In a new chat with Niclas Müller-Hansen of RockSverige, Slayer’s Paul Bostaph explained what it is like to replace Dave Lombardo.
The drummer admitted he was surprised by the news of three Slayer reunion shows. He is excited to play Slayer songs again with the band. Paul also said he struggled with many songs when he joined. He studied Dave’s playing and spent ten days listening to the songs on repeat to learn them. He continued:
“Some of them were easier because the structure of the song was easier, but it was no fooling around. Dave’s drum fills are no bullsh*t. That’s his style and I was doing my own thing and I never tried to… I’ve played cover tunes with people for fun, but never, like, ‘Okay, you’re going to get this opportunity to play with this band with one of the most iconic drummers in heavy metal and by the way, you probably should play his drum fills like he does…’”
Bostaph also added his own style to Lombardo’s parts:
“I play them the way I play them as close to the way he plays them as possible, but there’s only one of him. There’s only one Dave Lombardo and there’s only one of me and there’s only one of everyone else, which is a good thing.”
In the rest of his interview, Bostaph also said many Slayer songs were hard to play. ‘Silent Scream’ was especially tough due to its fast double bass. He was inspired by this song for a track in his own band, Forbidden.
Bostaph Is Working With Kerry King Again
Bostaph is also part of Kerry King’s solo band. In an interview video to promote King’s debut solo album, ‘From Hell I Rise,’ the musician said the following about the writing process of the record:
“It was pretty interesting — a lot different than any other record I think I’ve done, because, obviously, we had… everybody had the pandemic hit. And that put Kerry and I… We planned on getting together a lot sooner in 2020, but for obvious reasons, we couldn’t get together. So that kind of put us back a couple years. And during that amount of time, Kerry kept writing and we kept communicating. He would send me drum charts and stuff, which is the way we usually work anyway, but there was just a lot more material.”
He added:
“And when we finally got together, I think the first seven days we were together, we demoed ten songs. Not all of them are on this record — hopefully some of them will be on future recordings — but I think the way it was different in that sense, in terms of rehearsing, was I think because of the time away and the fact that there was so much material written, it kind of streamlined how I work with Kerry.”
In an earlier interview with Forbes, King praised Bostaph for being well-prepared on ‘From Hell I Rise.’ Unlike previous recordings with Slayer, Bostaph had complete information on the vocals and leads.