DRAGONLORD Postpone SF Date, DiGiorgio Explains His Absence From Touring Line-Up!

DRAGONLORD, the San Francisco Bay Area black metal project led by TESTAMENT guitarist Eric Peterson, have postponed their scheduled January 5th appearance at San Francisco's Covered Wagon Saloon to an as-yet-undisclosed later date. Meanwhile, TESTAMENT bassist Steve DiGiorgio, who performed on DRAGONLORD's debut CD Rapture and who appeared live with the group at the benefit concert for ex-TESTAMENT guitarist James Murphy in mid-November, has revealed his reasons for not joining the group during their recent live performances, at which DiGiorgio's spot was occupied by former TESTAMENT four-stringer Derek Ramirez. According to DiGiorgio, Eric hit me with a busy schedule during the summer and I just didn't see myself being able to commit fully to what he wanted to do. So in order for the band to flow and progress I had to remove the dead weight, which was basically me. It made sense, I mean they would have to cancel a few offers for my benefit. So with a bassist in there that's ready to go, the band won't suffer. Me and Eric had a good talk on the plane back from England [where TESTAMENT were mixing their First Strike Still Deadly opus] about it. I told him it wasn't a matter of 'want to', but of 'able to', because really, in a perfect world I would love to just play anywhere, everywhere and all the time. But sometimes for me, I just can't make that happen. But for the James Murphy benefit show I managed to get in there and do the debut show of the band in SF. Even though I originally declined it, later I thought because it was a great way to help out my friend and also because Eric hadn't found a replacement bassist yet, it made sense to jam. Like I said, it worked then and it happened, but I'm not able to go the long haul. And unlike [ICED EARTH guitarist] Jon Schaffer, Eric is much more understanding and cooler. Plus I've gone around the world twice over playing gigs with Eric in TESTAMENT, so he knows I'm not about bailing all the time, like I was so brutally accused of with that IRON MAIDEN cover band ICED EARTH.