TESTAMENT frontman Chuck Billy recently spoke with Mike Trujillo of Zero Hour Squared and revealed the names of two other drummers who applied to join the band after longtime stickman Gene Hoglan announced his departure from behind the drumkit.
Chuck says that both Paul Bostaph (SLAYER and pretty much every other bay area thrash band) and Chris Adler (ex-LAMB OF GOD) also threw their hats in the ring to join the band as their drummer – a position that was eventually granted to Dave Lombardo.
Bostaph had already had previous stints in TESTAMENT sporadically between 1992 and 2011, while Adler contributed drums to the bonus track “A Day In The Death” on the band’s 2012 record “Dark Roots Of Earth”.
“You know, we did reach out to Paul [Bostaph] – Paul got back to us later after Dave committed,” Chuck said. “But, you know, there’s a lot of great drummers, we got a lot of great drummers – and the one that was right there, if he had made the decision, we probably almost would have chosen him before Dave even contacted us, because we were putting our feelers out before the announcement.
“But Chris Adler was one guy who was ready to step up and come in, and then, just the last minute [he] came out to – he just wasn’t ready to do that.
“And so we’re like, Okay, back to the drawing board. And then we made the announcement. And then Dave got a hold of us. So, you know, it worked out great. We’ve had – Dave came up about three or four weeks ago, we had a week of rehearsals, and then he came up about two weeks [ago], we’ll go for another week of rehearsals, and then he’ll be up here next week for the final rehearsals with us. And it was just fun hanging out. You know, just catching up. And, you know, so it just felt like, you know, putting on an old pair of shoes he hadn’t worn in a while.”
Lombardo was previously in TESTAMENT between 1998 and 1999, and played on their 1999 album The Gathering.