Rockezine.com interview with Slayer on Sep 29, 2001

with Tom Araya on Sep 29, 2001

"The Slaytanic Wehrmacht strikes once again!" On Saturday the 29th of September, REZ had the chance to talk to Slayer frontman Tom Araya right before their performance at the Tattoo The Planet event in Den Bosch. With a great new album out these four thrash metal musicians have once again proven to be the best within their genre. We had a very friendly 40 minutes conversation with Tom, so have fun reading this interview…
		Hi Tom. How was the show last night in Paris? Good. We played the Bercy and I think it was sold out. It seemed like the people enjoyed our show. The seats were kind of empty but everybody was on the floor. We started this Tattoo thing in Germany, Düsseldorf and stuff. We`ll also do a show in Danmark by ourselves, without the other bands. We travel together and on days off we do our own shows.
		Pantera, Static X and Vision Of Disorder decided to cancel their participation because of the tragedy on the 11th of September. What`s your opinion on their decision not to play and what`s your feeling looking back at what happened in your country? They`re gonna do what they do. I can`t speak for these bands. I think what happened was pretty fucked up. That`s about it. That explains it all. I think it was something that everybody saw. It was on every fucking channel the minute it became news. I was figuring out what I was watching at 8.30 in the morning. At first I thought it was in Florida, for some reason. Then the second plane crashed into the other tower and I thought I was looking at a replay. I`m sure that the ones who did this are gonna pay for it. I guarantee it. CNN wasn`t overreacting anything, they just put their cameras on the scene. I remember those two reporters talking that it might have been an accident. Hell no, it wasn`t. It`s a general feeling back home. There`s this song on the new album called "Pay Back". It relates to this feeling.
		Just like the lyrics from "Disciple" do ("Pessimist, terrorist targeting the next mark. Global chaos, feeding on hysteria")? Yeah, it all happened on the day we released the album. It`s pretty scary. We didn`t know anything about it, believe me.
		We read that you`ll be playing some extra songs tonight because 3 bands cancelled their gigs. Any suprises? We`re gonna play something like an hour and a half. We usually don`t play that long. We normally play an hour and ten minutes. Then we`re tired, haha. There might be some suprises, but well focus on the favourites. So you`ll know what that means. There are songs everybody wants to hear and so we`ll play them. It`s a bit frustrating sometimes, playing "Angel Of Death" over and over again. But, you`re gonna hear our new stuff too, haha! We try to combine the favourites from the fans with the ones we love to play the most ourselves. Actually, personally I`d like to play all our new songs tonight. They`re all good songs, up beat. It`s really driving. More driving than the previous records we have done. To me that`s good, it wears me out. It tires me out sometimes, haha.
		That`s exactly why your new record got a 9 out of 10 score in my review, because of the intensity. I missed it on your previous albums. Especially your vocals sound very furious and `in your face`. How do you get this emotion on tape in the studio? Thanks for the cool review, I appreciate that. You just do what you have to do and do it right, haha. You do it untill you feel that it is something that sounds convincing. That`s basically it. We spend too much time in the studio on this one. The first three weeks we did the drums, then the guitars, bass and vocals & the leads. I spend three or four weeks working on the vocals which was cool. I was able to rechannel my energy and it all worked out really well.
		Tom, you co-wrote three lyrics on this new album. Please tell us something about this… Well, "Bloodline" is basically about vampires, the whole Dracula thing. But it`s also a connection we all have, as human beings. We all bleed the same colour. That`s eternal and will be forever. "God Send Death" is a song Jeff wrote that I helped him with. There`s this guy at a very young age, he meets a girl and falls head over heals with her. Then she betrayes him. He kills her and after some time he seeks forgiveness. He can`t find this and he ends up praying to God to send death, to kill him. He just can`t live with the fact that he killed that girl. It`s a really neat story. Maybe I should not give too much of that away, because it`s a really cool story. The other song I co-wrote is "Deviate". Shit, I can`t remember that one anymore. Sorry about that.
		We hope you`re not gonna have to sing this song tonight! No no. Lucky me, haha.
		When we take a look at the cover of the new CD, we see a bible with nails in it and blood on the cover. Is this to shock or is it because you dislike organised religions, blindly followed by many people? We dislike organised religion. There`s nothing wrong with religion or what it stands for. All the members in the band believe in something one way or another. It`s just the organisation of religion, we don`t like that. Read the lyrics from "New Faith" or "Disciple", you`ll know what we stand for. Have you seen the white sleeve from the new record with the four crosses? These four crosses represent the members in the band. They all point in different directions. It`s very symbolic for what the situation within the band is. We first wanted to put only one cross on the sleeve, but this is way better. There`s four people in the band who all have their own views. Because the chorus part of "Disciple" sounded so good, we decided it to become the albumtitle. That`s all there is. It`s a really cool phrase, "God Hates Us All" and it covers a lot of the stuff on the record. You could put a deep meaning into it if you want and problably get a lot out of it, but to us there`s nothing there. There`s no hidden meaning. And what if we`ll get a lot of shit for this? Well, we`ll cross that bridge when we get to it. There hasn`t been any censorship I know of untill now. But, the album has this white cover on it, so no one is really saying anything. I think if it was visible, it would have been a bigger problem.
		Most of the songs on the new CD are up tempo, but not as fast as your songs used to be. Is there a special reason for this? Oh man, everybody says that. Well, let me tell you one thing: our mid tempo on average is up tempo for everybody else!
		Wait a minute, Tom. This wasn`t meant in a negative way. By lowering the fast Slayer tempo just a bit, the songs become much heavier and driving. It shows on this new record… Okay, it`s cool. You`re right, it gets groovier lowering the tempo a bit.
		Have you already written some new material for a next album? No, we don`t write on the road. Once we get home, everybody goes seperate ways to spend some time alone. Then we`ll all start writing and come up with ideas and stuff. We`ll send our material to each another and then start working from there. I`ll try and come up with the vocal melodies by singing `nothing`. I just create a certain sound, a melody without actually singing any real words. It sounds a lot like the first Cannibal Corpse album, haha. After a while, you put words to it which fit really well to the music. That`s the way I work.
		Slayer has been around for almost 20 years now. Did you ever think that such an extreme band -even within the metalscene- would ever come this far? And how did you experience the growing popularity throughout the years? It has been a new experience every time. I`m amazed. 20 years… Someone said it to us before we even realised it. "20 years? Oh, right." This is our 9th album, crazy. It`s not something we think of. We just go on. We do one thing at a time. Right now we do this tour and we`re not thinking about a new record or anything like that. When we get an album done we just tour and then go home. After a while, we call each other and start working on a new album. We are fortunate enough to make a living out of Slayer for the past 12 years or so. We feel very lucky. When we started with the first album in 1983, we just worked very, very hard. As the years go on, things get better every time. When I go home, I`m with my family. I try and spend as much time with them as possible, because I`m never home. When I have some time for myself, I love to read, watch a movie and relax a bit. Reading is good for getting ideas to use in my lyrics.
		Are there any songs, records, shows or tours that stand out when you look back? Recently, we did 4 shows in Australia and these were very special to all four of us. The shows all had the same electric, high energy. We don`t know what it was, but there was a lot of electricity in the air. Every crowd has a different feeling and it reflects on our performance. I think Slayer still shows a steady growth as far as writing and performing are concerned. It`s a slow growth, but it`s there. People still ask us questions about the "Reign In Blood" album and this makes us feel proud. I don`t know what to say, I have no words. It`s become a classic album and this is cool. I think "Reign In Blood" is one of our many masterpieces, haha. No serious, I mean that. It`s an honest opinion. It`s a strange thing, knowing that almost every metalhead has got this record at home. It`s cool. I`m amazed, I`m suprised. I never expected it. Look at this Tattoo The Planet thing, we`re actually headlining this huge event. Cool, isn`t it? We think that every day is a new day. That`s the only day we got. We just go on doing what we do best and don`t look back too often.
		Tom, thanks very much for your time. Our last question: what do you think is the position of Slayer in the current metal scene and do you think the scene is healthy? Our position in the scene? With this new record? I think we`re in a leading position, haha. There`s a lot of new stuff out there but our new album is better than that. We have the real energy. For the next 4 or 5 years, all the new bands are challenged to top this record, haha. Blackmetal? Bands like Cradle Of Filth do what they do, they have their own show. I watch their gigs and they`re okay. There`s a concept and it works well for them. They have an audience. To me, there`s only one band that does get me everytime when I see them and that`s Alice In Chains. They had this great energy, it could never go wrong. I haven`t really seen too many bands live lately. We toured with Pantera and I really liked their show, they`re a good band. My wife listens to Pantera all the time, haha.
		(Johan Godschalk)