Slayer fans have recently been disappointed since the announced leaving of beloved drummer, Dave Lombardo. After reading his full statement, guitarist Kerry King shared a few words regarding the situation. Read on for more details.

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat

Kerry King had some to say about the new drummer, Jon Dette, as well as on the sessions for their upcoming album. With the abrupt announcement, fans can only imagine the progress that was being made and all the loose ends that now hang because of it. Well, rest assured King doesn’t really know what to do either:

“I’ve been working on the new maerial a lot, and I worked on it a lot with [SLAYER drummer] Dave [Lombardo]. So I haven’t decided — if we move on [without Dave] — I haven’t decided if I play the new guy what we’ve done or just play him the guitar stuff that I made up and say, ‘What do you think?’ ‘Cause I know what I want to be there, and I can tell him if it’s going in the wrong direction. ‘Nah, you’ve gotta play this.’ I haven’t even thought this far yet.”

Due to contract-related disputes, this entire situation was foreshadowed, according to King, who defends himself by saying he was looking out for the better of the group.

“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.”

The opinion of bandmate Tom Araya also factored in, but still influenced King to make his final decision:

“Tom [Araya, SLAYER bassist/vocalist] 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.”

Although an uncomfortable situation, business will carry on as usual and it will be up to Mr. King himself to call the shots. He has been looking out for the overall benefit of his band. As stated in a previous article, only two of the original Slayer band members are left. Word on the condition of Jeff Hanneman and his fight against a felsh-eating disease, has yet to be announced.

The good news from this interview is that fans now know what to expect from their performance in Sydney. Here is the setlist:

Slayer in Sydney Set List
01. Disciple
02. Die By The Sword
03. War Ensemble
04. Chemical Warfare
05. Altar Of Sacrifice
06. Jesus Saves
07. Mandatory Suicide
08. Seasons In The Abyss
09. Dead Skin Mask
10. Angel of Death
11. South of Heaven
12. Raining Blood