Happy Birthday DAVE LOMBARDO!

The legendary drummer and founder of Dead Cross celebrates his 53rd birthday today.

Of course Dave is famous for his unrelenting power house drum technique. His contribution to metal music is dazzlingly obvious. 
He started his career at the age of 16 as a founding member of Slayer, the band's third album, Reign in Blood (1986), was described as one of the heaviest and most influential thrash metal albums. After which he went on to form Grip Inc in 1993. 
It wasn't until 1998 that he joined forces with Mike Patton to help realise Patton's Fantomas project. It was a dream come true for Patton and bassist Trevor Dunn to work with someone they considered an influence.

"We'd only been sort of acquaintances in the past, but I reached out to him and he was probably more excited about it than anyone. He called me back leaving a rambling message about how much he was into it. He was doing, like, mouth-drumming on the phone. That's when I realized, 'I think I found my guy.'" - Patton 2013

"I mean, when Slayer released Reign In Blood in 1986, that was kind of it for Mike and I as far as metal goes. We figured it couldn't get any better than that, so we kind of stopped listening to it. I thought he had a lot of balls to call those guys up, but he did, and they were both into it." - Dunn 2013

And Dave returned the sentiments. 

"Working with Patton is always an amazing experience. He has a very high creativity level that is hard to find in other musicians." - Dave 2016

"It feels great. I love the guy's drive and, of course, his artistry, the way he sings and his approach — not only to the vocals and the music, but also to the artwork, to details. I think that's an awesome personality to have, to not just care about the vocals, but you care about the entire project. And I like that; it's great. So working with him is definitely a pleasure. And I'm excited to perform live again, 'cause if past experiences say anything, the stage intensity is gonna be very high." - Dave 2017

In 2016 Dave joined the ranks of renound punk band The Misfits and Suicidal Tendencies recording for the later on two releases. He has released music with his band Philm, worked with Testament, shown his percussion skills with John Zorn and much, much more. 

His latest project Dead Cross saw him reunited with Patton for their first full album in 2017. 

"My assistant said, 'Why don't you call your friend?' And I was, like, 'You mean Patton?' And she said, 'Yeah. You need to contact him. Let him know what's going on. And who knows?' And I was, like, 'No, that's not… it's gonna happen. He's busy with FAITH NO MORE, and he's writing scores for a television show. He's busy.' So I kept thinking to myself, 'No, it's not gonna work. No, he won't do it.' Then finally, I think after three or four times suggesting, I said, 'Okay.' So in a series of texts that we were having, he asked me if I'd be interesting in releasing DEAD CROSS on his record label. And I told him, 'I would love to, but at this point, I really don't know where the album is gonna land. We just don't know how everything's gonna come together.' And then I texted him, I said, 'Look, Gabe left the band. We have all this music. Would you be interested in singing?' And it wasn't no more than fifteen seconds went by, he texted me and he said, 'I would love to do it.' And at that moment, I was, like, 'All right! This is great!' And I texted everybody and everybody was really excited. We couldn't believe it. So it was a great suggestion and I'm glad I sent him a text. And then he didn't know if he wanted to tour with the band, and then it turns out that he loves the music so much that he thought that it would be a good idea for us to do some shows. So we're very grateful for that too. We've gotta embrace it and enjoy it while it's here, because — who knows? — maybe in a few months he's not gonna wanna tour or anything else. But it seems like things are on a positive note and we're gonna hopefully do some more touring. And at this moment, we're writing more music to add to our set, because the set is only thirty minutes, so we need to add another ten minutes, so probably another five songs." - Dave 2017

Dead Cross have proved to be a huge success with Lombardo and Patton fans alike. They have toured the USA and are preparing to take Europe by storm in 2018, with one album already under their belt they are recording a second release with Ross Robinson right now!

Described as "the godfather of double bass" he remains one of the biggest influences on metal drummers of all time.