy best remembered for chugging Smirnoff in a swimming pool in The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years — made up the difference.

  Tour manager Rick Sales brought a sense of professionalism that was usually welcome, but sometimes not. King disliked authority more than he disliked booze. Sales ran as tight a ship as he could. Now that Slayer had a road crew, Sales tried to lay down the law for the roving rogues’ gallery of crew members.

  “He said, ‘When you’re working, there’s no drinking or no drugs,’” recalled King. “And we laughed at him and told him to fuck off. He was trying to micromanage stuff that had nothing to do with him.”

  Sales had been to the big show many times before, but he had never seen anything quite like Slayer fans.

  “The difference is that the kids that came out to see Slayer loved Slayer to the exclusion of almost everyone else,” commented Sales. “The kids would chant Slay-er, Slay-er from the time the doors opened to the time that Blackie Lawless finished. Some fans stuck around to torture Lawless.”

  Concertgoers started showing up with “WASP SUCKS” banners. Lawless, not amused, took it out on the opening bands.

  “I learned things from a lot of people [over the years],” said King. “Probably the most that sticks with me is playing with W.A.S.P. and learning how not to be a dick. Blackie Lawless treated us like shit. He shat on us every chance he got. Can we have [sound]check? No. Can we have lights? No. Can we have smoke? No.”

  If McLaren knew how to set a better example, maybe King wouldn’t be such a down-to-earth figure.

  Slayer usually took the stage in black jeans and sleeveless T-shirts. King still had his wristband and leather shinguards, but the last remnants of the Judas Priest look were on their way out. Their stage set consisted of simple lights and a three-by-three cube of Marshall stacks on either side of the drum riser, both decorated with an inverted cross.

  January 27, the tour briefly invaded Toronto, Canada. They brought some fire to Massey Hall. The show had barely begun, and Araya was already keyed up after the opening combination: “Reborn” and “Criminally Insane.” A heckler interrupted one of Araya’s bait-and-switch stage raps and caught Hell.

  “What’s the matter, man? Is it too cold? Are things heating up?” Araya asked the Canuck crowd. “Yeah, we’re the heat in this house! You know what, it don’t matter where you live. It’s how you live, how sweet and innocent you are. No matter where you are in this world—“ [unintelligible heckle] “— Heaven or Hell —“ [unintelligible heckle] “— YEAH, YOU: SUCK MY DICK, RIGHT?! Now, can we continue? It’s a song called ‘Chemical Warfare.’”20-1

  While opening for W.A.S.P., Slayer played a 25-30 minute, 9 song set. Later in the tour, the set typically ran:

  1. “Raining Blood”

  2. “Reborn”

  3. “At Dawn They Sleep”

  4 . “Die by the Sword”

  5. “Angel of Death”

  6. “Epidemic”

  7. “Altar of Sacrifice”

  8. “Jesus Saves”

  9. “Evil Has No Boundaries”

  Slayer were still pushing metal in a different new directions. Years later, the band would name-check rugby in a song called “scrum.” And now they were making metal a full-contact sport. The maelstrom pits were no longer a phenomenon you’d only find in L.A. or New York. Slayer would bring the nightmare pit from the Olympic into middle America.

  “By Reign in Blood, the mosh pit was pretty much there,” recalled Overkill’s Skates. “In the earlier days, it was pretty much a ton of really heavy head banging, just a ton of hair flying around, all in the front. The Reign in Blood tour, [the pits spread] because of the natural direction that thrash was taking, mixing the hardcore element and the stage diving. That was when things started to really change.”

  In the tour bus, Slayer listened to West Coast hardcore like D.R.I. and Verbal Abuse, while Scaglione pushed East Coast bands like Agnostic Front and Bad Brains. Motörhead was a common ground.

  Scaglione rekindled Hanneman’s interest in Black Sabbath, and the fill-in drummer left a mark on Slayer’s sound. He helped spark the final dimension Slayer would add before forever locking down its formula: the crawling, Sabbath-inspired sludge that oozed into Seasons in the Abyss. One afternoon, the tour bus stopped at a mall, and Scaglione bought a Sabbath Bloody Sabbath tape. Hanneman borrowed it, and Scaglione never saw it again.

  Metal was becoming a more violent experience, but it was expanding in other directions, too.

  Spurred by Crüe, Metallica, and Bon Jovi, hard rock and metal were exploding as popular genres. Like Lawless, hard-and-heavy bands all over the country tried to figure out how they could squeeze a paycheck out of the phenomenon. Glam bands got glammier, and even speed metal bands started writing power ballads with acoustic touches. Slayer didn’t hear the siren call of cash.

  “We would joke,” Sales remembers. “We would be in the dressing room or backstage, and somebody would say, ‘Did you hear the latest so-and-so album? That really sold a lot of copies.’ And I’d say, ‘You can do the same; just write a love song’ – which was the joke.”

  Inside, Lombardo wasn’t laughing. He thought the band could write something accessible, but retain their edge.

  “The band would have had the same longevity, and our popularity wouldn’t have gone down that drastically because of a commercial song,” Lombardo told David Konow in the excellent metal history Bang Your Head. “If it was cleverly done with Rick Rubin at the helm, we could have written a song that was heavy but would have taken us to the next level.”20-2

  The band remember the drummer keeping his thoughts to himself.

  “Jeff and I have this totalitarian my-way-or-the-highway thing,” said King. “If he’d said that, we probably would have been at the bar, laughing at him.”20-3

  Lombardo was right: Unprecedented opportunities were available for metal bands. Labels lined up for groups that, to big business’ surprise, were moving copies and putting feet on arena floors (if not asses in seats).

  The years 1986 and 1987 turned out to be thrash’s artistic peak (though ’90-91 were bigger commercially and critically).

  Between February 1986 and March 1987, the Big Four bands released classic albums on major labels: Metallica’s Master of Puppets, via Elektra. Then Megadeth’s Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying? On Capitol. Then Reign in Blood, via Def Jam and CBS. Then Anthrax’s Among the Living, via Island/Megaforce.

  Dark Angel’s indie Darkness Descends arrived from Combat in November 1986. And Atlantic released Testament’s debut, The Legacy, just after Anthrax’s breakthrough. Death Angel’s The Ultra-Violence arrived at practically the same time, on Restless/Enigma — shortly after Ove
rkill’s Taking Over dropped on Atlantic/Megaforce. (Even hardcore champions Suicidal Tendencies scored a major-label deal, with Epic, by ’88.) It was a pretty good year.

  “I think it was just a tidal wave when thrash came into being,” reflects King. “And there were about ten bands putting out good shit, then there was a rush of record companies signing bands and putting shit out. And I think that’s the demise of every genre.”

  But in Spring ’87, speed metal was still building up enough momentum that would keep it moving for years. The core groups were going strong, even if they had to weather a little lineup change here and there.

  As the new guy, Scaglione wasn’t subjected to hazing, but he did feel like a rebound date. The band wouldn’t talk about Lombardo often, but when they spoke his name, they spoke it in anger.

  “They didn’t seem too happy,” says Scaglione. “Let’s put it that way. I guess he was such an integral part of the band. I think that was always in the back of their mind: They seemed to think that he realized he made a mistake by leaving, and he’d come to his senses.”

  Scaglione was getting the job done, if barely. King recalled him missing more cues than Lombardo on his worst day. It became such an issue, the band discussed cutting the double-bass break from “Angel of Death,” which was already famous. The roll fizzled, and the band started cutting the song short during that short solo, using it as a transition into “Epidemic.”

  Back in California, Lombardo had quit music. The Lombardos rented an apartment in Southeast L.A.’s Firestone district, between the 605 freeway and the 710. He cut his hair, and Teresa’s dad lined him up with a job in a stock room, at a company that made relays for the space shuttle.

  Lombardo considered getting back in the game. He had offers.

  Like Kerry King before him, the drummer got a call from the hard-partying Megadeth. Slayer, with the exception of King, had recreationally flirted with harder drugs, but they had never relied on the hard stuff for their speedy performances. Lombardo took one look at Megadeth’s emaciated metalheads and decided that, even though they were playing major venues opening for rock god Alice Cooper, he was better off in a stock room.

  The best drummer in metal stayed home, ignored his kit, and quit playing20-4. Lombardo just wanted to hang out and be married.

  One night, he got a visit from Rubin. When Rubin tried to track down Slayer in California, Lombardo had been the first one he’d found. The producer and the drummer were usually the first two in the studio, and they had bonded while recording the album.

  In Lombardo’s apartment, Rubin felt out the situation, expressing what Lombardo said felt like genuine concern. Eventually, the producer got down to business. He let Lombardo know he was missed.

  “‘Dave, Dave, Dave,’” Lombardo recalled Rubin saying. “Dude, it’s not the same with T.J. Scag-lee-oh-nee.’”

  Rubin left, having planted the seeds for Lombardo’s return.

  Every few nights, Rubin would call Lombardo. Sensing that money was a sore point, Rubin offered Lombardo a regular salary. Lombardo, unswayed, would say, “No way. I’m not doing it.”

  Talks slid into the simple logistics: Faced with Rubin’s charm, presence, and genetically endowed power to sell and persuade, Dave started resisting by tossing out any little detail he could.

  Dave argued that Lombardos had an apartment and bills. They couldn’t just walk away.

  Rubin said he could arrange for someone at Def Jam to make sure his bills were paid.

  But once again, Lombardo chose to remain in the stock room.

  Out on the road, King couldn’t believe the knife-packing Lombardo was sticking to his guns.

  “You can ask us about Dave all you want,” King told Metal Hammer in 1987, offering a candid and balanced appraisal. “He decided he wanted to be married and have his wife there 99% of the time on the road. We couldn’t deal with it, so he quit, which was really fucking stupid because he is one of the greatest thrash drummers in the world. Then to hear that he’s not doing anything with anybody else is a waste. Actually, he quit just before we kicked him out.”20-5

  The second leg of the tour wrapped in early March. Scaglione flew back to Jersey, where he waited for a call that never came.

  “He was a good drummer, he was a good guy, but he just wasn’t really cutting it,” said Hanneman.

  “When I was asked to rehearse with them, they asked me to do this tour, and that was it,” says Scaglione, who later settled into a career as an investment banker. “So it wasn’t like I was actually in the band, or was a full-time member, or was sharing profits. I didn’t look at it as more than that, and played it day by day. I thought [Lombardo] would come back, and that was his place.”

  Scaglione’s departure broke up Whiplash, but they reunited when he suddenly became available again.

  Scaglione – who would go on to work with M.O.D. and the North Side Kings — played fast enough, but didn’t have Lombardo’s combination of speed and power. Apparently, no one did.

  “He is irreplaceable,” Araya told Metal Forces’ Bernard Doe in 1986. “Simply because we really couldn’t find another drummer who could play as well as he can.”20-6

  Said King, “After playing with T.J., we realized, ‘Fuck, maybe [Lombardo] is the only guy that can do this gig.’”

  Araya’s brother John, long part of the band’s crew, reached out with an olive branch, which Lombardo turned down.

  Next, King called and invited him back, but he couldn’t sell his half-hearted pax.

  Now Lombardo knew he had an advantage.

  Rubin kept calling. And kept calling. And kept calling, asking what they could possibly do.

  “I want my wife to come on the road with me,” Lombardo recalled in Metal Maniacs.

  “The guys said it’s OK,” Rubin assured him. “No problem.”

  “No, man,” Lombardo responded. “I don’t wanna deal with that…. They treated me like shit. Why am I gonna go back to somebody that treated me like shit?”20-7

  And so it went.

  Rubin would call, and the non-drumming drummer would edge closer to the line, but then say no.

  Lombardo said he was happy at the time. But he must have seemed dissatisfied on some level. Soon, an unexpected person dealt a killing blow to his resolve.

  One afternoon, Mrs. Lombardo took Dave out for happy hour. Sitting at a beachside restaurant, drinking strawberry margaritas, the drummer was content. Then Teresa brought up a surprising subject: Kerry King himself had called. Maybe Dave should go back to the band. Lombardo recalled the scene:

  “Babe, I don’t want to do it,’” Dave said.

  Teresa recapped the terms and figures.

  “I really don’t want to do it,” Dave told her.

  “Dave, listen to me,” she said. “This is what they’re offering you. Go back. We’ll just do it. We’ll go. We’ll go together.’”

  Lombardo gave in.

  With his wife at his side, the drummer would sign up for another run through “Hell Awaits.”

  “I really loved her a lot,” said Lombardo. “She meant the world to me. And her presence around me was really inspiring in a lot of ways, although they didn’t like her around, for whatever reason. She and Rick Rubin were the two that told me to go back that time.”

  With the benefit of hindsight, today the band realize the entire conflict could have been handled better.

  King explained simply, “We were kids.”

  Lombardo stands by his decision to bring his wife on the road.

  “We had some of the greatest times together,” said Lombardo. “But it was rough being around the band, because I knew she wasn’t accepted.”

  With Lombardo back aboard, Rubin had Georges Sulmers, Def Jam’s 19-year-old Head of International Business Affairs, put him on a salary, balancing out the drummer’s paydays into regular checks.

  Sulmers, who watched some of the situation unfold, says the money issue wasn’t really about money.

  “[Lom
bardo wanted] the security of having a check and not stressing about it,” says Sulmers. “It wasn’t a lot of money. It wasn’t like he was on the thousand-buck-a-week plan… I’m a concert promoter now. And now, I have a better understanding: Being on the road sucks. And if you want red M&M’s, it may not be about the red M&M’s. It may be about wanting to create as stressless an environment as you can.”

  Lombardo was back in.

  Even after all the hassle, Mrs. Lombardo still wasn’t anti-Slayer.

  “She’s great,” Lombardo reflected in 2007. “She’s very supportive of what I do.”

  Rejoining the tour wasn’t easy. Lombardo hadn’t picked up his sticks in months. He had a week to get back into fighting shape. He barely made it. In the shows immediately following his return, the band played a hair slower. The group took longer breaks between songs too, so Lombardo could catch his breath and let his limbs rejuvenate.