News•March 1, 2013 3:08 PM ET•11,721 views

Slayer's Kerry King comments on Dave Lombardo

In an interview conducted this past week with Christina Rowatt of Soundwave TV, Slayer guitarist Kerry King was asked about the status of currently jettisoned drummer Dave Lombardo. King had the following to say:

"This just happened a week ago... ten days ago, so I mean, I don't know... It's unfortunate that Dave couldn't be with us; I planned on him being here up until the Monday before I left. And then I saw trouble in paradise, and since I am the mastermind on making decisions like this, I was, like, 'Alright, I've got a backup plan. Just in case.' Cause I would have hated to have just Australia blown out. Can you imagine how shitty that would have been? So I did what I thought was best, and we pulled it off.

King was then asked whether he saw the dispute coming, to which King responded:

"Tom [Araya] did. Tom's been on the fence about Dave for awhile and I was pretty much the one that said, 'Nah, I'm not comfortable moving on [without Dave].' And then it got thrust in our face and I took action immediately and I got a very lucky culmination of things that happened."