Former Lamb Of God drummer Chris Adler says he hasn’t spoken to his guitarist brother Willie since he was let go from the band.
Talking to Blabbermouth, Chris reveals that he and Willie have been “estranged” since 2019, stemming from what the drummer claims was a dismissal via email from the Virginia groove metal favourites.
Chris co-founded the band, originally known as Burn The Priest, in 1994 and has described it as his “baby”.
“I guess the best way to put it is that I was sideswiped with the whole thing,” he explains. “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.”
Chris spoke in-depth about his Lamb Of God exit during an interview with Loaded Radio last month. He said that his firing stemmed from him having the neurological disorder musician’s dystonia (MD), where repeated movement leads to the deterioration of nerves.
“I would be playing a song and my foot, when I intended it to depress the pedal, would shoot off to the side or shoot back,” he remembered (via Loudwire). “That was at the point where I was coming offstage just so depressed with my performance. I think the band was very frustrated with my performance.”
Chris also believed that tensions within Lamb Of God became “high” after he joined thrash metal veterans Megadeth for a brief stint from 2015 to 2016: “We were never the most functional group of people travelling around the world, if you know anything about the band. Whoever was not in the room was basically getting picked on.”
It was during that interview where the drummer first claimed he was fired by email.
“It was one of those emails: ‘Your services are no longer required’ kind of thing,” he said. “And that was devastating, because it really was, I felt like it was my baby. It was my project, and I put my life into it. It was my identity.”
Adler now drums in a rock band called Shallow Rising. Meanwhile, Lamb Of God continue with new drummer Art Cruz and released their latest album, Omens, in 2022. Vocalist Randy Blythe put out a memoir, Just Beyond The Light, earlier this year.
