Only one band who created an entire genre have remained its defining act for almost three decades: Slayer. Mention the hallowed name of these thrash icons to anyone who knows and they’ll instantly pull an anguished face, curl their hands into claws and squeal “SLAYER!!” It’s a rule. You gotta.
On the eve of their tenth studio album
World Painted Blood and in the midst of their monstrous Australian tour with Megadeth, I sat down in the distinguished surrounds of the Langham Hotel to speak to he of the foot-long goatee and nine-inch-spiked gauntlet, the one and only Kerry King.
As he thumbs through a baby pink lunch menu we chat about hipster love, honouring Dimebag Darrell with better solos, terrorising Goths, the dusty old Mustaine feud and why Slayer never started sucking. Prepare yourselves, mortals, for you are in the presence of greatness!
What do you think about the hipster appropriation of Slayer? They don’t dig any other metal but you.
What’s a hipster?
You know, the guys with the slanted haircuts and skinny jeans.
What do we call them? Emos?
I’m talking Greenwich Village kids. You haven’t noticed a demographic change at concerts?
Well, the last two times we played the States we were there with Marilyn Manson so it’s hard to attribute who was there to see us and who was there to see them. Maybe we’ll get an idea next time we tour the States with more of a metal faction.
Did the goth kids run like hell when you started up?
No, they’d sit in the front row and plug their ears until we finished.
Have you ever noticed anyone turn on you? Slayer seem absolutely unimpeachable as a band.
Well, we haven’t changed. We haven’t given anyone reason to doubt. Credibility is a strong thing. Once you got it, it’s my job and my intent to keep it.
Does that stop you changing your sound?
I don’t wanna change. I mean, we certainly grew up. But we could’ve put this record [
World Painted Blood] out in between
Reign [
In Blood] and Seasons [
In The Abyss] and it fits right in with those.
This was the first time you wrote music in the studio…
We always wrote lyrics in the studio. That’s always one of the last parts to get done. So no matter how prepared we are, there’s always at least one song which needs words.
So, do you google serial killers and go for it?
No, I just lock myself in a room and think hateful thoughts [laughs].
But writing in the studio doesn’t leave much room for inspiration.
I don’t really need to be inspired. I’ve just gotta make up something cool. I don’t think we’re an inspirational band. We gotta be in the mood to work on something, yeah. I think with this one we had to finish the record out of necessity because we’d all agreed on this moment in time to have the studio and producer blocked off. When the date was coming I talked to my record guy and said ‘I don’t have any songs.’ So we bumped our studio time two weeks and came up with some stuff.
Slayer- '
World Painted Blood digital press release.'
Did the cramming help?
It made each song more individual than usual because we wrote it in such a condensed period of time. I think me and [other guitarist] Jeff [Hanneman] both went out of our way to make songs sounds completely different from each other rather than making up what we wanted to make up at any given time.
It’s very easy to make songs sound similar. When I wrote the song ‘Americon’ initially I wasn’t even sure if I liked the riff. I was playing it one night in the recording studio and [drummer] Dave [Lombardo] ran in and said ‘What was that?’ So it must be good.
Do you like it now?
I always liked it, I just didn’t know if it was Slayer. When Dave came into play drums I thought ‘Alright, I know what to do with this.’ It’s probably one of the groovier ones that I wrote.
Sorry I’m a little distracted, it’s so funny to see you in this haughty environment.
I know. When we got our keys, inside the envelope there was all this frilly shit.
Okay, back to it. Do you often write stuff and think ‘Ah, that’s not Slayer’?
I might just be messing around on guitar and doing silly shit and never even thinking about Slayer. And I know that right away.
I heard something about you doing a side project with Zakk Wylde and Dimebag before his death.
Dime always wanted me, him and Zakk to do a metal G3 kinda thing. It woulda been fun as hell. But now that can never happen. Zakk’s a busy fucken dude and I’m a busy guy. It’s hard enough for us to sit down and have a drink let alone work on something.
I read that you worked harder on the solos for this album almost in honour of Dime.
I started that with
Christ Illusion. He’s my friend and I look up to him and think of all the people in the world that don’t get to hear any new music from him. I thought to myself ‘Why don’t I be as good as I can be.’ It’s not like I can replace Dime but maybe give the guitar world something to be excited about.
But wouldn’t you always try hard on solos? How do you try harder?
I try to make my leads more memorable, not just rip right through them. On
Christ Illusion, my buddy from Guitar World said, ‘Yeah, you can almost sing along with your leads on this album.’ That carried on for this album but not as much as
Christ Illusion.
You mentioned ‘Americon’ before. Is this an expression of Slayer’s love/hate relationship with America?
No, I love being American. I love being in Australia too. If I win the lottery, I’m getting a second house down here [laughs] I fucken dig it here.
Are there going to be many more albums, since you’re now out of contract with [Rick Rubin’s] American Recordings?
I couldn’t tell you that we’re going to run away from American. If they have the best deal for us, I have no reason to think we wouldn’t stay with them. It’s cool to be able to test the market. I’m not chomping at the bit that we have to get this record out so I can talk to Colombia tomorrow morning, or whoever it might be.
There’s been talk of us doing our own records, but I’m not a big fan of that. It seem like when people put out their own shit the quality goes down. I can’t even think of anybody offhand but it seems that way.
I think a lot of people were worried that Slayer might not be long for this world, even after the gap between God Hates Us All and Christ Illusion.
Well, we put out
War At The Warfield,
Still Reigning, the box set.
But that stuff appears like you’re summing things up.
The reason we did two DVDs back to back is that by the time the first one came out, Dave was back in the band. The DVD comes out and it’s Paul Bostaph playing drums, which is cool, but now everybody wants to see Dave on DVD so we made the next one. It was just a timing thing.
Actually, you’d be a good buy for a record company because metal fans actually buy records.
We sold more records in the nineties. We only chart now because nobody buys records. I’ll probably never see another gold record and I’m not offended by that. It’s just a different marketplace. What it is now is about people coming to the shows. Because, however they get your music, the only way they can see you personally is to come to the show. And a lot of those kids buy shirts. And they’re overpriced motherfuckers, those shirts. It’s a favoured nations kind of thing – if one band sells it for that price, every band has to.
Everyone knows about the beef with you and Dave Mustaine, so how has the Megadeth tour been going?
It’s a funny thing. There was a Slayer-only issue of Revolver magazine and I saw some old pictures of ‘Clash Of The Titans’ and I sat and thought about it. It was such a big stink in the media and I thought ‘I bet you I haven’t talked to that guy in ten or fifteen years’. Even though we toured Canada, I didn’t see him during those four shows.
You’re kidding.
No. First time I saw him was when we were coming over here, he was leaving the aeroplane lounge and I was going in and I said ‘Hey Dave, what’s up? What has it been, fifteen years since I spoke to you?’ [Laughs] Whatever the beef was, he’s a professional stick-his-foot-in-his-mouth motherfucker.
Look, I think it’s cool that these two bands can play together. I don’t think Australia has ever seen anything this metal. The Canadians have dug it. I think it’s great for the fans because we haven’t played together since ‘Clash Of The Titans’. It’s cool that two bands who were around then can still be relevant enough to make it cool now.
Andrew Tijs
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World Painted Blood
will be released on November 3 on Sony Records.