Lombardo was born in Havana, Cuba, on February 16, 1965, where his father owned three meat markets. He is of Italian descent. Lombardo moved with his family to South Gate, California, when he was two years old, and still speaks Spanish. He has two older brothers and an older sister; his brothers had previously emigrated to the US via Operation Peter Pan.

Lombardo returned to playing rock music in 1978 and befriended several like-minded musicians around South Gate. Lombardo moved to Pius X High School after eighth grade. He performed Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” with a guitarist named Peter Fashing during the school’s talent show. “I’ll never forget the roar of the crowd during the drum solo. We brought the house down,” said Lombardo, who became known as “David the Drummer” the following day. Lombardo soon formed a band named Escape with two guitarists. Lombardo found a vocalist to join the band after he transferred to South Gate High School in 1979. The band performed at several events under the name Sabotage, but the band was short-lived.

Lombardo’s parents convinced him to quit the band because he was withdrawing from everything except music. Knowing her son was set on pursuing a life on the stage, Lombardo’s mother asked him to at least graduate high school. He honored her wish and graduated from South Gate High School in June 1983. Immediately following, Lombardo was recommended by his Technical Drafting teacher to Diesel Energy Systems Company. Impressed with his skill, Lombardo was hired on the spot. Around this time, Lombardo’s musical career was ready to take off.

With Slayer’s line-up now complete, Lombardo stabbed out the now iconic logo and the band began to develop their groundbreaking sound. Slayer recorded their debut album Show No Mercy soon after. Lombardo enlisted producer Rick Rubin for their third album “Reign in Blood” (1986). Lombardo left the band during their tour to promote Reign in Blood, stating, “I wasn’t making any money. I figured if we were gonna be doing this professionally, on a major label, I wanted my rent and utilities paid.” Tony Scaglione of Whiplash was enlisted to replace Lombardo. Unhappy with the change, Rick Rubin repeatedly called Lombardo asking his return. Lombardo initially refused before eventually returning to the band in 1987.

Lombardo recorded drums on the Slayer albums South of Heaven (1988) and Seasons in the Abyss (1990). He left the band again in 1992. Lombardo left Slayer because he wanted to be present for his first child’s birth. Lombardo told his bandmates at the beginning of the pregnancy, stating he would be unable to tour the last two weeks of September. He got a phone call from Slayer’s manager, Rick Sales, stating that they were booking a festival in September. Lombardo, however, was firm in his decision and insisted he would not miss his child’s birth.

After the birth of his first child in 1993, Lombardo formed Grip Inc. with Voodoocult guitarist Waldemar Sorychta. The pair recruited bassist Jason Viebrooks and vocalist Gus Chambers to complete the line-up. An early 5-piece line-up briefly featured former Overkill guitarist Bobby Gustafson who claims to have come up with the name Grip which Lombardo expanded to Grip Inc. after Gustafson’s departure in order to avoid a potential lawsuit. Grip Inc.’s debut record was released in 1995. The album, titled Power of Inner Strength, was distributed via California-based label Metal Blade Records. All-music reviewer Vincent Jeffries singled out Lombardo for praise on the album, saying Slayer fans would “enjoy the drummer’s double bass work and overall aggression throughout the disc.” Sorychta claimed critics and music fans always spot mistakes in their music, because of Lombardo’s popularity with Slayer—they expect the band to sound like Slayer and complain. However, when Lombardo uses the double bass drum, Sorychta said people complain “now Grip Inc. sound exactly like Slayer.”[7]

The band released Nemesis in 1997. Jeffries praised Lombardo’s “crushing drum work” which takes center stage on the album. Bassist Viebrooks left the band in 1999; he was replaced by Stuart Carruthers. The band released Solidify later that year. The album was described as a step towards “progressive and exotic rhythms, structures, and instrumentation, while never compromising intensity”. Lombardo was once again praised for his drumming on the album by Jeffries, who stated his style is “expressive and technically excellent tom work on cuts like ‘Bug Juice’ and ‘Lockdown.'” Lombardo is proud of Grip Inc. and believes it made him more creative as a musician.

In 1997, Lombardo began collaborating with vocalist/guitarist Gerry Nestler and bassist Juan Perez after the demise of their former band, Civil Defiance. Initially called Letter Bomb, the experimental trio later changed the name to Philm. The group played shows in the LA area and worked on material at Lombardo’s Victorville, CA home studio until Lombardo returned to Slayer in 2001. Nestler and Perez kept going with new drummer George Hernandez, releasing the M album under the name Kkleq Muzzil in 2002. Lombardo and Nestler both guested on DJ Spooky’s 2005 album, Drums of Death, and eventually reformed Philm in early 2010 after a jam at the famous Rainbow Bar and Grill in West Hollywood, CA, recruiting War’s Francisco ‘Pancho’ Tomaselli on bass.

In 1998, Lombardo joined a side project called Fantômas with Faith No More vocalist Mike Patton and Melvins’ guitarist Buzz Osborne. The band formed when Lombardo was approached by Patton at a Faith No More concert; Patton asked Lombardo about his “fusion” project (Grip Inc.). Patton called Lombardo several months after Faith No More broke up and asked if Lombardo wanted to join Patton’s fusion project. Lombardo enthusiastically agreed, “Fuck yeah!”

In 1999, Lombardo collaborated with Italian classical musician Lorenzo Arruga to record Vivaldi – The Meeting. The seven-track album had drum improvisations on Vivaldi’s work including two pieces from The Four Seasons composition. In 2000, Lombardo released a book titled Dave Lombardo:Power Grooves. The book and video contained warm ups, eight, sixteen, and double bass grooves, riding the toms and more.

The year 1999 also saw Lombardo perform drum work on the Testament album The Gathering, rounding off a veritable “supergroup” with Steve DiGiorgio and James Murphy. He has appeared on two albums by John Zorn: Taboo and Exile (1999) and Xu Feng (2000) performing with Zorn, Bill Laswell, Fred Frith, William Winant and others. He also played in Paris with Zorn, Laswell and Frith in an improvisatonal quartet project called Blade Runner.

1999 also saw the release of avant-garde sculptor/filmmaker Matthew Barney’s “Cremaster 2”, inspired by the life of Gary Gilmore. Lombardo played an epic drum solo accompanied by a swarm of angry bees on the track “The Man in Black”.

Ten years after leaving Slayer, Lombardo got a phone call from the band in 2001, asking if he would like to perform a few shows. Jeff was eager for Dave to return, but Kerry was less enthusiastic. King thought Dave was not up to snuff, but was “blown away” by Dave’s performance in rehearsals. Kerry later said, “He’s [Lombardo] got the feet and he’s got the hands, he’s not missing a step.”

Lombardo decided to resume drumming duties. His first show was at Toad’s Place in New Haven, Connecticut on 24 January 2002. At the beginning of the band’s show at The 7 Flags Event Center near Des Moines, Iowa on 2 February 2002, Araya welcomed Lombardo’s return and dedicated the show to Exodus vocalist Paul Baloff, who had died earlier that day. Lombardo toured with Slayer as part of Ozzfest, H82k2, Summer Tour, and the 2004 Download Festival. While preparing for the Download Festival in England, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich was hospitalized for a mysterious illness. Metallica’s vocalist James Hetfield searched for volunteers to replace Ulrich; Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison, Flemming Larsen (Ulrich’s drum technician) and Lombardo volunteered. Lombardo performed the songs “Battery” and “The Four Horsemen”, while Jordison and Larsen performed the rest of the songs.

Lombardo recorded six tracks with the Finnish cello metal group Apocalyptica on their 2003 album Reflections. Members of Apocalyptica had approached Lombardo in 1998 at a drum clinic in the Netherlands titled “Headbangers fest”, and asked if Lombardo would like to do a duo with the band, which he agreed to. Both Lombardo and Apocalyptica enjoyed playing a duo and Lombardo said to Apocalyptica, “Whenever you need a drummer, call me!”. The band sent the recording tapes of Reflections to his home studio in California where he recorded the drums. Lombardo’s later Apocalyptica contributions have consisted of playing the drums for the track “Betrayal/Forgiveness” on the 2005 album Apocalyptica for the track “Last Hope” on the 2007 album Worlds Collide and for the track “2010” on the 2010 album 7th Symphony.

Lombardo recorded his final album with Grip Inc., Incorporated, in 2004. He said the band is on the “back burner” because of time taken up touring with Slayer.

In 2005, Lombardo recorded Drums of Death with DJ Spooky. Spooky played some records with Lombardo playing along and interpreting his own rhythms. Spooky recorded the session and took the tapes to his New York recording studio, downloaded it onto his computer, and mixed the beats and drums incorporating scratching and other DJ techniques. Scott Peace-Miller of Glide Magazine noted, “Lombardo’s influence is front and center in the driving, up tempo “Quantum Cyborg Drum Machine,” and the almost straight-up thrash of Kultur Krieg.”

Lombardo recorded drums on Slayer’s 2006 release Christ Illusion, promoting the album on The Unholy Alliance tour. King said Lombardo was a major attraction for the fans, and one of the reasons for their surge in popularity. King and other band members preferred Lombardo on drums. Araya said, “It’s kind of right back where we started. He’s an amazing performer. We took off right where we left off, you know? It’s like he was never gone. He’s working with Kerry on his tunes. He’s helped out a lot actually!”

Lombardo recorded another album with Slayer in 2009, titled World Painted Blood.

In October 2009, it was announced that he had recorded a cover of “Stand by Me”, featuring Lemmy on vocals and bass, and produced by DJ and producer Baron. The song was made for legendary pro skateboarder Geoff Rowley.

The band initially recorded a 3-song demo with producer Piers Baron; The first release came in August 2010 in the form of a 7″ single, a cover of the Black Sabbath classic Symptom of the Universe. It was issued by Volcom Entertainment as part of the Volcom Vinyl Club in translucent blue vinyl, limited to 500 copies. Philm would play a run of U.S. dates as openers for Halford in late 2010 and signed with Mike Patton’s Ipecac label for the release of their 2012 debut album, ‘Harmonic’, which included updated versions of the songs “Amoniac”, “Dome” and “Meditation”, written by the original Philm line-up and first released by Kkleq Muzzil on the M album.

Lombardo left the band once again in February 2013 shortly before the band was due to play Australia’s Soundwave festival. He left following a contract and pay dispute with band members.

In October 2013, Lombardo, Nestler and stand-in bass player Dan Lutz performed the world live premier of composer Christopher Young’s Suite from Ghost Rider with the Golden State Pops Orchestra at the Warner Grand Theatre in Los Angeles, CA as part of an evening of horror movie scores performed with a 75-piece orchestra.

In July 2014, Philm announced a new partnership with German-based company UDR Records for the release of the group’s sophomore effort, ‘Fire From the Evening Sun’. The album was supported with a European tour in the fall of 2014. In a September 2015 interview, Lombardo talked about plans for the next Philm release, a 19-song double album recorded in New York City. “It’s called ‘Philm Noir’, and that’s piano, bass and drums. Gerry (Paul Nestler, guitar/vocals) plays piano really, really, really well, and Pancho (Francisco Tomaselli), obviously, on bass and myself. I tone it down and play with brushes. So, I would say ‘Fire From the Evening Sun’ is the extreme side of Philm, but then we also have a very avant-garde, jazz and ambient side of Philm, which is ‘Philm Noir’.”

In 2014, Lombardo firmly planted his feet in the world of television and film. His signature sound can be found on many recordings, such as the Season 7 soundtrack for Californication, Dawn of the Dead (2004), and Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015).

Lombardo began the creation of his first art collection, “Rhythm Mysterium” in early 2014. To execute the project, Lombardo worked with art team Scene Four in Los Angeles, California. The art collection is titled “RHYTHM MYSTERIUM”. Containing 13 works, the collection is built from the new medium of rhythm-on-canvas. In 2015, Lombardo released “LOMBARDO”, a book-and-vinyl set. [3] The book is a comprehensive look at Dave Lombardo’s artwork built from rhythm, and the vinyl contains Lombardo’s improvised drum interpretations for each art piece within the book.

Lombardo revealed the formation of yet another new musical project, Dead Cross, in November 2015. With ruthless, hardcore punk music, Rolling Stone described the band as a “vicious statement of renewed intent from Lombardo, the most influential drummer of the past 30 years.” [1] Dead Cross announced on 12 December 2016 that Mike Patton would front the band. [2] Produced by Ross Robinson and Dead Cross, the band released their eponymous debut album in August 2017.

Lombardo abruptly left the group only a couple of months later and proclaimed its demise in early 2016. Nestler and Tomaselli countered with a statement affirming that the band would go on with a new drummer. Venezuelan-born Grammy Award winner, Anderson Quintero, was announced as Lombardo’s replacement in September 2016 and made his live debut at the Whiskey A Go-Go that month.

Lombardo joined crossover-thrash band Suicidal Tendencies in February 2016 and toured with the band for their spring tour with Megadeth and summer European dates. Fans speculated Lombardo was only playing with the band as a fill-in drummer. Those rumors were dispelled, however, when the band posted a video to their Instagram account on May 15, 2016. The video showed Lombardo recording drums for a new album, World Gone Mad. The album was released on 30 September 2016.

In August 2016, Misfits announced Lombardo as their drummer for their reunion shows. Due to the success of the shows, the Misfits announced in August 2017 that they would to do two more. Lombardo would again be on drums.

In 2019, Lombardo was announced as the drummer for the seven upcoming Mr. Bungle reunion shows in 2020 in which the band performed their 1986 Demo The Raging Wrath of The Easter Bunny. In 2020, the band rerecorded the demo, with Lombardo on drums. It was released on October 30th, 2020.