Revolver magazine recently conducted an interview with SLAYER guitarist Kerry King and drummer Paul Bostaph. You can now watch the chat at RevolverMag.com. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).
On the progress of the songwriting sessions for SLAYER's long-awaited follow-up to 2009's"World Painted Blood":
King: "I've been working on stuff for the better part of three years, probably. I did a demo with [now-former SLAYER drummer] Dave [Lombardo] a year ago, [in] March [2012]. We finished two songs that we thought were gonna be out for [the Rockstar Energy Drink]Mayhem [Festival] in 2012, and to this day, they're not mixed. Now [drummer] Paul's [Bostaph] with us, so we're gonna re-record those with Paul. But [Paul] and I have done, like, 11 demos since Paul's been with us. I think there's two or three more that are finished that we've just gotta work on, and there's, like, halves of three others. So we have an abundance of material. We've just gotta sign a deal with whoever is gonna put it out and record it, which I'm really hoping to do in January. And we should be so prepared that it should be a pretty short recording time frame. So my idea [for a possible release date] is May of 2014]. But I'm always wrong."
On the possiliby of using material that was originally written by guitarist Jeff Hanneman prior to this death:
King: "Jeff had… We both had a song that was left off the last album ['World Painted Blood']. And mine, 'Atrocity Vendor', came out on some obscure single. But I'd like to re-record that with Paul, change the lyrics up a bit, change the leads and have that as a bonus track on the new record. Jeff's song he finished right at the end, so it was kind of like an afterthought. There's some good stuff on it, but good as a whole, it's gotta be reworked, and I plan on reworking it. I know Jeff wanted to rework it, so it's not like he's not here, so I'm gonna change his song. [laughs] I know he talked about rewriting lyrics for it.
"It's hard, because once a song is finished, it's hard to hear it any other way. You basically have to deconstruct it and start fresh. The verse will be the verse and the chorus will be the chorus, but all the glue in the middle, you've gotta deconstruct it and see what you can do to make it better. And I planned on working on that one; it's just that I've got a couple I'm working on I wanna finish first. And he's got, I think, two other strong ideas that I don't even think were done, so they're gonna need to be helped as well.
"My big thing is, if we're gonna put out something that Jeff wrote, I've seen other musicians and bands [release] music [that was originally written] in the past, and it's generally not good. I don't want it to be perceived like that. If we're gonna put out Jeff's last contribution inSLAYER, if it ain't awesome, you're not gonna hear it. So I wanna make it awesome, so youcan hear it."
On SLAYER's current North American tour featuring an "old-school" setlist:
King: "Well, we had a really good set made up, and since we were playing two shows in L.A., they wanted something for the night that was added, so I came up with a setlist that's'Seasons In The Abyss' and prior, and once we did it, everybody wanted it. And it's a good time to do it, because we don't have any [new] product, so… I'm, like, well, shit. It's fun to play, it goes by in a minute, it seems like. We just did it last night and played an hour and 25 [minutes], and it seemed like it was, like, 10 minutes. It was just [snaps fingers], bam, done."
SLAYER has returned to the studio to resume recording its new album for a tentative early 2015 release. Helming the sessions is Terry Date, who previously worked with the band on the song "Implode", which was made available as a free download as a "thank you" to the band's fans for their continued support following SLAYER's surprise performance at this past April's Revolver Golden Gods awards in Los Angeles.
Joining guitarist Kerry King and bassist/vocalist Tom Araya in the studio for SLAYER's new album are returning drummer Paul Bostaph, who replaced Dave Lombardo last year, and guitarist Gary Holt (also of EXODUS), who has been filling in for Jeff Hanneman on tour for the past four and a half years.
Speaking to Jose Mangin, SiriusXM director of programming and on-air host (Liquid Metal, Ozzy's Boneyard, Octane), Araya stated about the progress of the recording sessions for the new CD: "We're just getting started, man. We're laying down drum tracks at the moment, but yeah, we're just getting started. I'd say we're two weeks into doing stuff."
Regarding the direction of the new SLAYER material, Araya said: "There's stuff that Kerry has been working on for the past almost two years, two and a half years.
"We started this whole process of writing a new album several years ago — three or four years ago — so it's been a long process; it's something that we've been doing for a while. So a lot of these songs have been around for a bit and now we're just trying to figure them out and make them good."
Araya also talked about SLAYER's collaboration with Date, saying, "He's awesome, dude. He's really, really good.
"We actually finished up a song that we're doing for somebody and we put that together in five days, and we went in and recorded it, we did all our parts, and then Terry mixed it and we presented it and it fuckin' sounds really heavy, man. [It] sounds awesome, sounds real fuckin' heavy."
SLAYER's next CD will be released on Nuclear Blast Records through the band's own label imprint, closing out a 28-year relationship with Rick Rubin and American Recordings. It will also be SLAYER's first album without the group's co-founding guitarist Jeff Hanneman, who passed away in May 2013 from alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver. He is credited for writing many of SLAYER's classic songs, including "Angel Of Death" and "South Of Heaven".
"I never go online and see what people are talking about because people are ten foot tall behind a computer screen, you know?!" King told ARTE Concert at last month's Wacken Open Air festival in Wacken, Germany. "But, you know, a lot of [the reaction to 'Implode'] was positive, a lot of people said, 'For anybody that was worried about what SLAYER was gonna sound like post-Hanneman, don't worry about it.'"
He continued: "I know people are gonna think that [we can't make another quality album], people are gonna expect us to fail because it's the first record without Jeff; I get it. But I'm also very proud of what of we've done so far towards new material. It's fast, the slow stuff's heavy. I mean, it's… Everything that people liked SLAYER for in the past is on this record."
Bostaph was SLAYER's drummer from 1992 until 2001 and recorded four albums with the band — the gold-certified "Divine Intervention" (1994), the 1996 punk covers album "Undisputed Attitude", "Diabolus In Musica" (1998), "God Hates Us All" (2001) that received a Grammy nomination for "Best Metal Performance", as well as the DVD "War At The Warfield" (2001), also certified gold. In addition to SLAYER, Bostaph has been a member of FORBIDDEN, EXODUS, SYSTEMATIC and TESTAMENT.
Original SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo was effectively fired from SLAYER after sitting out the band's Australian tour in February/March 2013 due to a contract dispute with the other members of the group. Filling in for him was Jon Dette (TESTAMENT, ANTHRAX).
SLAYER has returned to the studio to resume recording its new album for a tentative early 2015 release. The effort will make SLAYER history as it will be released on Nuclear Blast Records through the band's own label imprint, closing out a 28-year relationship with Rick Rubin and American Recordings. It will also be SLAYER's first album without the group's co-founding guitarist Jeff Hanneman, who passed away in May 2013 from alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver. He is credited for writing many of SLAYER's classic songs, including "Angel Of Death" and "South Of Heaven".
A photo from the latest studio sessions can be seen below.
SLAYER's follow-up to 2009's "World Painted Blood" will include the song "Implode", which was made available as a free download as a "thank you" to the band's fans for their continued support following SLAYER's surprise performance at this past April's Revolver Golden Gods awards in Los Angeles. The track was recorded in April at Henson Studios in Los Angeles and produced by Terry Date and co-produced by Greg Fidelman.
"I never go online and see what people are talking about because people are ten foot tall behind a computer screen, you know?!" SLAYER guitarist Kerry King told ARTE Concert at this month's Wacken Open Air festival in Wacken, Germany. "But, you know, a lot of [the reaction to 'Implode'] was positive, a lot of people said, 'For anybody that was worried about what SLAYER was gonna sound like post-Hanneman, don't worry about it.'"
He continued: "I know people are gonna think that [we can't make another quality album], people are gonna expect us to fail because it's the first record without Jeff; I get it. But I'm also very proud of what of we've done so far towards new material. It's fast, the slow stuff's heavy. I mean, it's… Everything that people liked SLAYER for in the past is on this record."
In the February 2014 issue of U.K.'s Metal Hammer magazine, Kerry was asked if he has found himself tempted to write the kind of songs that Jeff might have contributed to an album, Kerry said: "I think that would be shooting myself in the foot. I can't pretend to be Jeff. We both learned from each other in 30 years of writing together. As far as going out of my way to write something that Jeff might've done? I won't do that. If it happens to end up sounding that way, good for me!"
At the time of the Metal Hammer interview, it was still undecided as to whether any of Hanneman's previously unused ideas would make it to the next SLAYER album. "There was a song we finished on the last record, but I know for a fact [Jeff] wanted to rewrite the lyrics on, so that one got to deconstruct and make better," Kerry said.
"I've said, and I'll continue to say, that if we use any of Jeff's songs, I don't want it to come out just because Jeff wrote it. I want it to come out because it's awesome," he added. "We've just got to put out something that I think Jeff would be proud of."
Regarding what fans can expect from the new SLAYER material, King told Metal Hammer: "I've got a surprising amount of heavy stuff for me. I do tend to lean on the fast side, but I have some exceptionally heavy tunes, Like, 'Wow, man, where did that come from?' I expect my stuff to be angry and fast, but it's all over the map. I'm stoked. We'll have enough so we can pick great stuff whether we use any of Jeff's material or not. It should add up to as good a record as we can hope for with one of our original songwriters being gone."
Joining King and bassist/vocalist Tom Araya during the sessions for SLAYER's new album are returning drummer Paul Bostaph, who replaced Dave Lombardo last year, and guitarist Gary Holt (also of EXODUS), who has been filling in for Hanneman on tour for the past four and a half years.
Asked if Holt will play on the new SLAYER album, Kerry told Canada's Metro in an October 2013 interview: "I've told Gary that I'd like him to play some leads, just to keep it interesting.
"We've always been a two-guitar attack, so if you're looking to have a segment like the 'Angel Of Death' lead trade-off, you can't do that with one guitar.
"As far as Gary being a contributing writer, number one, fans aren't ready for it, and number two, that's like throwing somebody to the wolves.
"I think if there's another record after this one and Gary is still with us at that point, I think that will be a time where I say, ‘Hey dude, feel free to throw any riffs my way if you're interested'."
King told Metal Hammer about SLAYER's current touring lineup: "Not to toot my own horn, but we sound fucking great right now. It's a juggernaut. Paul's a machine. He always has been. Also he's been here before, so that made this transition as easy as it could be as well as for the fans because I think they always felt he was part of the band, even though he wasn't for many years."
Bostaph was SLAYER's drummer from 1992 until 2001 and recorded four albums with the band — the gold-certified "Divine Intervention" (1994), the 1996 punk covers album "Undisputed Attitude", "Diabolus In Musica" (1998), "God Hates Us All" (2001) that received a Grammy nomination for "Best Metal Performance", as well as the DVD "War At The Warfield" (2001), also certified gold. In addition to SLAYER, Bostaph has been a member of FORBIDDEN, EXODUS, SYSTEMATIC and TESTAMENT.
Original SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo was effectively fired from SLAYER after sitting out the band's Australian tour in February/March 2013 due to a contract dispute with the other members of the group. Filling in for him was Jon Dette (TESTAMENT, ANTHRAX).
