Interview with Slayer
From Kerrang! (UK), June 2000

The sound of explosions fills the night sky and a faint whiff of gun powder hangs in the air. Above us, flashes of red, orange and yellow bathe the surrounding neighbour hood like multi coloured strobe lights.

"Don't they look cool,",grins Slayer vocalist/bassist Tom Araya, staring up at the spectacle as his band mates nod in agreement.

Thankfully, were not caught up in the middle of some hellish war zone, Nope the flashes and bangs are nothing more sinister than the early evening fireworks display at nearby Disneyland - the world famous theme park lies less than a mile away from the small Anaheim industrial estate that houses Slayer's rehearsal studio. The quartet - completed by guitarists KK and JH and drummer PB - have spent the past few weeks in the studio, preparing themselves for their forthcoming support slot on Iron Maiden's Metal 2000 extravaganza at Earl's Court Olympia on June the 16th. They've also been using the opportunity to work on songs for their eighth studio album, due out later this year. "We've got six or seven songs waiting for words right now," reveals Tom.

Can we expect demonic tales of war and carnage? "Of course there will be gratuitous shit like that," scoffs Kerry. "We gotta do it. Who else is gonna do it?" But that's not why were really here. Nope, we're here to find out what life is like for the worlds most extreme band - the drugs, groupies, the politics and the over flowing toilets. Deep breath. Here goes...

TOUR STORIES...

"We used to hate touring" says Kerry. "It used to be the exact opposite of the way it is now. We had some early success and we finally had stuff in our homes that we didn't wan't to leave behind: 'You mean I just got all this new shit and I gotta leave it at home?'. Nowadays taht's old news - we just want to play".

Was touring really uncomfortable in the early days? "We were dealing with a lower class of promoter then", smiles Tom "The first time wewent on the road we had freind who handled the job of getting money from the club owners, but sometimes I had to do it. "I remeber we were at L'Amour's in Brooklyn. The guys there were Italian, and I went up to their office and they said to me, 'You packed the house! Here's your money'. I looked at what they had given me and it was a wad of money all rolled up. I looked at it and looked at the two guys and I quickly said, 'Thanks!'. They asked me if I was going to count it, and I said mildy, 'I trust you!', And I got out of there fast.

"We never faced anybody down," says Kerry. "I'm sure that some people were scared of our music, and that kept us out of quite a few venues in the early days. But we never walked in anywhere and said, 'I'm in Slayer, give me fucking five bottles of vodka!'."

KINGS OF METAL...

According to Slayer, there isn't one single band coming up from the underground that they see as a threat to their extreme metal throne. "There ain't no fuckin' throne here," laughs Kerry. "If there is, bring it here and I'll sit on the motherfucker!" "Sure there is," contradicts Hanneman "It's in the bathroom." "That actually is the Slayer throne," admits Kerry. "Shit was running out of it onto the floor the other day," laughs Jeff Tom Araya smiles. "Our throneth overfloweth!".

THE SPORTING LIFE...

Slayer are all huge fans of sport. Tom loves soccer, Jeff watches Hockey whenever possible, Paul is an avid American Football follower and Kerry is a die-hard wrestilng fanatic. It was this which inspired the song 'Here Comes The Pain', which Slayer conributed to the Wrestling album. "Fuck yeah, man," he booms. "Wrestling has become really cool now. I even get people coming up to me in airports asking me if I am a wrestler. No one comes up to me and asks me if I'm in a band any more man."

THE HARD STUFF...

Slayer might be more than happy to wax lyrical about death and murder, but the topic of drugs hardly ever rears it's haed. Until now that is. But while KK says that he avoids all narcotics, Jeff and Tom admit that they have dabbled in various cheap highs. "Back in the '80's, we were doing rat poison!" cackles Jeff. "It was like 'try this!' and I would say 'sure'." "Yeah," Tom hoots." 'Let me have some of that! You don't know what it is? I don't care! It'll kill ya? Great!." "I quit smoking pot when we started this band," Jeff recalls. "I'd come up with all these riffs, and then I'd get stoned and listen to them and go, 'What was I thinking?'. So I was like get rid of the pot!' "In the early days," he continues, "it was beer and cocaine, but we couldn't always afford coke, so I like said, let's do 'rat poison', which was basically crank (crstal meth). I'ts bad coke really." Kerry King shakes his haed at his bandmates' recollections. "I never did drugs," he says "I'm a drinker." "He'd watch me and Jeff and think to himself, 'I ain't goin' there!'," laughs Tom.

A NEW BREED

Slayer took metal's intensity and speed to new levels with their landmark 'Reign In Blood' and 'South Of Heaven' albums. Is anyone out there pushing the envelope in the same way?

"People are just into different shit now," believes Kerry. " I don't think it's meaningful for a band to come out and just go through the wall at top speed." "A few years ago, there were these 'Slayer Babies'," says Jeff. "We'd do interviews and say, 'Do your own thing man. Don't copy us, we've done that'. These days we don't have to say that because people are mixing up rap with metal and whatever else. That's cool with me." "I've probably got the biggest blinkers out of all of us," says KK. "But I'll listen if I hear people telling me to check something out, if they think I'll like it. When we were on Ozzfest last year, people were telling me how fucking cool Slipknot were. I'm like, 'Man, it's all a fucking gimmick. Fuck them'. Then the tour ends and Slipknot are exploding, so I go 'I gotta listen to this'. And I was like 'OH', stupid fucking me, I said that they were a gimmick before I had even listened to them, and thats totally like me to do that."

GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS...

Are there groupies at Slayer shows? "I'm sure there are," smiles Tom, "but we never see them." "After the shows, we'll try and sign as much stuff as possible for the fans," explains Kerry. "But if there's 50 people there, then there'll be 49-and-a-half guys and half a chick. And by the time we've finished, she'll have run off." Interestingly, both Jeff and Tom met thier wives at a Slayer gig, while Kerry met his second wife at a Pantera show. "I guess they all knew who we were," laughs Tom. "Hey, it pays to be popular."

BAITING THE BIBLE BASHERS...

It's easy to upset the moral majority. Just stick scenes of satanic imagery on your album covers - and bingo - you'll have veritable hoarde of Christians blockading the doors at your shows. It's a scenario Slayer are more than familiar with. "We've been picketed for walking down the street the wrong way!" laughs Kerry. But have you regretted any of the uproar that youv've caused? "Fuck no man!" snorts Tom. "We do what we do, because we like it," says Jeff. "And if we get that kind of reaction from somebody, that's a bonus. We pissed some people off! Alright!" Still, has it ever gotten more serious than protests? Have there been threats to you person? (There's an uneasy silence) "I know Tom has," says Kerry finally. "Our management and record company never told us about it," says Tom darkly. "It was my parents. They called my parents house and kept telling them that they had a bullet with my name on it." "I remember the first time that someone aimed a laser pointer at me," says Kerry. "I thought it was a gun, and I was thinking, 'Well, if you're gonna to shoot me, shoot me and stop making me think about it', you know?"

DONT MENTION THE WAR...

"In the early days, we got in trouble for the supposed 'neo-nazi' stuff, when we were just simply 'documenting' things," sighs Jeff. "I've got a new song about the Coloumbine shootings, and school shootings in general. But even if I just document it, from the view point of the kids being frightened, or from the viewpoint of the shooter, I'm sure people are going to take it the wrong way." Since you've brought this up, Mr Hannemann, what's behind your fascination with Nazi war memorabillia ? "I don't know exactly when I started, but my dad was in WWII, and he gave me the Nazi medals that he collected," he shrugs. "I thought it was kind of cool. In the late eighties and early nineties, I collected a lot of stuff, but now I'm pretty much burned out on it. My dad and my two brothers were in wars, and I guess I grew up with war stories. It's just sick stuff to read about." Do you talk about them with your fellow collector, Lemmy of Motörhead? "Oh yeah! I haven't seen his collection, but we've talked about it. He's apparently had a lot of it stolen from his home, when he was away. He's not sure if it was the cops, because it was missing after someone had broken into his home, and the police had been there looking at it!"

MUSIC AND POLITICS...

For all thier opposition to censhorship, Slayer admit that they're decidedly conservative when it comes to politics. "Everybody sould have a gun," says Kerry, when the issue of gun control is broached. "If you take guns away, all the fucked-up people are going to have guns, so what's the point?" The song 'Dittohead' on 'Divine Intervention' album is also a reference to the followers of popular right-wing American chat-show host, Rush Limbaugh, whose fans are all self-proclaimed 'dittoheads'. "Me and Paul used to share a room together, and we'd wake up hungover and watch TV, and Limbaugh would be on," says King. "I just took that title to write about every thing I was seeing on TVV, like the OJ Simpson trial, and the Mendez Brothers trial. All the stupid fucking things going on back then in America that showed how many holes there are in our legal system." Still, Kerry maintains that politics and music should be remain mortal enemies. "I actually didn't intend 'Dittohead' to mean anything specifically. I'm tottaly against political music, because fans are already so blinded by thier fucking idols. It doesn't promote free thought and I ain't here preaching to you. Free thought is what life is all about to me." "And the rest of your fans who do have an opinion," adds Jeff, "they don't want to go see thier favourite band and have the opposite opinionspewed at them. I didn't want that when I went to see bands. Just give me the music, the screaming, and let me run around the pit!"

THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES...

The band howl with laughter when asked if they've seen an increase in the number of women attending their concerts. It's obvious that we're not talking 50 percent share of the audience being female here... "Fifty?!" howls Kerry. "In our dreams! Try five!" To what do you attribute this lack of feminine intrest? "Well, I guess all those love songs we wrote didn't work," ponders Jeff. "Yeah", nods Kerry , his tounge firmly in his cheek. "Bands like 'N Sync came out and perfected what we were trying to do all along. But then again they've probably got five guys at thier concerts. Pantera get far more chicks than we do." Maybe you should write a song called 'This Love'? "Your'e right," he agrees. "they said 'love' just enough times in one of thier songs to get chicks in. You know, we went to Slipknot's concert a few days ago and they had lenty of girls in the crowd, and they were fucking singing along to every word." It's the masks. It means there's some mystery there... "You tryin' to say that we're ugly?" growls Kerry, his brow furrowing. "Yup, that's what he's sayin'," nods Jeff in agreement.

Gulp. Is that the time...

Kerrang! - June 3rd 2000