Lamb Of God bassist John Campbell is featured in an interview with The Daily Gazette discussing the band's long career, dating back to their start as Burn The Priest. Following is an excerpt:

Q: When you guys first formed, were you hoping to change the direction metal was going in?

Campbell: "When we first formed metal was a bad word. We didn’t form with any thoughts that we would be changing heavy metal or anything like that, we were just making songs that we wanted to make. When we were first starting to book shows for ourselves we would call people up and say 'Hey, we’re a metal band. We’ve got a demo we’d like to send you and we’d like to play a party.' People would pretty much say 'No, that’s alright. Thanks.' Then we would call back the same number a couple of weeks later and say 'Hey, we’re a punk metal band and we’d love to play your party. Can we send you a demo?' If we threw in punk they would let us send them a demo. When we started we were just making the noise we wanted to make, which was heavy metal, and that was a bad word. 

Q: Why do you think that was?

Campbell: "Well, Kurt Cobain killed what was considered metal at that time, and I guess metal got a little ahead of itself with the hairspray and the spandex. It was kind of laughable, to be honest. I grew up listening to D.C. Hardcore, which was a version of punk rock at the time, and somewhat with blinders on, ignored what metal was. I would hear Def Leppard and Poison and Skid Row, and to me, if that’s metal, you can keep your metal. I think Kurt Cobain came along and changed what was going on in music dramatically and the weakness that was mainstream metal died off."

Read the complete interview here.

Lamb Of God recently announced that drummer Chris Adler will miss the band's North American dates with Slayer. The tour, also featuring Anthrax, Testament, and Napalm Death, kicked off on July 26th in Gilford, New Hampshire.

Says the band: "Due to unforeseen circumstances, we regret to inform you that Chris Adler will not be performing on our upcoming North American tour with Slayer. In his absence, we would like to welcome Art Cruz, who will be filling in at the recommendation of Chris. We expect to see Chris returning in the very near future. We will see you all on the road soon."

Fan-filmed video from Cruz's first show with the band can be viewed below.