Interview: Tom Araya, Dave Lombardo, & Kerry King, Slayer

US thrash titans SLAYER believe that metal is a winner with the kids. That's why they're coming back with a cranium-crunching double live album and tour to follow. Marion Garden flicks the on switch as they open up and spill the beans...

Tom Araya, Dave Lombardo, Kerry King

TITANIC AGGRESSION

The setting was unlikely, a regal (well Princess Diana and Lisa Minelli were there a few nights later) hotel with a swanky bar. The sort of bar where the piano has no one playing it, but the keyboard keeps tinkling along in time to the bartender shaking Martinis. I was expecting Tom Araya and Kerry King. They were late and their arrival was heralded by Tom entering the bar, tapping his feet in a brief two-step, and loudly singing along to the ghostly accompanist. The dowagers by the window sipping their gin and tonics were startled. I was surprised to see Dave Lombardo with them. Apparently, unbeknown to either Tom or Kerry, or even the record label, Dave had just arrived on his own to join in the interview sessions.

In the UK to do advanced press work for their latest offering, a double live opus called Decade of Aggression, we took a table near the smug-looking bar man. Kerry, wearing a football shirt, sunk back in his chair and relaxed. His beard is shaved to give the effect that some one has scratched lines out of it down both cheeks. Tom, hair shorter than I remember, and pulled back, has amazing teeth that you can't help but focus your eyes on as he talks. Dave was distracted, hungry for food. He was informed by the staff that food wasn't allowed in the bar area. Martini Man gave him Japanese rice crackers instead. Poking at them, Dave did not look thrilled.

Kerry spoke first:

"This hotel is too nice I don't like this ritzy hotel."

"Ah," Tom defends, "it's just their way of saying we've worked hard and deserve it.

And so we start to talk about Slayer and hard work and the new LP.

Tom:

"Decade of Aggression is all live, there is no new stuff at all on it either. It has some of the Wembley show, but mostly has an entire show we did in Florida."

Kerry:

"Rick Rubin wasn't involved much. It was a live project, and we knew what to do. I might have seen him once."

Tom sets Kerry straight:

"No, you never saw him. I did. I saw him once for about 20 minutes, if that. He had other things he had to do. We told them his name should not go on the LP."

Kerry:

"Yeah, I said this to sales one day, 'how come it's produced by Rick and Slayer when Rick was there for maybe 5 minutes?'"

Surprised that there was no new material on the LP, I had Kerry explain:

"No, it's just stuff off the last 5 LPS. Realistically we won't have a new LP of new songs until late '92, in time for Christmas. That's pretty good really because we had said we were going to take 4 years off. It's been mentioned we should start writing now. We're alike, no way, take a pill."

Quiet up to now, Dave stops picking at the rice crackers:

"It's the way things flow. We call our own shots so why not?"

Having established the fact that Slayer are not planning to release any new material for quite some while, I asked about singles.

Kerry:

"A lot of the time singles are just junk!! Songs that didn't make the record. For example, the new ANTHRAX LP Attack of the Killer B's is nothing. You can't put that out, and then they did. It's capitalising on the market and we don't capitalise. What we put out is what you get."

Tom:

"We are putting the 'Blood Pack' out over here though (previously only available in the US). It's unusual, it's limited, it's personal. It's something we can insist on being original. I don't even have one. When it comes out here, it is going to be limited, and when we say limited we mean limited. When we were on Metal Blade they released a Live Undead picture disc that was supposed to be limited but they kept on selling them. That really bummed me out, it was for that purpose and nothing else, and they blew that idea out of the water."

Kerry:

"The thing I like about it is that it is collectible. They are just making a few 'Blood Packs' selling them, not churning them out. If you want one, go and get it, because they are going to be gone the next day."

At this point the interview ground to a halt as a group of people invaded the bar. It was the WHITNEY HOUSTON Road crew.

"Hey, you are the Slayer guys. Remember me, I used to do your monitors for you years back when we were all still kids really!"

The streetwise-looking road crew member approaches the table. After a surprise reunion, much begging by the Slayer table to get to meet Whitney, and amazement that their old acquaintance was Miss Whitney's monitor man, the talk continued.

Slayer have definite ideas on the US "Clash of the Titans" tour and their co-stars on the event. When asked about the "Clash" tour and would they ever do a similar tour again, Kerry was adamant:

"Yeah, I enjoyed it, but if we did another Clash style tour we would have to be labelled as the Clash band. I thought we owned it in the first place."

Dave:

"I read all the clippings. People were saying we stole the show. I was like, 'We did?', but I kept hearing it."

"It's true," Tom breaks in, "when we were here in the UK we headlined, but in America we rotated the bill. But it doesn't matter where we play, we still get the same response. Whether it is first or last, no one has died yet. They only die after we play."

There were reports from the US Clash tour which quoted MEGADETH's Dave Mustaine as saying Slayer were inconsistent. When I put this to them, everyone at the table started to talk at once.

Tom:

"It doesn't matter what Dave Mustaine says about us, because he considers us the best live band there is. And if we are the best live band there is, how can we be inconsistent every night?? We quote him in our promotional things. 'Dave Mustaine says Slayer overall is the best live band.'"

Now that the name of Mustaine has come up, the Dave stories start to fly thick and fast. As they warm to the topic, their laughter and enthusiasm grows.

Dave:

"Utah was cool! It was a raceway and that was the place where it rained on Megadeth's whole set."

The laughter from the table is reaching a pitch.

Tom:

"It was clear weather from ALICE IN CHAINS through Anthrax, and then Megadeth went out there, it started to sprinkle. They did one song and stopped. Mustaine said something about 'Mother Nature better not rain on us,' and then it poured. It rained the whole set, and when they were done it stopped. Then we went on, and the sky was clear and it was the perfect evening. At Alpine Valley there was a huge hill of sod behind the seats..."

Dave interrupts:

"...the kids were all spinning around on the grass and they were grabbing lumps off it and throwing it at Mustaine. They got him right in the face once! He walked off the stage."

Tom:

"He got hit in the face, hit in the nuts, he got hit everywhere that he could," he flashes a most wicked grin. "They were bombarded, there was sod and dirt everywhere on the stage. We get things thrown at us sometimes but we don't care."

"It's an attitude," Kerry says. "Megadeth's manager said to me that night to 'watch out, there are flying things out there.' I said, 'Hey man, a lil grass never hurt me'."

The all round consensus at this point was to walk off the stage was the worst way to deal with a rowdy crowd.

Dave:

"It's dumb to walk off the stage. It is just fuel to the fire."

Kerry:

"I think it is good when all the kids are out there and they think they are defying you, throwing shit at you. You are defying them by playing through it all. It's like, 'come on man, fuck you, you aren't going to hurt me!'"

Most of the big tours in the US didn't do very well this year. Blamed mainly on the recession that has also hit America, Slayer have another idea on why the stadium box office draw was low.

Tom:

"The Clash of the Titans tour was one of the few tours that made any money and did well this year."

Kerry:

"It was an event. It is not because of the recession that tours are doing so poorly, it is because they are lame. I mean DAVID LEE ROTH was cancelled."

Dave:

"Kids don't like it anymore. They want balls, not this aah, aah (high pitched rock wailing) stuff. Everything branches off. After us there is going to be something else new."

Tom:

"He's right...it is a new generation of kids, they want a new sound. Kids are growing up to metal now. When we grew up it was PRIESR. Now kids grow up to us, Anthrax, and Metallica. It's a new breed of kid, and it is a change in the times. That is why those tours didn't do very well. Like, the NINE INCH NAILS did well, I think they are awesome. They had a phenomenal response on their US tour. Kids are moving in other directions, to heavier more aggressive music."

Decade of Aggression is exactly that: live, raw, and brutal. Recorded over a variety of shows, it combines the barest amounts of mixing and producing to preserve the original live sound and quality.

Kerry:

"The only edits are in between songs because Tom rambles on sometimes and says a lot of unnecessary shit. There is absolutely no overdubs on it, though. The gig on the majority of the LP was recorded in Lakeland, Florida, and it was a great fuckin' show. No one would expect it from there. On the tape before we mixed it, the crowd was drowning out my lead, it was so loud."

"We wanted a genuine response," Tom continues. "They wanted us to hand out flyers before saying the show was being recorded live, but we said 'why?' This is a live recording so let's get a live response. No one knew we were recordimg and the audience was awesome."

Now that Slayer have announced dates here for early November, we will get a chance to see their stage show, which they assured me was the best yet.

Kerry:

"Our Clash of the Titans show in the US was the best we have ever had. We requested the lights called Vari lights. They are computer controlled movable lights. Nobody else on the tour even wanted to use them, but once we got them out then everybody wanted them. Those lights are so cool... I would never do a show without them."

Dave:

"They all said it was too expensive, but we wanted them so it was up to us to get them in. Once we had them, they all wanted to use them. They just didn't want to spend the money."

Tom:

"We won't do any one else's songs, we won't have any guests, we do our own shit and it is not going to change."

Kerry:

"That's right, inviting people in your band is a sham It's like there is no buzz around you anymore so you invite someone to guest with you on a song that has a buzz. So then you are popular for a while. It's crap!"

Being a major and influential band, a lot of people may be inclined to copy Slayer's ideas.

"I think some people and bands have been artificially inseminated by Slayer," is how Kerry describes the rip-offs.

But Slayer have part of the copying and bootleg problem figured out. The band is espouse the "boot the boots" attitude that FRANK ZAPPA adheres to.

Dave:

"It's flattering in a way that they tape you and copy you. If you are popular, it is all part of the business. I've bought bootlegs before as a kid. The best thing to do is to put out something better than what they have. It's like we bootleg t-shirts, we steal their ideas."

Tom:

"A lot of the shirts we see that are bootlegs we get our people to do a copy of it, but only better. They do it to us so we do it back. What else can you do? With tapes, as long as I get one I don't care."

Kerry:

"If we see someone tape in our shows on video, though, we will send someone out to confiscate the tape. We won't destroy the camera, but we will take the tape."

After touring here and Europe, when will slayer be back next? Could Donington be a possibility? Are they interested in playing a show that is a British institution?

Choosing his words carefully, Tom explained the Donington dilemma:

"We would love to play Donington, but we understand Donnington doesn't like metal. I'd like to play there but apparently the person who puts together Donington thinks metal isn't a very good piece of music, and would prefer rock to metal. I think, given the chance, if we played, we would be just as good as any other band. I have asked, and I have been told he doesn't like metal. He's let Anthrax and Metallica play... Obviously we aren't considered the type of band to play. I consider the organizers wimps! They put up restrictions and don't give us the opportunity."

This is a major disappointment for Slayer fans, who will have to console themselves with their November appearances with MIND FUNK. A video collection should be released here to accompany the LP but they seemed unsure of when, or of what exactly. They were sure of one thing that it would be live.

Kerry:

"If we did a concept video, it wouldn't get played anywhere. It would be a personal video. It will be like 'there it is, it's ours, take it or leave it'."

Marion Garden
Riff Raff
November 1991