We spoke with guitarist Kerry King a few days before the situation with Lombardo occurred. King didn’t indicate there was any trouble at that time. He was just looking forward to a kickarse Soundwave tour, after their last tour of duty in 2011. On that tour, as with this one, Hanneman was replaced by Gary Holt of Exodus. “Hopefully there’ll be no cancelled shows,” King jokes, alluding to the last-minute cancellation of the band’s Sydney 2011 Soundwave set. “That Sydney one bummed everybody out last time. That was Gary’s second show with us and it was such a bummer because Sydney was such a big show.” So how did the band cope with the disappointment? Run it off? Write some poetry in their respective journals? Nah, this is Slayer. “We were drunk by 8.30pm.
“Unfortunately we’re not 25 anymore,” King continues. “So those days do happen. It’s never a good thing, and it certainly wasn’t malicious – I know the fans know that – but it just sucks.”
One particularly unique thing about Soundwave this year – and last time – is the opportunity to see Slayer in daylight. It’s a slightly incongruous situation; music that rushes headlong into the deepest pits of darkness, played in conditions more conducive to working on a sweet tan. But King’s not fazed. “We’re playing at about 3.30pm, so I’ll be just getting up,” he laughs. “Slayer in the daylight is horrible! Nah, it’ll be awesome. I’ve already adjusted the Soundwave set a little bit because some songs are just better in the dark.”
Depending on the artist, some bands tend to spend their whole Soundwave catching other bands’ sets, while others hide away until show time then get shuttled out right afterwards. King likes to hang around and soak up the atmosphere as much as he can, and will definitely be doing so on this tour. “I just got the schedule for these shows, so I’m sure I’ll be able to see Metallica two or three times,” he says. “It really depends on travel – travelling on any festival is a nightmare. But the other one I’m hoping to see is The Offspring just because I never see them,” he says.
This particular Soundwave roster is particularly exciting for thrash fans because it includes three of the ‘Big Four’ of thrash: Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax, the latter labouring under absenteeism stresses too, with drummer Charlie Benante sitting out the tour due to personal issues back home, and the lead guitar slot occupied by Jon Donais of Shadows Fall, taking the place of a departed Rob Caggiano who felt the time was right to pursue other musical avenues, just last week surfacing as lead guitarist in Volbeat. Regardless of lineup changes though, there’s something about thrash that has endured since the early days of the genre in the ’80s, survived through the dark days of the ’90s, and thrives now in the hands of the original masters as well as post-thrash torch bearers like Trivium, Shadows Fall, Lamb Of God and Unearth. So what is it about thrash that hooks people so thoroughly? You don’t hear anyone talking about the ‘Big Four’ of nu metal. “For the fans that are into it, I think it’s as much of a brotherhood as any kind of music. More so than just metal. For some reason thrash translates. I can only describe what I see – and I’m out a lot at shows and in the public eye, just living life – and if you see me, other than the fact that I’m not wearing leather pants and nails I’m the same dude you see backstage. And I think the kids know that, and I think they feel a real brotherhood with people like us. Because I think if I wasn’t in this band, I’d be watching bands like this with them.”
Isn’t it also that as a musical form, thrash is complex, and that to be able to play it you have to push yourself to achieve on your chosen instrument? “Yeah! It’s definitely not for beginners! I mean, some of the stuff is, but… Reign In Blood or Angel Of Death, you’ve got to be an accomplished player to just play the rhythms.”
King’s guitar style is particularly aggressive, from both a musical and physical perspective. One thinks back to the story about Stevie Ray Vaughan tearing up his fingertips so bad from the heavy strings on his Number One Stratocaster that to patch them up every night he’d apply superglue to his right forearm, bury his left fingertips in the glue, let it set then rip the fingers off, covering them with a fresh layer of skin for further rocking. Whether it’s true or not, it’s a brutal story that could just as easily have come from the thrash world. “I can see that happening,” King says. “Me and Dave have been playing for two or three months just on new stuff, so other than leads which don’t come into the picture in new stuff until one of the last things, the icing when the song’s done, we just started working on the Australian set yesterday. And I’ve got two or three days off, so whatever I did to my fingers will be fine by Monday, and the calluses will just get better and it’ll be good by the time we get to Brisbane. It’s not unheard of for me to not touch a guitar for three months, but I’ve been playing a lot recently, probably since the beginning of November. I knew it was important to get new material together, so me and Dave have been practicing since December.”
With no word yet on the band’s future with Lombardo – whether things will be resolved after Soundwave or whether this is it for him – it’s difficult to make any kind of educated call on the future of new Slayer music. A few days before the fall-out with Lombardo, a new album was in the works. “We’ve got tonnes of stuff, man,” King says. “We’ve got three that we did last year. One needs vocals and leads, the other just needs mixing. Me and Dave have got eight new songs and there are two left over from World Painted Blood, so there’s no shortage of material. I’m hoping that once the Australian thing blows over we can jump into the studio and get finished before the next run, which is in June.” Has Hanneman been involved? “He can be, but he hasn’t been yet.”
King has mixed feelings on the future of thrash. “There’s nobody grabbing the steering wheel. I wish! But there’s nothing. I still keep my ear to the ground and there are good bands, but there’s nobody grabbing the steering wheel and saying ‘This is my gig now. Get out of my way.'” It’s an era where bands might have three or four killer songs and a lot of filler. “And that’s a sign that they’re probably not going to be around very long,” King says. “I had a conversation with a friend of mine – I won’t say who – and he said ‘You know when you do a record and you’ve got six or seven songs you really like…’ and I’m like ‘No. I don’t!’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, you’re not gonna play them all live,’ and I say ‘I’m not gonna play ’em live because I ain’t got room for them, but that doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention to those other three or four songs!’ Hopefully our next album will be as good as they’ve been over the years, y’know? We’ll have a better idea when we get in the studio when [Soundwave] is over, but in rehearsals everything sounds great.”
BY PETER HODGSON
