Rockezine.com interview with Slayer on Jun 01, 2002

with Kerry King on Jun 01, 2002

After Slayer’s once again ferocious and awe-inspiring show at Ozzfest; I had the chance to sit down with Kerry King and have a nice chat while Tool was playing the background music. He looks refreshed after the wild performance in the full sunlight and teases Jeff Hanneman: “I’ll be damned! Jeff Hanneman is doing an interview!” “Shut up!”. I am glad our editor-in-chief is there for moral backup; ‘cause this man is my big hero and I’m rather nervous I’ll screw up or forget what I wanted to ask. But the fierce bulldog sips his diet coke and smiles amiably. Let’s go, then.
		How did you like the show? Oh, the show was great! Though we had to play in the full sun. I wish the stage was the other way, so the sun was behind us.
		Yeah, you were pretty red in the face... I’ll fuckin’ bet!
		How do you like the Ozzfest? I like it better here, ‘cause we’re higher on the bill than in America. In America we would have played at like 4.30; and that’s way too early. That’s why we’re not doing it in America; we told ‘em we’re not interested; we’ll do our own thing.
		Wouldn’t you rather headline than play in the sun? Definitely; when we come to Holland we do 14.000 by ourselves. We’re not doing all the Ozzfests. In three days we’ll have our last one. Then we’ll headline some festivals ourselves. We’ll play on a handful of other ones, do some club gigs... All kinds of weird stuff just to fill up time in between the big shows. We’ll play till June 15, then we’ll go home for like twelve days, and then we come back and play two-and-a-half more weeks over here.
In America we would have played at like 4.30; and that’s way too early!		How do you like being on the road? I love it now. I used to hate it though, but then I realized: hey, we’re not going to be doing this forever; let’s make the most of it. I’m not going to be playing Angel Of Death when I’m fifty. It won’t translate. So I’m making most of it now.
		What did you hate about being on the road? Well, it was when we started getting more popular and we were on the road all the time. We had just got our own places and we missed all our stuff. And now, I know my stuff’s gonna be there when I come back and I gotta make the most of my career right now.
		If you’re not gonna be playing Angel Of Death when you’re fifty; that means there won’t be another 20 years? I sure hope not! I don’t wanna be Black Sabbath! I don’t want to come back when I’m old and can’t perform like I do now. But when you think about it; Black Sabbath never really did; they always just stood there; except for Ozzy and Geezer. Geezer still goes insane, and Ozzy still goes by, but, you know, they’re not playing Chemical Warfare every night.
That’s what we’re on tour for, just go on stage every night and tear it up!		How do you do that, still play those songs with such intensity every night after twenty years? That’s what it’s about! That’s what we’re on tour for, just go on stage every night and tear it up. That’s what people pay to see.
		How is Slayer now different from the Slayer of Show No Mercy? I have hair on my chin now, ha ha. No, well, you like to think you get better. Of course that’s for other people to decide, but I think I’m better. And I think we think up better songs. But other than that, it’s the same. We still go out there and bust ass for an hour and a half every day, like we did back then.
		How do you look back on that album and that period? Well, to me it’s like a necessary evil, you gotta get your first record out of the way. And then you say, well, I’m not gonna do it like that next time! Of course now, the studios and equipment are much better so it just gets easier every time. We actually recorded some of our early songs on modern equipment, they’ll probably come out in the box set. We did The Antichrist, Haunting The Chapel... and one more, but I can’t remember which one... We’re gonna do some more, there’s gonna be a CD in there called The Metalblade Years. We recorded those first three with Bostaph, before he left, but other than that we didn’t change them.
		Yes, Bostaph left. And Dave (Lombardo, Slayer’s original drummer) is back. Is it just for the tour, or do you have plans for afterwards? Well, he’s on till September, I don’t know about after that.
		And how is it working out between you guys? You didn’t split up as the best of friends. Well, it’s a good thing we haven’t talked in ten years. We don’t hang out that much. You know, he’s got a family, and I know his family doesn’t want him hanging around with us when we’re out partying, and that’s all I do. When I get back to Amsterdam, I’m going to the bars, that’s what Kerry does. No coffeeshops; I only drink.
		And how is your relationship with the other band members after having been together for twenty years? Well, it’s like we’ve been brothers for the last twenty years. We’ll fight now and then, but we get over it.
		You write a lot of Slayer’s lyrics. They’ve always been rather anti-Christian, but in your last album that is even more explicit. Yeah, I chose really good words this time. I don’t buy Christianity. I think it’s all phony and it’s all about money. I think that’s the case with all religions. Of course all I can speak of is America, but there it’s all propaganda about money. “Send us some money, we’ll save your soul.” And I think: what was wrong with my soul in the first place? I don’t have to pay you to make me better. So I can vent that in my lyrics, maybe make people think. But I don’t want to be a preacher or a politician; I don’t want to tell people what to think. I’m just stating my opinions. If you want to listen to it, that’s cool, if you want to believe it, that’s cool, if you want to think I’m full of shit, that’s also cool. I don’t care.
This is Slayer; you gotta make it look like a sociopath is involved here. Nail it shut, put blood on it.		In your last album, God Hates Us All, your lyrics are printed between excerpts from the Book Job in the bible. The Book Job is about someone who questions the righteousness of God. Wow, if the record company knew that, I’d be impressed. We didn’t do that; we were on tour while they were doing the artwork. If somebody thought of that, I’m impressed. Of course while we’re on tour we get the artwork sent to us once in a while and we can say: We like this; or: Change that. They had the idea for the bible on the cover, but their original ideas were stupid, they looked like a third-grader did it. I said: This is Slayer; you gotta make it look like a sociopath is involved here. Nail it shut, put blood on it. The burning was their idea, but we had to point them in the right direction.
		On your last album you sound a bit heavier, slower and groovier than before. Is that a direction you want to take or just the way the songs worked out? Well, I think it’s just the way it worked out. I wrote a lot of it, and I tend to write stuff like that. There definitely was no conscious effort in making it like that.
		Do you still play the guitar every day? Hell no! Ha ha. Just at work. When we’re done with a tour, I don’t pick it up for like a month. And then I suck. But it’s necessary. This, the touring, isn’t life, it’s madness. It’s just crazy rock-star bullshit. Look at my fingers (shows the grooves in his fingers caused by the strings): when I get home, I want these to go away. Of course when I was younger I played more: we were new to it, we wanted to get more products out. Now everybody’s got families, so we need a little bit of time to do family shit. I still listen to music, though. Usually when I’m driving, not so much at the house. Slipknot I like, the heavy stuff. I always play heavy music; it hasn’t seemed to fill me yet.
		What does BC Rich mean to you? You had a short affair with ESP-guitars, but went back to BC Rich. I would never have left BC Rich if they hadn’t sold their company. In the early nineties, they sold their company to this guy that makes shitty guitars. It’s not like I change my mind every five to six years; I’ve always been into BC Riches. So when the family got the company back, they were courting me for like two years trying to get me back. I had a bad taste in my mouth ‘cause they had sold the company before. But I said: Alright, make me a guitar, I’ll see if I like it. And I’ve been playing that ever since.
If there was no Slayer, I’d say 75% of the bands on this bill today would not exist!		How do you look at the metal scene nowadays, and how do you regard Slayer’s position in it? If there was no Slayer, I’d say 75% of the bands on this bill today would not exist. We’ve always been a big influence. Of course we didn’t intend to be, and I don’t pay much attention to it, but so many guys told me that. We don’t think about it. We go on, we’re Slayer, and we’re not done yet. And our position now, well, I don’t think anyone would have thought we would bring out an album like God Hates Us All, and there it is. If you put it on, bam! there it goes. I think it’s important for a band to stay relevant. And we’ve managed to do that somehow. I don’t know how, but we have. To me, it’s all about credibility. I mean, look at Anthrax. They shot themselves in the foot hundreds of times, just being stupid and goofy. You can only stay goofy for so long, and then when you try not to be goofy, people don’t buy it. I told them tons of times: You guys are goofy, man.
		What are your plans for after this tour? We’ll be touring till the middle of September; then we’ll do South America and Japan; so we’ll be gone till the middle of October. Then I’ll start working on new stuff, if I haven’t already. But I don’t really write on tour.
		Will there be a second Decade Of Aggression? No. We got a live DVD coming up, but it has nothing to do with decades and all that. We shot a live DVD in San Francisco last year. It will come out as soon as we think up a name for it, ‘cause I think it’s done.
		You say you don’t want to go on till you’re fifty. Do you have a certain amount of albums in your head that you still want to do, and then finish? Well, I said that because I don’t think it would translate. But if it translates, and I can still do it, maybe I will.
		What’s your personal favourite Slayer album? Probably the new one. This one I’ll be able to listen to years and years after we recorded it. I didn’t listen to Diabolus (In Musica) after we finished that one; I didn’t care. But I like a lot of the stuff on this one. We paid more attention to detail, things worked out the way they should. There were a lot of good ideas on it; not just mine. This is the first one we did with Matt Hyde as a producer. We worked with him on the Dracula soundtrack, and we asked him before we even finished that, to do our next album. I love working with Matt. He’s very persistent and meticulous about getting things right. He doesn’t let us get lazy. I need someone who wants perfection. if I play a part and someone says: Pretty good, then I think it was pretty good. But when he’s not 100% satisfied, he suggests playing it again, so I play it again. He’s very good, and I’d like to work with him in the future.
		For the last few years I’ve been hearing stories about fans carving the Slayer-logo in themselves like on the inside sleeve of Divine Intervention. What do you think about that? That one was done professionally. But I have been at a show where a guy had Slayer carved in his back with a fucking broken beer bottle. It looked really cool, but... Hey, I’m not their dad; it’s not for me to judge them.
		But what do you think about the fact that you have such an influence on people that they actually go and mutilate themselves to show how much they love you? Well, better us then somebody else! I don’t feel responsibility towards those people. People have been scarring themselves up long before Slayer existed. It’s not our responsibility.
		Another thing. You were in the Sum 41-video. How did you end up in there? They were huge fans of Slayer. I think they were on the same label or there were some people involved with them that were also involved with us, I don’t know. They wanted it, and I turned them down for a long time, ‘cause I knew it was kinda rappy. But then somebody said: You know what? Just think of it as the new Beasty Boys, and I thought well, you got a point there. They threw some money at me, and I went and did it.
		Could you imagine a life without Slayer? Hell yeah, if I win the lottery tomorrow I’m done, ha ha ha! No, if I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d still play in Slayer. I couldn’t stop now. And I could never work nine to five after doing this for twenty years. I’ll be in Slayer till I’m too old to play. I have never had any doubts about that.
All my tattoos are pretty cool. I love the one on the back of my head. It’s my favorite one, but I can’t see it myself.		And finally: What do your tattoos mean to you? I think they just add to the Slayer aura, they’re part of the mystique of Slayer: Man, look at Kerry, he’s sick! Look at all those crazy tattoos! You know what I like about this one? (points to the big tribal on his arm) You can be ten thousand people away in an arena and you still can see this one. All my tattoos are pretty cool. I love the one on the back of my head. It’s my favorite one, but I can’t see it myself. I plan to do something on my left arm, maybe like the one on the right, maybe something else, I don’t know yet. But I always take my time to think about it for a long time, ‘cause it’s gonna be there for a long time.
(Tressy Arts)