SLAYER's Dave Lombardo Celebrates His 47th Birthday!

Today (February 16), SLAYER's badass drummer Dave Lombardo is celebrating his 47th birthday. Lombardo was born in La Havana, Cuba on February 16, 1965. When he was two years old, his family moved to South Gate, California. During the third grade at the age of eight, Lombardo brought a set of bongo drums with a Santana record to school for show and tell and played the bongos along with the record. This inspired his musical interest in drums, prompting him to join the school band where he played the marching drum, although he soon viewed the marching drum as "not for him." Lombardo's father saw his persistent interest in music at age ten and bought him a five-piece Maxwin drum set for $350. As Lombardo now had a drumkit, he purchased his first record, Alive! by Kiss to play along to. He taught himself the song "100,000 Years" by listening to the record repeatedly. Able to perform the drum solo on the song, word of Lombardo's ability spread.

At the age of 16, Dave remembered his friends from a Huntington Park, California based band called, Sinister, telling him about a guitar player that lived a few blocks away. One afternoon, after making a delivery for the restaurant he worked for, Dave drove by the guitarist's house and saw Kerry King. Dave introduced himself, mentioned he played drums and that he heard of him being a guitar player. Lombardo asked King if he would like to jam with him. King agreed and then offered to show Lombardo his guitar collection later that night. The two realized they shared some of the same musical interests and they then rehearsed in Lombardo's garage several times. King then introduced Jeff Hanneman. The three rehearsed a few more times and decided they needed a singer and bass player. Kerry had played with Tom Araya in a band called Quits and decided to introduce Lombardo and Hanneman to Araya. This is when SLAYER's history began, and after 30+ years they are still reigning.

We want to wish Dave a HEAVY BEERS DAY!



Photo by: Damien Mitchell

Related links:
Slayer's official site