Slayer 66 2/3: The Jeff & Dave Years. A Metal Band Biography. (10 page)

As he learned to drum, Lombardo studied the greats. Cream’s Ginger Baker was one of his heroes. The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Mitch Mitchell and Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham taught him how to make the instrument his own.

“Those guys, they were the ones that really taught me how to play with dynamic and emotion rather than just being very still and hitting the drums,” Lombardo told Geeks of Doom in 2011. “They were amazing, amazing musicians. They really contributed a lot to their band. I like drummers that contribute to the band rather than just [function as] the time keeper. It takes style and character to add to the music with drums.”
^10-2

A contemporary influence came from future Metal Blade band, D.R.I., short for Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, one of the fastest groups of the speed era. The hardcore punk band’s 1982 debut,
Dirty Rotten EP
, crammed 22 songs into an 18-minute 7”. D.R.I. had seen Slayer live in Texas. When the punks moved to California, they found themselves moving in the same circles with the metalheads. And when their second album was ready, Metal Blade scooped up the band for its imprint label Death Records.

“The first time I remember [meeting Slayer] was at a show, set up by Metal Blade, with Metal Blade bands,” recalled D.R.I. singer Kurt Brecht. “I remember their drummer, Dave Lombardo, passing me on the stairs back stage. He said, ‘Man, you guys play so fast. How do you play so fast?’ like they were looking for some hints. And to us,
they
played really fast.”

The speed kings started hanging out and talking shop. Dirty Rotten drummer Felix Griffin and Lombardo hit it off. Most musicians hesitate to acknowledge their immediate personal influences, but Lombardo gladly acknowledged Griffin’s help. At the time, Lombardo was all over his kit; Griffin, in contrast, concentrated his power. They both could squeeze the most out of a simple setup.

“They [D.R.I.] took everything a step ahead,” said Lombardo. “The drummer, Felix — I’ve been clocked at 210 beats per minute. You can either play a beat like Slayer, or you can make it sound faster by adding more strikes. Felix would do the same 170 beats per minute, but it was something different. He would hit the bass drum and the snare on the same beat — crash-crash-crash. It’s almost the same thing [as a blast beat], but played differently. Felix was doing a grindcore beat on a single bass drum before its time, before grindcore. So he was an innovator in his time. When I heard that, I was like, ‘Wow, finally somebody doing something different.’ It’s
more
, it’s a different rhythm.”

Metallica frontman James Hetfield owned Misfits records, and he boasted of wearing “punk sunglasses” to  high school
^10-3
. Dave Mustaine knew of the Sex Pistols. But unlike their California Big Four peers, Slayer were actually in the trenches with hardcore bands, taking lessons and schooling their scruffy underground cousins.

By ’83, Lombardo was demolishing his single-bass kit like he had four arms. Between
Show No Mercy
and
Hell Awaits
, his kit grew, as did his technique. Shortly after the band’s debut, they had new material that wouldn’t wait to be heard. In 1984, Slayer truly came into their own with the
Haunting the Chapel
EP.

By now, Metal Blade had around ten staff members, from a receptionist to house producer/engineer Metoyer. Howell — a scene regular and tape trader — handled radio promotion and A&R.

“That EP was done to bide the time,” recalled Howell. “Like, ‘Let’s put something out where you keep that momentum going. EPs were easy to do. And if a band didn’t have enough material for a full-length album, they put out an EP and satisfied the fans. It was a very smart strategy for Brian to do that. It allowed bands to have something out there. And they were cheaper.”

The drummer had pushed a single-bass kit as far as it could go, and now his energy was finding new outlets. With some help, he started playing double bass. Lombardo also liked assorted jazz players who were known as double-bass drummers.

“There were some drummers that were playing double bass, but weren’t interpreting it the way I wanted to play double bass,” said Lombardo. “And at the time, I heard Philthy from Motörhead. I heard him do the song ‘Overkill’ from
No Sleep Till Hammersmith
, and I think that was a big crossover point for me on what
heavy
was, and what made things heavy.”

Gifted as he was, the transition to a double-bass kit took some time, effort, and aid. Roadie and drum intern Hoglan offered some pointers.

“He said, ‘I’m having problems with my left foot,’” recalled Hoglan. “I said, ‘When I was having problems with my left foot, I’d just stare at it, concentrate, make sure it’s coming down with his right hand, left hand, whatever, that it’s lining up with the other drum.”

Lombardo’s double bass rose in mix in the cascading “Captor of Sin.” The serrated riff in the six-minute “Chemical Warfare” sounds like Hanneman and King forged it from blood-stained barbed wire. Clocking in at four minutes, the title track has a buzzsaw riff. And, midway through, it drops into pure, next-level pandemonium. Lombardo has no writing credits, but stomped his signature all over the release.

True to the early band’s method,
Haunting the Chapel
was a fairly even effort between Hanneman and King, with them listed as co-authors for music and lyrics.

Metoyer didn’t know the material when the band showed up, ready to record. But their studio acumen had made dramatic leaps since the first album. None of the instrumental tracks required more than two takes. Next came the vocals.

Metoyer set up the microphones and adjusted the board, preparing a vocal sound. He asked the singer to give him a sound check. Araya began at the beginning of the title track. Its opening lyrics still stand as a distillation of half Slayer’s body of work: “The Holy Cross / Symbol of lies / Intimidates the lives of Christian born.”

Metoyer pressed the stop button.

"What did you just say?" he asked Araya.

Araya repeated the line.

“I was raised — and at that time was still — a practicing Catholic,” says Metoyer. “It was the first time I realized that what they were singing about was against everything I was raised to believe in. I thought, at that time, that because of my participation in this recording that for sure I was going to hell!”

 The lyrics are steadily evolving toward the type of cinematic grandeur that would grace
Reign in Blood
. The title track is an apocalyptic showdown between the otherworldly forces of good and evil: “Satan's morbid soldiers chant in lust / Destruction of the church / We'll burn the cross.”

Slayer regularly revisit the EP’s song in live shows.

“
Haunting The Chapel
still kicks ass,” King told
Metal Hammer
in 2001
^10-4
.

The band is credited as a producer. The three-song, thirteen-minute EP is Slayer in a nutshell: sin, heresy, lust, violent military action, blasphemy, demented life after death, and terrifying demise on large and small scales. On the short player, Slayer no longer sound like they’re in league with Venom or trying to be Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing. They are smelting thrash metal.

“
Haunting the Chapel
was a real exciting turning point,” recalled Hoglan. “They went from an Iron Maiden type band, very Metallica-esque band, into something larger.”

Metoyer was just 23 when he began working with Slayer — a little older, but still from the same generation. His work with the band took heavy music in a new direction, but he says he was just following their lead.

“When we recorded ‘Aggressive Perfector’ and
Show No Mercy
, I don’t recall having heard the label ‘thrash metal’ at that time,” recalls Metoyer. “To me, it was all just
metal
. I think when you are in the eye of the storm of something like this, you are the last one to realize it. I had no clue I was involved in what become a new genre of heavy metal. The only thing I knew is what — in my opinion — Black Sabbath started. Bands like Venom and Metallica took it to a different level. And every time I walked in the studio with Slayer, their goal was to be the fastest and take this type of metal to a different level, one that no band had been to before.”

And Lombardo’s unique, punk-influenced, superhuman synthesis of styles would whip crowds into a frenzy like nothing else.

Chapter 11:

Slamming to Slayer: Metal Enters the Pit

In 1984, Slayer took their first steps toward world domination. They started by conquering their home state, California. Over the course of the year, they shed their early influences, began composing an innovative new playbook, and developed their own cult. By the June 1984 release of
Haunting the Chapel
, Slayer had already changed metal culture. For a Slayer show, fans would risk life and limb.

“The only other band that was as fierce live was Metallica,” recalled De Pena. “Slayer had probably the craziest crowds. Their fans are fuckin’ dedicated. They’re die-hard. Out here in California, there’s fires all the time. And if you were a Slayer fan, you’d drive through the fire to get to Slayer.”

In late ’83, Slayer were taking their visual, musical and choreography cues from Judas Priest. But as the year came to a close, British black metal pioneers Venom were a key fashion influence, too. Feeling pressure to compete with L.A.’s endless batch of glam bands, Slayer added a theatrical element.

The group began decorating their faces with black-and-white corpse paint. In an
infamous early promo photo
, the leather-bound band hover over Hanneman’s girlfriend Kathryn, faces smeared white, eyes circled black, like vampires with a bondage fetish, mouths dripping fake blood all over her ebony bustier. The black metal look didn’t last long.

(The shot was taken by
Headbanger
zine staff photographer Rick Smith, who became a born-again Christian later in the ’80s and burned his catalog of Slayer pictures.)

In the first nine months of the year, Slayer played a dozen shows in L.A., but closer to 20 in the burgeoning Bay Area and Central California.

“The became, effectively, a Northern California band,” recalled former Slayer tour manager Doug Goodman. “[Thrash book
Murder in the Front Row
], to me, is a yearbook of our metal scene. And you couldn’t have done that book in New York, and you couldn’t have done that book in L.A., because — no disrespect to Anthrax and Overkill or the L.A. bands — those bands didn’t create a scene. In ’84, if you guessed where Slayer lived, you’d guess Northern California. We were rabid for metal in Northern California.”

In January 1984, Slayer made a pilgrimage north to the Bay Area, following a trail Metallica had blazed. On the opposite end of the state, the band met a lot of new friends and associates.

Without L.A.’s topsoil of pretty people, the Bay area was more blue-collar and less image-obsessed. The area was home to only a handful of glam-oriented acts, unlike the rock scenes within striking distance of Hollywood.

“It should be noted that Slayer made the most headway going to the Bay Area,” says Will Howell. “They were more accepted by Bay Area thrashers early on than they were by Los Angeles. That is definite fact. In my tape-trading days, I found a lot of heavy, thrash, punky things coming out of the Bay Area. Venues were more accepting of that type of music. Those were few and far between in L.A.”

Outside the Keystone in Berkley, Slayer met Goodman, who would escort them around the world over the next couple years. After proving his mettle with Slayer, he would go on to be a career tour manager, working with DRI, Flock of Seagulls, Yngwie Malmsteen, Cannibal Corpse, Ben Folds Five, Smashing Pumpkins, Jane’s Addiction, Beck, and arena-era Green Day. At the Keystone, he was just a college student, and not even a local. He had to drive 100 miles to see the band, and he wasn’t about to risk not getting a ticket. He regularly ventured into the metal-friendly area, but Slayer promised something gnarlier than anybody on the scene.

“There was no one
doing
that,” explains Goodman. “Metallica and Exodus, it was all similar, but it was different. It was a group of special bands, and Slayer were one of ’em. Slayer were heavier in some ways. They were their own thing. The Satanic thing, it was a much about horror movies as anything else — it’s not like they were actually worshipping the devil. They were just
great
. They were so heavy, they were so fast. There was theatrics involved with Slayer, what they were singing about, and the stories [between songs]. With Slayer, it was an ongoing theme that runs through all of it.”

If there had been a line, Goodman would have been the first in it. But at that point, nobody lined up for Slayer.

So Goodman sat outside the club, on his own, waiting for something to happen. He was leaning against a wall when Slayer and Savage Grace pulled up in a ratty van, followed by a U-Haul trailer. When the longhairs stepped out, he recognized them. He wasn’t doing anything, so he helped carry in the gear. An appreciative Steve Craig put him on a guest list. Goodman seemed like he knew the lay of the land, so they asked him where a good place to eat was. Goodman showed them where to get food, and they ate together. He didn’t know it at the time, but he had just earned a ticket for the ultimate Slayer ride-along.