When the first fans were being let through the
doors, I saw a pair of zonked-out stoner crusties look
at each other and scream, "Slayer!" and make a mad
dash for the stage to await the impending pandemo-
nium. I knew this was no ordinary event. I was led
into a room where bassist Tom Araya explained what
Slayer has been up to for the last couple of years.
-Jake Phelps
How long did it take you guys to write the songs for
Divine Intervention?
We ran into all that shit with Dave, and then we took
time out because we're a band that likes to be really
tight on stage, so it took several months to really
rehearse the material we were going to play for the
shows. It was only a fifty minute set, but we wanted to
make sure we were tight. We had to sound like Slayer,
not Slayer playing with a different drummer.
Who writes all the music for the songs?
Kerry and Jeff. They write musically, Kerry works with
Paul on the music, and then whenever they get some-
thing complete, I come in with the lyrics, try to put in
my two cents of evil in it.
Do you guys have your own recording studio?
No. We should, though. For as much time as we
spend on material, we should have our own studio.
You don't use Marshalls, do you?
No, I use Ampeg, but fuck them. I'm not endorsing
them, I just use their equipment.
At a Slayer pit, what do you see?
Just survival. I see a lot of kids getting hit,
and I see a lot of kids going around punching
each other. It's funny because you see a lot
of kids up front, they get hit in the
head, and they'll punch dudes coming
over the them. It's like, "Man, you're
an idiot. It's going to happen to you.
Why are you down there?" Kerry
will sit there and trip out on people
in the front because they punch kids.
He's like. "Get the fuck out of there if you don't want
to be in there." If you're in the middle of everything,
you're going to get hit, don't go crying to mother.
How did Slayer get to be so big so little airplay?
That's one thing I'm happy for, and that's one thing.
I regret not saying on the mic the other
night. They had a gold record party
for us because our four records went
gold. The newest one went gold in
December, and the other three went
gold two years prior to that, and that's
one thing I didn't say was I should've
thanked the kids, all 500,000 kids that have been buying all our records, I
didn't say thanks to them for being so consistent. Each record has gone to
that number, and then it goes up a little bit at a time.
You guys used to wear make-up. Whatever happened to that?
We did a show in Berkeley back in '83, and the kids there were like,
"You guys rip!" And there was this one friend of mine who said,
"Why do you guys wear make-up? Your music is pretty tough. You
don't need that shit." Then when I heard that, it was like, "Fuck
this crap. All that shit came off. Jeff and Kerry had the raccoon
eyes and I didn't, I would never put on raccoon eyes. I just told
them, "I'm taking off this garbage. Maybe I'll wear one or two,
but I'm just going to be up there in black leather pants with a
black shirt, and I'll just scream my ass off. Screw this mas-
cara shit." And then they eventually phased it out.
Did you have any vocal training?
No, it's all lung power. So I make a tape of the entire
set, and then I just jump rope and sing over the songs
until I'm done. Usually, before we go on, we're really
to ourselves, and after we're off, we're really quiet,
and people think there's something wrong. But I
tell them, "Dude, believe me, you would know.
if there was something wrong
because you would hear it
straight from us."
You guys are Slayer, you
guys aren't killing peo-
ple and chopping their
heads off?
No, just kickin' it,
man.
ונ
SLAYER