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SLAYER: THE HEAVIEST OF HEAVY… |
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by Tom Lounges
Singer/bassist Tom Araya laughs aloud as our interview begins with light dialogue about how some rocker will ultimately stand up and yell –– “SLAYER!” –– at some poor, confused bar band trying to fumble their way through a watered down version of “Mustang Sally.” “Yeah! That’s great! It seems to be a prerequisite to a Slayer fan. Do they do that before or after they yell out for ‘Freebird’? It seems they always yell out one or the other...or both.” By the time we have settled in to the interview, Araya and I have decided that Slayer needs to do their own cover of “Freebird,” and thus kill two birds with one stone. Such a recording would be an instant classic, in the same manner as Slayer’s take on Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”, from the Less Than Zero film soundtrack. “Us doing that was actually a suggestion from Rick Ruben [head of the band’s record label, American],” explained Araya. “They wanted us to do a song for the movie and Ruben suggested we cover that. We were all like -- ‘Yeah...that would be cool!’ –– because that is THE metal song of all time. So it only made sense that THE metal band do it. The original is one of the longest songs in history, so we did it and made it one of the shortest.”
“It’s an ever-changing set list on this tour,” said Araya. “We tend to keep switching songs around, but it’s mostly a classic Slayer selection of songs I would say.” Once Ozzy’s traveling circus wraps up for this season in September, Slayer will off to assault Europe on a double-bill with current OzzFest tour mates, Slipknot. Then they come back and rock their asses back across America through the holidays, courtesy of tour sponsor, Jagermeister. Of course, longtime fans of the band are thrilled that Slayer’s original drummer Dave Lombardo is again back on the throne beating the hell out of his double kick drums on those vintage tunes. Lombardo’s return to the ranks with Araya, along with guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman, makes the OzzFest Slayer line-up all original. “We just resolved the personal issues that had come up after we finished the Seasons In The Abyss tour,” Araya said of Lombardo’s return, after spending the last few years slamming behind Chuck Billy in Testament. “Things are all good in the Slayer camp,” said Araya, noting that the band’s manager reached out to Lombardo to see if he might show some interest in hitting the road with the band drummer, Paul Bostaph (who replaced Lombardo in the line-up) wrapped up the sessions for God Hates Us All. “Dave did the tour with us while we started auditioned drummers. During the course of touring, we started to communicate again real well. When Dave mentioned that he would be excited to work on the next Slayer album with us, we immediately stopped auditioning drummers,” explained Araya. God Hates Us All has been a very successful album, that stands well within their proud cannon of molten metal. It earned Slayer their first Grammy nomination in the “Best Heavy Metal Album” category. Though TOOL ultimately took the statue home that night, Araya said –– “I was very honored by the nomination, because for Grammys, you are in the company of your peers to some extent. They are the ones who vote for you.” God Hates Us All was started when the band got off the road from the 1999 Ozzfest and it hit retail in mid-2001, while the band was on the Extreme Steel Tour with Pantera. Fans are understandably itching for Slayer to get back in the studio and lay down some new metal. According to Araya, an album will be forthcoming in 2005. “Right now we are working on a new DVD [“Reign In Blood: Still Reigning”] and we hope to have that wrapped up soon and then to start recording sometime early in the new year,” he said. “We have like 11 or 12 songs written. We’re just waiting for [producer Rick] Ruben to get his things in order and then we’ll start recording.” Catch SLAYER at OZZFEST SATURDAY, AUGUST 21 at the TWEETER CENTER at Tinley Park, Illinois |
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If there
were ever one band that embodied and defined the music we call “heavy
metal”, that band would be SLAYER!
Slayer is currently
busting out nearly an hour’s worth of vintage music, and some new
numbers from their latest CD, God Hates Us All, when on
the main stage of this summer’s OzzFest.