Lamb of God guitarist Mark Morton has opened up the loss of founding drummer Chris Adler after he parted ways with the band in 2017 due to injuries following a motorcycle accident.
Speaking on a recent episode of the Dabghanistan podcast about the hugely positive response to the band’s self-titled album, Morton also reflected on a number of challenges faced by Lamb of God over the past 10 years.
“We’ve been through a lot of challenges and a lot of ups and downs and a lot of difficult experiences over the last 10 years particularly, as individuals, as a band, as an organisation, all that stuff,” Mark said.
“So losing Chris as a bandmember was not nonchalant, it wasn’t ‘matter of fact,’ it wasn’t easy for anybody involved. It wasn’t a frivolous decision on anybody’s part, the way it all played out. So it was real heavy — it was a heavy thing. That’s Willie’s [Adler, guitar] blood brother, and we were all a family — and we still are, as far as I’m concerned,” he said.
“I’ve been friends with Chris since I was 17; we used to smoke weed in his room and listen to Danzig and play guitar… That wasn’t an easy situation. So to find ourselves now having spent a year and a half on the road, largely with Slayer, and fine-tuning with [new drummer] Art and getting him worked in and kind of getting in a groove as a band and then being able to take that groove and put it in the studio and write these really special songs together, it was kind of a monumental moment for us.”
He continued, “It felt like we could breathe again after all that stuff, and it was fun, and we were happy.”
“At the end of the day, there is a human component to these records, and so the vibe translates, and it wasn’t an anxious vibe, it wasn’t a vibe of in-fighting, it wasn’t a vibe of egos or people fighting for some kind of position or fighting to get their song on the album or whatever — it was none of that stuff,” Mark added.
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“It was a real collaborative team effort, and I think that vibe is part of what the energy is that people are reacting to.”
Adler’s 2017 accident left him unable to perform with Lamb of God for an extended period of time, with the muso addressing the incident on Instagram soon after.
“I had a motorcycle accident [in late 2017] that shattered my collarbone and right shoulder and also chipped bones in my hip,” wrote Adler in an Instagram post. “While surgery corrected the broken bones and I was able to play [in early 2018], I experienced some issues related to the injuries that needed to be addressed with a rigorous schedule of physical and occupational therapy which, is what I have been doing regularly since July [2018].”
Drummer Art Cruz filled in for Chris on several Lamb of God Tours, before being named his official replacement in July 2018.
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