Debate Over: Dave Lombardo Says Slayer Was the Best Band in the ‘Big Four’
Ever since their rise to popularity in the 80s, fans all over the world have wondered one thing: who is the categorically best band of the ‘Big Four’? Out of Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer, which one hits the hardest, melts your face off the fastest, and inspires the greatest mosh pits the most?
While many people have their own opinions on the matter, one man that’s got direct knowledge of what it was like to be in one of those acts has weighed in: ex-Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo. During a recent interview with Metal Hammer, the insanely busy musician set the record straight about which band was the best out of the ‘Big Four’ and let’s be real — his answer isn’t all that surprising.
“Slayer. Ha ha ha! Who else could I pick?! We were brutal man, we were on top of our game, and if you watch the videos we were on fire. We really showed everyone else how it should be done — we tore everyone a new one.”
Now, that’s not just Lombardo being a braggadocious prick. You gotta remember that the dude was around the rest of those bands all throughout his career. He’s had drum offs against Charlie Benante. He’s filled in for Lars Ulrich when the Metallica drummer had to sit out a show. Slayer was one of the three bands involved in the infamous Clash of the Titans shows — not to mention the Big Four shows that went on back in 2010.
Looking back on the thick competition between the ‘Big Four,’ Lombardo said not even death metal made him worry about Slayer’s superiority in the metal genre.
“We’d watch a lot of those bands from side-stage anyway. I remember whispering to Hanneman, ‘We’re better’, or ‘We’re faster’, ha ha! It wasn’t necessarily arrogant, but it was inspiring if we watched a band that couldn’t deliver the ferocity we were because it made us feel amazing, like, ‘Oops, failure!’ It was a youthful approach – you want to be better than the guy before you, you want to blow everyone away, and that was our mantra.”
That’s not to say that Lombardo was shitting on his fellow drummers, either. As you can read in the Metal Hammer interview, he had nothing but nice things to say about Ulrich and Exodus drummer Tom Hunting.
If you’d like to learn more about Lombardo’s feelings on the subject, be sure to either pick up a copy of the latest issue of Metal Hammer or check it out online.
