Paul Bostaph says he never tried to replace Dave Lombardo in Slayer

Paul Bostaph walked into one of thrash metal’s most exposed jobs in 1992 and made the hardest possible decision: he stopped trying to sound like Dave Lombardo.

That approach is the core of Bostaph’s reflection on joining Slayer more than three decades ago, and it explains why his name still gets measured against Lombardo’s every time the band hits a stage. Lombardo’s playing was already part of Slayer’s DNA, from the band’s early records through the template-setting speed and swing that made him a foundational thrash drummer. Bostaph knew that burden from the start, and he said he spent his time figuring out how to become the drummer Slayer needed instead of trying to become Lombardo, whose style he viewed as impossible to replicate.

Bostaph’s first Slayer studio album was 1994’s Divine Intervention, the first full-length evidence of that philosophy. He had already replaced Lombardo two years earlier after Slayer auditioned multiple drummers, and the choice turned into a long test of identity rather than a one-record stopgap. Bostaph later recorded with the band across the 1990s and 2000s, then returned in 2013 after Lombardo’s second exit, extending a career with Slayer that has now covered multiple eras of the band’s history.

What makes Bostaph’s answer land is that he framed the problem the same way a fan would. He understood that if someone bought a ticket to see a band with a new drummer, that fan would still expect to hear the parts tied to the original player. Instead of fighting that expectation, he focused on serving the songs and preserving the feel of the catalog without pretending he could be the guy who cut those original parts. That is a narrower lane than imitation, but it is also the one that kept Slayer’s live machine moving.

That distinction matters even more now, with Slayer scheduled for 2026 reunion shows tied to the 40th anniversary of Reign in Blood. Bostaph remains in the seat, and the comparison with Lombardo still comes baked in. After all these years, Slayer’s drum chair is still defined by the same tension: the legacy of the original groove anchor, and the player who survived it by refusing to copy it.