Lamb Of God shockingly split with founding drummer Chris Adler in 2019 and has since moved on with new drummer Art Cruz. Adler recently spoke about why he was let go from the band, but in a new interview with Blabbermouth reveals that maybe it was a little bit of jealousy from Lamb Of God that he drummed on Megadeth‘s 2016 record Dystopia, as well as Protest The Hero‘s 2013 effort Volition.
“Like I said, we were dysfunctional. We weren’t always best friends. It was strained. Whoever was not in the room was getting picked on. I was the guy out of the room. I think one of the things that, from my perspective, and I don’t mean to speak for anybody, I think when I took the Megadeth gig, that really strained things even further. Nobody said, ‘We don’t want you to do it,’ or ‘You’re cheating on us.’ That was still the vibe, then when Megadeth won a Grammy, that pushed it further.
“I won a [Juno, the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy] with the other band that I joined, Protest The Hero, a couple of years prior. It just snapped, and that was it. I went to them and said, ‘This doesn’t happen all the time. It happens on these particular songs. Can we work around it? We have a pretty large body of work.’ Nobody wanted to do that. There wasn’t anything I could do about it.
“That was very difficult for me. In many ways, that band was my identity. It’s everything that I worked for. I spiraled. My mom passed, divorce — it was a messy, messy time for me to try to pull myself up and try to feel ‘I’m going to be okay.’ It did take a while, to be honest. Maybe about a year into that, I was just trying to find myself and even define what chapter two would look like; the only way around dystonia is to re-learn how to play.
“In that case, your right foot as a drummer is your lead foot. I worked out and talked to the doctors and specialists about changing it. Now, I lead with my left foot, which throws the right foot in a loop mentally. I have to build a different connection for it to work. That connection is now strong. I’m able to do it well, but not some of the things I was doing in Lamb. It’s a relief not having to do those things because I was coming offstage really depressed about the shows we were having.”
Adler also revealed in the same interview that he doesn’t talk to his brother (and Lamb of God guitarist) Willie Adler anymore, either.
“I guess the best way to put it is that I was sideswiped with the whole thing. I wish him all the best; I’m wishing them all the best, and I think about him all the time, but I would say we are estranged. Since that e-mail that I got, where he was not even willing to talk to me about it, we haven’t spoken. At this point, I’ve got to work through resentments and regrets and all that stuff. I’m happy where I’m at. I hope he’s happy where he is. Everything is cool with me.”
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