Midnite Madness CXX—Behind the Velvet Curtain

Show 120, an all-out 80s attack! Definitely didn't plan this show at all, but once it got going it had a mind of its own, so I let it run and came out pretty sweet, if I say so myself. Back soon, hail the 80s metal godz 'til then!

Midnite Madness XCVII—Endless Void

IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN

A Fist In The Face Of God presents... 1-800-666-1986

ALRIGHTTT. Just a little New Year gift to all my loyal maniacs. Yes, I know, it's a repost of a mix I did last year, but I have removed my talking in favour of an extra track and it is now available for both download and to stream on its own. And I also made the pretty killer new artwork above. Shouts again to the Satan Made Me Do It guys for playing this out previously and for all their hard work spreading the forgotten language of HEAVY METAL across the data airwaves. Soon!

Just demo tracks from 1986. Not an essential list or best of, etc, as I've played out a bunch of the really killer stuff on my show or on featured mixes, so just what I felt like playing at the time and what I haven't gotten round to playing out so far. As all came from MP3s with varying quality, sound may fluctuate from good to, well, kinda shit, but hey, they are ALL killer tracks. Shouts again to the guys Satan Made Me Do It Guys again for being patient, appreciative and all-round good people, makes it all the more worthwhile. This one's for you, Satan!

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Midnite Madness LIX - BANZAI!

Unfortunately due to conflicting schedules, Maniac Monday is no more. However, it has been renamed as Midnite Madness (same initials, just another stupid title) and now airs once a month at witching hour. So no more 9-11GMT shows every two weeks unfortunately, but one a month regardless for the same 120 minutes as always. Here are the remaining shows for the year:
-June 24th
-July 22nd
-August 19th
-September 16th
-October 14th
-November 11th
-December 9th
Which will take me up to 66 shows in total. These air at midnite UK time, alright? ALRIGHT.
Onto the most recent effort then, a Banzai Records show. Again, this is not the best tracks released on the legendary Banzai imprint, but perhaps my favourite records and tracks I hadn't played off them already over the last 58 shows. It came out pretty good so go download and play it fucking LOUD on the train or mow the lawn to it. Hails to all the 80s gods who appeared on this epic two-hour journey through 80s metal, without you I might not be here, ughhh...

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Interview with Kerry King of Slayer

One of the first jobs I ever got whilst working as a fledgling music journalist for Vice was to interview Slayer. I thought this was some sort of office joke when it got offered to me, actually, but no, they were serious and with a new album and a European tour on the horizon, I was sent to Sony's west London office to interview both Tom Araya and Kerry King. I didn't know this before I went in, but I would be interviewing them individually.

Now, as you may have guessed from any of my interviews, I don't go in with a pre-written list of questions I have always wanted to know about xyz-band. In fact, I usually just arm myself with a dictaphone, a few loose topics we may talk about, and shoot from the hip.

I sat in the lobby of their parent-label's offices for a few minutes when a lady came in informing me that Tom had finished a phoner he was doing with another magazine and that my slot was ready. I was led upstairs and in through one of those really awkward open-plan offices where people only communicate to each other via instant message before being shown into a glass-fronted room (somebody's office) where Tom Araya was waiting to see me (That interview was posted about six months after the combined one featuring him and Kerry, and can be read here.)

Our tabled 20-minute interview ran well into half an hour, such was the ease of the conversation thanks to Tom's friendly, stoner persona. He wasn't difficult in any way and softly spoke about everything with a surprising amount of zeal and gusto. I was then pretty much expecting the same vibe with Kerry after leaving Tom to deal with a Guardian journalist, before being navigated to Mr. King's domain.

I say domain because that's what I think he was trying to create. It was a much larger, brighter room, more in the centre of the office, to which we were only obscured by some blinds. He was sat up on this high chair bang in the middle of the room, shades on, like a king on his throne, pun not intended. It was maybe three in the afternoon and he was drinking pints of, what seemed to be, straight vodka.

I think I tried to open proceedings by casually talking to him like I did with Tom and almost trying to pick up the conversation where we had left off. It did not work, at all. He made it clear from the off that he did not want to be spoken to like a regular guy. He was Kerry King, after all. He was arrogant and scoffed at a few things I said before I just got down to asking him what now seems like a lot of questions about Dave Mustaine. Most people would agree that Dave is the Big Four's number one asshole, but I would like to think I have proof to the contrary.

Here is exactly what I kept from that interview, much of which already featured in the combined interview posted back in 2009.

AFITFOG: So, I just finished talking to Tom about your trip to Singapore.
Kerry King: Yeah, we went there day before the show and they gave us a general statement saying that anything with anti-religious sentiments can't be played here. And I thought, 'that could be construed as just about everything we wrote'. That's when they came back to us with five songs we couldn't play, four of which were in the set. So we had to yank 'em. It's cool to be the rebel, but I'm not getting caged in Singapore, you know what I mean. We luckily know enough where we could take those four out. I mean, they were serious parts of the set—"Hell Awaits", "Disciple", "The Antichrist"—those three were in, I can't remember what the other two were. First and only time we've been to Singapore and probably the last. It wasn't really the promoter's fault, the government came down on her because somebody complained. Apparently all you gotta do is complain and they take it as if it's from the entire country. 

Damn. So let's talk about World Painted Blood, then. How is it.
It's good! It was it was unusual for us the way it went down. We recorded it in such a condensed fashion and made-up stuff [as we went along]. All my songs I made up from the middle of January to the end of February. That's usually that time I take to write one or two. Maybe, ha ha. But we made a decision to book studio time and reserve our producer when we were in recording the first three [tracks] in October. This is the only time we've ever learned music in the studio. Usually the music's fuckin' done. But I know at least two of mine and two of Jeff's we just showed Dave at the studio. So the main thing was making things up to make sure they sound different, 'cos when you write in that short a period, it's easy to have things that sound alike. I think that's why it's probably as diverse as any heavy, heavy Slayer record we've ever done. It sounds very retro and I think that's due to the manner in which we made it up. It's the only time since the old days for me—the old days in Tom's garage—when you'd get outta school or get off work, go to the fuckin' studio and just play. You know, that's how we made up so much shit. In this one, I didn't write it with the guys 'cos we live so far apart. But, like, after rehearsal, I don't go home and play guitar [normally], I would go home and play for like four or five more hours, just to get quality enough tunes to work on, making sure we had enough material.

Wait, you still practice that much???
Yeah, after rehearsal it had to get done. This is something I can't put off, so my life's put on hold. I'd come in and play shit so many times my wife was just fuckin' dead-tired of it. She doesn't know or understand why I have to play something like five thousand times, because you gotta figure out how to get from this to that, you know. And then when she hears the final song, she loves it, but she hated some of them riffs when I made 'em up.

Let's talk about the early days a bit. Tom says you put him onto a lot of stuff—Maiden, Venom, etc. Were you still listening to a lot of stuff like that around, say, 84/85?
Yeah, absolutely. I still fuckin' love Venom. I don't play it near as much as I used to, but you know, to go back and visit Black Metal, fuck yeah. I love it, love that record. One of the new songs is about Countess Bathory and people say, "You know Venom did that, right?" And I'm like, "Course I know fuckin' Venom did that", ha ha. There's no reason why if people write about something you can't write about it as well, just don't copy their shit. That's a great song, though. 

You still listen to a lot of metal these days?
Pretty much that's it. I don't know too much about new bands really. I still call new bands like Chimaira and Arch Enemy new bands, even though they got lots of records, you know. They're a lot newer than us. I like Demiricous but I think they broke up already.

There's a healthy thrash scene again.
Yeah, I've got Municipal Waste [records]. They're kinda more like D.R.I., though. Somebody was telling me about Bonded By Blood and one of their guys gave me a disc but I haven't seen it since I moved. I gotta find it, it's supposed to be good.

Do you ever hear some of these newer bands and think, 'Hey, that's our riff'?
Oh, shit yeah. Brian Slagel will call me up, we'll have dinner or whatever, and he'll bring me all the new Metal Blade shit he think I might like. [When] I heard Demiricous and I was like, "Fuck! I like it!" And I liked it 'cos it sounded like us. I even told 'em when I met 'em. I was like, "You guys listened to a few Sayer records, huh?", ha ha. I think everyone's gotta start somewhere. You look at our first record and I could pick out the Iron Maiden riffs. You gotta start somewhere.

I guess when you guys started out there wasn't necessarily a blueprint for the sound you were trying to achieve—something faster, more evil, etc. Whereas now there is.
Anyways. As I was saying to Tom before, it's good to see the original band is still together.
Well, I think that's partly why the fans are so loyal to us. It's consistent—musically it's consistent—you don't have to worry about spending your money on a disc and hating it, you don't have to worry about spending your money on a ticket... I use Megadeth as an example, and I'm not picking on them, but you go to a Megadeth show and other than Dave you don't don't know who the fuck's gonna be there. There's a lack of consistency. Other than fans wanting to see Dave play, it's like a crap shoot. You don't have that with us, it's Jeff, Tom, and Kerry, for sure. Now Dave, for sure, ha ha. It's cool, it's almost like insurance, you know?

Yeah. And not only have Megadeth changed personnel with nearly every album and tour, but they've changed their sound a lot too, a bit like Metallica.
Yeah, Metallica had 'the thrash years', then they became a pop band, then kind of a hard rock band, and now they're tryna be a metal band again. Its confusing to me as a fan, I'm like, "What happened?" How do you make the decision to be drastically different and then try to go back to what you started [out] doing just because people say, "Hey, I'd like to have another Master Of Puppets", y'know? I'd LOVE to have another Master Of Puppets but I don't think I'm ever gonna get it.

So instead of musically changing direction, you guys went the opposite way and released an album of punk covers on 1996's Undisputed Attitude, essentially going back to your roots.
Yeah. But this was definitely an idea we borrowed from Metallica with [their] Garage Days [album]. Actually, Undisputed Attitude was supposed to be a collection of everything that moulded Slayer into what Slayer was, but in the context of the punk songs it didn't really make sense. We were working on "Gates of Babylon" from Rainbow, "Burn" by Deep Purple... In the context of the thrash style, instead of punk doing metal, it was metal doing punk so it kinda gave it more focus, and they were so fucking edgy it made all the other ones sound stupid.

Were you into the hardcore scene in the 80s?
I think we were the band most responsible for bringing the punks and metalheads together. Cos in the beginning you'd see both at our shows and you see 'em in little factions. I think they finally realised, 'Well we're here because we like this music, doesn't matter if you're a punk and I'm a metalhead', you know? It's okay. I think D.R.I. prolly did more work for it after we did the initial work, cos they're totally metal-punk. I love D.R.I.—I just ran into Spike the other day, I think he said they were doing a reunion, which is kinda cool. I totally remember the days of the factions and, you know, fights. Fighting just cos you're different, you know?

Did the hair-metallers like you guys?
No. They never liked us.

Never?
Not really, no.

And you liked that?
Absolutely, ha ha. The hair metal guys—the Poisons and the fuckin' Ratts—were everything we didn't wanna be.

You think that's why the Bay Area/LA was such a haven for thrash in the early days, because of the hair metal scene?
I dunno. I mean, being in LA and being not a part of it but being there while all that was going on, it just cemented in stone what I knew I didn't wanna be. And that's probably where our black eyeliner came from [worn at early shows]. I remember thinking, 'Why are girls going to do these shows to see guys dressed up like girls?' Way back then it was always a question I always asked myself. So we did everything. We wore black, studs, more like Priest, obviously. I dunno where the eyeliner came from, it musta been, like, being from LA—you kinda thought you had to do something and we made ours fuckin' ugly. First time we went to San Francisco the Exodus guys were all, "Why you wearing eyeliner?" And that was the end of it. We never did again.

What do you make of black-metallers corpse paint?
To me that's more like a King Diamond thing, that over the top [look].

By the way, how did the recent shows with Megadeth go?
The four shows? I went in there with an open mind. You know, I'll always be cordial to Dave, but the instance he's a dick, I'll be a bigger dick. I saw him, I think it was at the first show, in catering. That was the only time I saw him except when he's on stage, so I haven't talked to Dave yet. The funny thing about that is, the other guitar player I only saw when he was on-stage, so I'm like, 'Does he just teleport to the stage and get the fuck out???' I never saw that guy.

Who else have you not quite enjoyed touring with?
Hmmm, the last Unholy Allaince was my least favourite. It was us, Trivium, Mastodon, and Amon Amarth. And, ha, they were tryna tell me in the UK that Trivium was big enough to co-headline with us and I went, 'Okaaay'. So we closed every show but they had equal time and, well, they're not as big as us, ha ha. That's not me being an asshole! You look at them and you feel so safe, the crowd all clapping, doing the cheeleader thing and it's like, nothing bad can happen. Then we come on the stage and you think the world's gonna end. Even though they're a metal band the vibe is just completely different.

The aggression's not there.
No, it's happy. It's fun times.

So, lastly, where do you see yourself after the tour, another album?
Yep, I think I know what it's gonna be called. I got ideas for music that I didn't use on this one, so I definitely wanna work on those in a more relaxed manner than it was this time, ha ha. Looking forward to the tour and even though we're not booked at any, I'm sure we'll play some festivals next summer.

And that was that, I think. After the interview was posted I badgered the people at Sony for tickets to their upcoming shows which were reconvened, I think maybe due to beginning of Jeff's illness, to the summer months. It was without a doubt one of the most disappointing shows I have ever been to. It was awful, with most of the tracks sounding like they were being played at the wrong speed. I also remember thinking that any average Slayer tribute band would actually provide more of a show. When they did try a fast song it fell short of expectation, which is probably why Dave used a kick-drum trigger. Yes, Dave Lombardo uses a fucking trigger. Fuck. All of this made think that the graphics behind the clearly aged thrashers weren't a joke:

 

But I would never judge a band on a live show 25 years since their best work was written so I forgot about it rather swiftly, burying memories of it in a place in my brain that is still haunted by those Stooges and GBH covers they butchered.

The photoshoot that ensued the next day, featuring all four original members, is another story altogether. Maybe one day I will get round to telling that one.

Maniac Monday XXXII - SLAYER—Life's a Dream

Jeff Hanneman 1964-2013

The first Maniac Monday of May sees me paying tribute to Slayer, mainly as, unless you are living in North Korea and haven't heard, the world is now short one Jeff Hanneman. There will never be another band like them, so it felt fitting to pay homage to not only one of thrash's finest guitarists and song writers, but also to one of heavy metal's greatest ever bands. Cramming two hours of classic old Slayer into one show seemed almost mandatory.
I actually had the privilege to interview both Tom Araya and Kerry King just before the release of their last album, World Painted Blood, in 2009 in Sony's offices in west London. The following day myself and a friend shot the original line-up in a studio in east London, which was another highlight of my journalistic career. The compiled interview can be read here, the Tom Araya-only one here, and if anyone really wants to read the complete interview with Kerry King, then just say so and I will get to editing it.

Maniac Monday will return in just under two weeks with the black metal show that I am sure most of the show's listeneres are already bored of hearing me talk about, ha ha. 'til then...

Interview with Tom Araya of Slayer

Last year, while Slayer were in town promoting their then-upcoming record, World Painted Blood, I interviewed Tom and Kerry individually. Anyways, for the piece, it needed to run as one interview, so I kinda mixed it all up. Here is the entire Tom Araya interview in one shot, I will post the Kerry King one at a later date.

AFITFOG: So, another album. I haven't heard it yet, is it a continuation from Christ Illusion? Or a return to the good old days?
Tom: Very classic Slayer, more so than Christ (Illusion).

Okay, that's good.
It's awesome. You're gonna like it.

Did you produce it yourselves?
We produced it with Greg Fidelman, he searched us out, when we did Christ. And then we had three songs that our manager wanted us to record to get people crazy for the new album, so we hooked with him to do these three songs. When we did that we said, 'listen, we want you to do an album with us', so we booked some (studio) time - even though we didn't have songs - cos we liked what he did. We were in the studio, we had maybe five songs that we took in the studio with us, and then another 6 or 7 songs were written in the studio, which was a first for us. It allowed everyone to give input, and that's why I think the overall album is a bit more...

Spontaneous?
Very spontaneous, its really good.

You guys have been together now for what, 28 years, no break-ups etc?
We've had a rotating drummer but that's about it. We went from Dave to Paul, to Dave.

You had Tony Scaglione from Whiplash for a minute too?
A month. Yeah, one tour. It was the second half of a tour when Dave first left. We had just started a tour with W.A.S.P. (the Reign In Pain Tour 86/87), and we did that tour and Dave took a hike, so we had to find someone for the four weeks that were left to finish the tour. That was the last of Tony, he was, y'know, an okay drummer. He was a good drummer, but he wasn't Slayer material.

And it's back to the original line-up huh.
Yeah, there was a period of over 10 years where Dave wasn't involved with the band and it was Paul (Bostaph, currently of Testament), you mentioned the other drummers - Tony, there was another drummer (Jon Dette)... We tried out different drummers, but each time we would get ready to do something, like on South Of Heaven, we worked with Nick Menza (once of Megadeth). He was someone that we thought had potential, he's a natural. And then Dave came in, and changed that, ha ha. So, Dave rejoined the band. And when he left again, we had Paul. Paul was actually a really good drummer, out of all the drummers, Paul would be the the one that would stand the closest to Dave. It's like - you've got the master, and then you have his disciple ha ha. We lucked out by getting Paul, he's now in his own right becoming the 'master', cos every band he's with I notice their albums do really well, ha ha. Which is amazing because it takes that kind of talent for people to go, 'fuck, this album sounds great'. Its the drummer and the vocals, you know? If they're coming out strong, its awesome. Its the the first thing people notice.

Does he write anything (Dave)?
Well, even though the song credits, whenever you read album credits of a song, especially on ours... With Dave, even with Paul, he and Kerry worked out a lot of material, helped him work out a lot of his songs for Divine (Intervention) and Diabolus (In Musica). Same with Dave. He's a drummer, 'why don't you do this here or that there.' Dave has a lot of input in the structure of songs, even though his name's not on anything.



What are you memories of touring with Venom?
That was actually a really good tour because it... it was good for us. You know, you're young, having fun, you know, you get fucking obliterated ha ha. Kerry was a fan of Venom, he had their first record, Welcome to Hell. Yeah, he liked Venom... But yeah, when we started out as a band we wrote material, but it wasn't Slayer material. It wasn't until we listened to Metal Massacre (featuring Metallica & Ratt. Slayer would go on to feature on Metal Massacre III) we thought - we could be heavier and faster than this shit. So we wrote a song, and just stuck to our guns. 30 years later we're still heavy and fast, which is what we always set out to do.

So was there competition between the bands? Who was the heaviest, the fastest etc. and was there a point where you thought 'actually, I can't keep up with these guys'...
There is no competition! Ha ha! We've looked at it that way, there's no competition. There's no comparisons and no competition. Ha ha.

What bands were you listening to at the time, bands that were coming out then (early to mid 80s)?
Well, I got turned on to a lot of that material from the guys, when I hooked up with the band. I mean, that was in 81. I didn't know about Maiden. I mean, I was going to school and working at the hospital (he worked as a respiratory therapist), so I wasn't really focused on the metal scene. I was more familiar with the American rock scene. Kerry said, 'hey, I've got a list of songs', he listed off the bands and I was like, 'hey, who are Iron Maiden?' So I went out and bought it and I was like, (whispers) 'fuuuck, where have I been? This is awesome!'. And then all of a sudden, Kerry breaks out Venom records and you start meeting up with other bands - Exodus, and we'd trade tapes. Then we went up north and we met the guys in the band, did shows with them and we're like, 'fuck these guys are fast!', not realising that we were fast too. They would go back, 'no, YOU guys are fast.'

So, fast forwarding a little, the Clash Of The Titans was another big tour, there was a semi-reunion of sorts earlier this year when you toured with Megadeth again 18 years later?
People say, 'oh you said you'd never tour with him (Dave Mustaine) again, but hey, it makes good business sense. Kids wanna see that stuff, the promoter was dying to get us to Canada, and Mustaine thanked us for doing it. I was hoping not to see him, but I ran into him, he was like 'thanks for doing these shows, and I was like, 'er... sure'.

You said you had the rotating drummer, he had the rotating band ha ha. He never lived down the whole Metallica thing huh?
Ha ha, nope, he's never really lived it down.

Speaking of Megadeth, they changed a lot musically in the 90s, along with Metallica, whereas you guys went back to your roots and covered a bunch of punk songs.
We stuck true to what we do. Metallica went, and got to a certain level and were like, 'we're gonna do it. Ready, jump, let's see what happens!' So they crossed-over (musically) but they kept their fanbase, which was amazing. Dave Mustaine tried to do the same thing, he made the jump but... (mimics a guy clinging on for dear life, grabbing frantically at the sofa's cushions) And he fell off the cliff...

And he's got his own coffee now
Ha ha right, I guess that's success!



So where do you see the future of Slayer heading?
Future I see is, we're gonna be prolly touring the rest of this year, I know we are (you didn't! Ha!). We're prolly gonna tour all of next year, after that, it really depends. We gotta sit down and work out what we wanna do, this is our last record with Rick Rubin (American Recordings). Record companies aren't you know, signing record deals, we lucked out when Rubin said, 'we'll sign you to a 10 album deal'. That doesn't happen anymore. Now it's, 'let's do an album' ha ha you know what I mean? With us, we guarantee, they know if we put out a record our loyal fanbase will buy our album. So they know that they can guarantee a certain amount of records sold. Whereas with other acts, even with bigger acts... Who knows what's gonna happen you know? Its a new world for record companies.

Its a changing industry, when you started out it was vinyl, now its MP3.
Yeah, yeah, it was vinyl, tapes, CDs... We've been together 28 years an we've gone through all the formats. It's funny though, cos we're sitting here and we're like 'in 30 years we've from vinyl to...', but in a hundred and fifty years car has gone from four wheels and an engine to... four wheels and an engine! Ha ha ha ha.

Well at the end of your record deal you need to go and reinvent the wheel ha ha. Anyways, through the 28 years and the number of changes in media, it's still the same instruments you're playing, eh.
Yep. Still the same instruments, but, its a whole different world when it comes to recording now. Now you don't use analogue and tape, now, you can record a million tracks and go click-click-click you know, mark the tracks you like. Whereas before you'd have to go, 'what tape is that? Er, tape number 26!' And then you'd like chop out this part etc.

You think it takes away from the sound at all (recording digitally)?
I guess it's all to personal taste. Cos analogue, there is a difference in sound, if anyone were to actually sit down and listen and pay attention, they'd notice the difference. Digital is very crisp, very clear, you know what I mean? But analogue is very warm, and has a very warm, soft sound. It adds to it.

You didn't think about going back to analogue for this next release?
Even though everything is recorded digitally, it all goes back to tape, so you can get that analogue sound. It's made recording so much easier, cos you (used to) spend most of your day changing tapes, now its like click-click-click, this is the one you like. As opposed to taking a piece of tape, cutting it at an angle, finding the spot you like, piecing it together.

Do you ever listen to the old records and think, 'man, we should re-master these' or are you still happy with them as they are?
Those are what they are. For the time that they were recorded in I think they (still) sound fucking great. Why change 'em? We could re-master them or whatever, but you know, why? It's good the way it is. When I listen to those albums I do think, 'wow, technology has changed a lot', but they're still great albums. If the technology had've been better then, would the albums be any better? It was just us getting to know the studio. The first albums were done by us and whoever... The first album was us, the second album Hell Awaits Brian Slagel (Metal Blade Records founder) got it in his head to get some guy to produce it - I can't think of his name (Ron Fair) - to accompany produce that album. Haunting the Chapel, that's something we produced ourselves, there's a lot of stuff we did ourselves. Even when we were working with Rick Rubin, we were a big part of that process. All the other producers too, they sat in. We do a lot.

You still in touch with Rick?
(Grins) Not like I would like to, no. No. I mean, we did those three albums (Reign In Blood, Season in the Abyss & South Of Heaven), and that was it. He's got his own thing, producing other people. He does good, but he doesn't really do a lot, but he manages to get what he needs out of people. He did amazing stuff with Johnny Cash, same with Neil Diamond. That album is really great.

You guys must've toured everywhere by now, is China up next?
We had an offer to do Beijing, which was interesting. We played South Korea, which was kinda interesting. We did Singapore, I'm surprised they sent us there. The minute we landed they're talking about how they a list of songs they didn't want us to sing. We were like, 'listen, we came here, this is the list of songs we want to play, right, any of these songs you want to knock off you go right ahead, just means we're gonna play a pretty short set if you don't want us to play any of these songs'. We told them to fuck off and played them anyways.

That's weird, its a predominantly Buddhist country
Well yeah I know, I think they didn't like the anti-religious aspect. The government - 'the music police' - were actually at the show to make sure we didn't say anything bad, or make a statement about the fact that they were trying to control what we play.

Wow. So lastly, do you listen to any new metal bands out there?
Nah, I'm so outta touch with that. There's nowhere really to go. Where I live there isn't a 'mom and pop' record store, that would have independent things. The only thing that's accessible to me is Best Buy, record store chains!

Interview with Tom Araya & Kerry King of Slayer

Slayer have a new album, World Painted Blood, due out next month. Hopefully it will better than anything that they’ve released since 1986. They were in town promoting this new record and I was lucky enough to get an interview with frontman Tom Araya and legendary shred machine Kerry King – albeit individually. Here is some of the stuff we talked about.

AFITFOG: So, let’s talk about the new record. I haven’t heard it yet. Is it a continuation from Christ Illusion? A return to the old days, perhaps?

Tom: Very classic Slayer, more so than Christ [Illusion].

Kerry: It’s good! It was unusual for us the way it went down; all my songs I made up from the middle of January to the end of February. That’s usually the time I take to write one or two. Maybe. Ha ha. This is the only time we’ve ever learned music in the studio. Usually the music’s fuckin’ done. I think that’s why it’s probably as diverse as any heavy, heavy Slayer record we’ve ever done. It sounds very retro and I think that’s due to the manner in which we made it up. It’s the only time since the old days, for me, the old days in Tom’s garage, when you’d get outta school or get off work and go to the fuckin’ studio and just play. You know, that’s how we made up so much shit. In this one, I didn’t write it with the guys ‘cos we live so far apart. But, like, after rehearsal, I don’t go home and play guitar, I would go home and play for like four or five more hours, just to get quality enough tunes to work on, make sure we had enough material.

What, you still practice that much?

Kerry: Yeah, after rehearsal, it had to get done, this is something I can’t put off. So my life’s put on hold, I’d come in and play shit so many times, my wife was just fuckin’ dead tired of it. She doesn’t know or understand why I have to play something like five thousand times, because you gotta figure out how to get from this to that, you know. And then when she hears the final song, she loves it. But she hated some of them riffs when I made ‘em up.

What are you memories of touring with Venom?

Tom: That was actually a really good tour because it… it was good for us. You know, you’re young, having fun, you know, you get fucking obliterated, ha ha. Kerry was a fan of Venom, he had their first record, Welcome to Hell. But yeah, when we started out as a band we wrote material but it wasn’t Slayer material. It wasn’t until we listened to Metal Massacre [featuring Metallica & Ratt. Slayer would go on to feature on Metal Massacre III] that we thought: We could be heavier and faster than this shit. So we wrote a song, and just stuck to our guns. Thirty years later we’re still heavy and fast, which is what we always set out to do.

So was there competition between the bands? Who was the heaviest, the fastest, etc.? And was there a point where you thought: Actually, I can’t keep up with these guys?

Tom: There is no competition, ha ha. We’ve looked at it that way, there’s no competition. There’s no comparisons and no competition. Ha ha.

What bands were you listening to at the time, say early- to mid-80s?

Tom: Well, I got turned on to a lot of that material from the guys, when I hooked up with the band. I mean, that was in ‘81. I didn’t know about Maiden. I mean, I was going to school and working at the hospital [as a respiratory therapist], so I wasn’t really focused on the metal scene, I was more familiar with the American rock scene. Kerry said, “Hey, I’ve got a list of songs,” he listed off the bands and I was like, “Hey, who are Iron Maiden?” So I went out and bought it and I was like, (whispers) “Fuuuck, where have I been? This is awesome.” And then all of a sudden, Kerry breaks out Venom records and you start meeting up with other bands, Exodus, and we’d trade tapes. Then we went up north and we met the guys in the band, did shows with them and we’re like, “Fuck, these guys are fast,” not realising that we were fast too. They would go back, “No, YOU guys are fast.’

Kerry: I still fuckin’ love Venom. I don’t play it near as much as I used to, but you know to got back and visit Black Metal, fuck yeah. I love it, love that record. One of the new songs is about Countess Bathory (the track “Countess Bathory” featured on Black Metal) and people say, “You know Venom did that, right?” And I’m like, “Of course I know fuckin’ Venom did that,” ha ha. There’s no reason why if people write about something you can’t write about it as well, just don’t copy their shit. That’s a great song though.

Do you ever hear music and you’re like, “That’s our riff”?

Kerry: Oh shit yeah. Brian Slagel [Metal Blade Records founder] will call me up, we’ll have dinner or whatever and he’ll bring me all the new Metal Blade shit he thinks I might like. I heard Demiricous and I was like, “Fuck, I like it!” And I liked it ‘cos it sounded like us, I even told ‘em when I met ‘em, I was like, “You guys listened to a few Sayer records, huh?” Ha ha. I think everyone’s gotta start somewhere. You look at our first record [Show No Mercy] and I could pick out the Iron Maiden riffs. You gotta start somewhere.

Do you still listen to a lot of metal these days?

Kerry: Pretty much that’s it. I don’t know too much about new bands really; I still call bands like Chimaira and Arch Enemy new bands. They got lots of records you know. They’re a lot newer than us. I like Demiricous but I think they broke up already.

There’s a massive thrash scene again – in LA definitely.

Kerry: Yeah, I’ve got Municipal Waste, they’re kinda more like D.R.I. though. Somebody was telling me about Bonded by Blood and one of their guys gave me a disc and I haven’t seen it since I moved. I gotta find it, it’s supposed to be good.

So, fast forwarding a little, the Clash Of The Titans was another big tour, there was a semi-reunion of sorts earlier this year when you toured with Megadeth again 18 years later?

Tom: People say, “Oh, you said you’d never tour with [Dave Mustaine] again, but hey, it makes good business sense. Kids wanna see that stuff, the promoter was dying to get us to Canada, and Mustaine thanked us for doing it. I was hoping not to see him, but I ran into him, he was like, “Thanks for doing these shows,” and I was like, “Er… sure.”

Kerry: I went in there with an open mind, you know. I’ll always be cordial to Dave, but the instance he’s a dick, I’ll be a bigger dick. I saw him, I think it was the first show, in catering – that was the only time I saw him except when he’s on stage. So, I haven’t talked to Dave yet. The funny thing about that is even more so than Dave is the other guitar player, the only time I saw him was on stage, so I’m like, “Does he just teleport to the stage and get the fuck out?” Ha ha. I never saw that guy.

Speaking of Megadeth, they changed a lot musically in the 90s, along with Metallica, whereas you guys went back to your roots and covered a bunch of punk songs on 1996’s Undisputed Attitude.

Kerry: Definitely an idea we borrowed from Metallica too with Garage Days. Actually, Undisputed Attitude was supposed to be a collection of everything that moulded Slayer into what Slayer was, but in the context of the punk songs it didn’t really make sense. We were working on “Gates of Babylon” from Rainbow, “Burn” by Deep Purple… In the context of the thrash style, instead of punk doing metal, it was metal doing punk, so it kinda gave it more focus, and they were so fucking edgy it made all the other ones sound stupid.

Tom: We stuck true to what we do. Metallica went, and got to a certain level and were like, We’re gonna do it. Ready? Jump! Let’s see what happens! So they crossed over but they kept their fanbase, which was amazing. Dave Mustaine tried to do the same thing, he made the jump but… (mimics a guy clinging on for dear life, grabbing frantically at the sofa’s cushions) he fell off the cliff.

And he’s got his own coffee now.

Tom: Ha ha, right, I guess that’s success!

Were you into the hardcore scene in the 80s?

Kerry: I think we were the band most responsible for bringing the punks and metalheads together. ‘Cos in the beginning you’d see both at our shows and you’d see ‘em in little factions. I think they finally realised, Well, we’re here because we like this music, doesn’t matter if you’re a punk and I’m a metalhead, you know, it’s okay. I think D.R.I. probably did more work for it, after we did the initial work, ‘cos they’re totally metal-punk. I love D.R.I.; I just ran into Spike the other day, I think he said they were doing a reunion, which is kinda cool. I totally remember the days of the factions and you know, fights – fighting just because you’re different, you know?

Did the hair-metallers like you guys?

Kerry: No. They never liked us.

Never?

Kerry: Not really, no.

And you liked that?

Kerry: Absolutely, ha ha. The hair metal guys – the Poisons and the fuckin’ Ratts – were everything we didn’t wanna be.

You think that’s why the Bay Area/LA was such a haven for thrash in the early days, because of the hair metal scene?

Kerry: I dunno. I mean, being in LA, and being not a part of it but being there while all that was going on, it just cemented in stone what I knew I didn’t wanna be. But that’s probably where our black eyeliner came from [Slayer wore eyeliner at early shows]. I remember thinking, Why are girls going to do these shows to see guys dressed up like girls? Way back then it was always a question I always asked myself. So we did everything: we wore black, studs, more like [Judas] Priest, obviously. I dunno where the eyeliner came from, it must’ve been, like, being from LA – you kinda thought you had to do something, and we made ours fuckin’ ugly. First time we went to San Francisco they were all, “Why you wear eyeliner for?” That was the end of it. We never did again.

So, lastly, where do you see yourself after the tour. Making another album?

Kerry: Yep, I think I know what it’s gonna be called. I got ideas for music that I didn’t use on this one. So I definitely wanna work on those in a more relaxed manner than it was this time, ha ha. Looking forward to the tour and even though we’re not booked at any, I’m sure we’ll play some festivals next summer.

Tom: We gotta sit down and work out what we wanna do, this is our last record with Rick Rubin. Record companies aren’t, you know, signing record deals. We lucked out when Rubin said, “We’ll sign you to a ten album deal.” That doesn’t happen anymore. Now it’s, “Let’s do an album,” ha ha. You know what I mean? With us, we guarantee, they know if we put out a record our loyal fanbase will buy our album. So they know that they can guarantee a certain amount of records sold. Whereas with other acts, even with bigger acts, who knows what’s gonna happen, you know? It’s a new world for record companies.

It’s a changing industry – when you started out it was vinyl, now it’s MP3s.

Yeah, yeah, it was vinyl, tapes, CDs. We’ve been together 28 years and we’ve gone through all the formats. It’s funny though, ‘cos we’re sitting here and we’re like, (puts on a serious voice) “In 30 years we’ve gone from vinyl to…” But in a hundred and fifty years, the car has gone from four wheels and an engine to… four wheels and an engine! Ha ha ha.

Ha ha. Well, maybe at the end of your record deal you need to go and reinvent the automobile. By the way, you still in touch with Rick Rubin?

Tom: (Grins widely) Not like I would like to, no, no. I mean we did those three albums [Reign In Blood, Season in the Abyss and South of Heaven] and that was it. He’s got his own thing, producing other people. He does good but he doesn’t really do a lot… but he manages to get what he needs out of people. He did amazing stuff with Johnny Cash, same with Neil Diamond – that album is really great.