slayer
SLAYER Collaborates With THE AVE On Brand New Shoes
SLAYER has partnered with The Ave, a concept store that delivers unique...
GARY HOLT: “Implode” Doesn’t Even Touch Other Songs On Slayer’s Next Album
EXODUS guitarist Gary Holt, who has been touring with SLAYER...
Underground: Rapture (Promo 2014)
Rapture are a strong newcomer in the Greek underground Thrash scene. After a decent EP called "Gun Metal", which we had the chance to review some time ago...
KERRY KING: Next SLAYER Album Will Contain ‘Fast’, ‘Heavy’ And ‘Spooky’ Material
SLAYER guitarist Kerry King says that fans will...
BOSTAPH SLAMS INTERNET ‘COWARDS’
SLAYER drummer Paul Bostaph says that "people are cowards behind their computers," explaining that social media has made it possible for everyone to speak with virtually no accountability because they can hide behind false names and identities.
Asked by AndrewHaug.com, Australia's first-ever dedicated 24/7 rock and metal online radio station launched by Andrew Haug, the former host of Triple J Australia's "The Racket" radio show (originally "Full Metal Racket"; 2001-2011), what he thinks about people like former METALLICA bassist Jason Newsted opting out of social media and whether he feels that fans and artists are getting overwhelmed with information overload, Bostaph said: "Social media is interesting, because I'm just now trying to… I've been on and off social media, just because I'm kind of a private person. I see people posting pictures of what they eat for dinner, and I'm, like, that just doesn't appeal to me. Unless I feel it's something interesting, which… I look at my life as these are the things I do, and I can't manufacture something I think is interesting in my life. So it's kind of one of those things where I've just gotta get used to putting something out there that I feel comfortable with."
He continued: "Say, for instance, if social media was around in the '70s, which it wasn't, I would have loved to have seen what Alex Van Halen was doing today, you know what I mean?! But I never had the opportunity. And maybe the opportunity to, maybe, [if] one person gets a response back from that individual [that he or she admires], [like] if I would have had one of my favorite drummers of all time reach out to me and say, 'Hey, thanks for this compliment,' just one thing, [I would have been, like,] 'Oh, my God, this guy got back in touch with me.'"
"I think, to a certain degree, social media is… It's gonna be one of those things where… I think it's gonna go by the wayside, like everything else… I could be wrong. But I think people are just gonna get too much of it, or it's gonna grow into something else. But right now, it's one of those things…"
He went on to say: "I never thought of [social media] as a necessary evil. I think the way I'm looking at it is, now, for myself, if you've really got something you wanna share with people, then you do. I also think that there's a lot of bad things out there in terms of, not just social media but the Internet, because people have no accountability.
"When I grew up, if certain people said things about me on the streets where I grew up, if you said it to my face, certain things, you would have gotten a knuckle sandwich. That's how it was. You don't talk trash about people. If you've got something to say to me, you come up to my face. That's not the world we live in. People are cowards behind their computers. Or they're 'brave.' I'd say they're brave behind their computers, and that makes them a coward.
"Look, if you can't say something [to a] person [if he or she] was in the room, don't [go online and] say it. So I don't blame certain individuals for opting out of [social media], because after a while, you're, like, 'Man, what is this? It's just a bunch of crap anyway.' Other people utilize it. They say you have to have thick skin. So, it depends on how thick your skin is. If you have thick skin, you can deal with it. For other people, it becomes social drama.
"It's an interesting question. I don't know if there's one… There's not a right answer to it. Shoot, there's idiots driving cars out there, so I guess there can be idiots on the Internet."
Bostaph rejoined SLAYER last year following the band's latest split with its original drummer, Dave Lombardo.
Paul 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.
SLAYER’S TOM ARAYA On Next Album: It ‘Sounds Real F**kin’ Heavy’
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).
Will Dave Lombardo Get Any Songwriting Credit on the Next SLAYER Album?
I'm near positive I don't need to recap the entire "Slayer vs. former drummer Dave Lombardo" thing for you, but the most recent development is that Lombardo says he'll never go back to the group. For their part, Slayer are in the studio trying to finish their record.
But they've been working on the album for a really long time, even before Lombardo quit. Lombardo was present for many of the writing sessions and had to have contributed some drum parts to the writing. But the question now is: will the band use any of his contributions? Lombardo recently spoke with Thrash Zone, and when the topic of thenew Slayer song, "Implode," came up, he had this to say.
"I worked on all of the songs that are going to be on the new album with Kerry [King, guitar]. They've been working on that album… shit… for years now. 'Implode', their new radio hit, is basically the guitar tracks that were done during my session, but they've removed my drums and added Paul's [Bostaph, current Slayer drummer]."
You can't be surprised that Slayer decided to re-do his drum tracks with their new, permanent drummer. I'm assuming the band wants to give Lombardo as little money as possible. But the question is, how involved was Lombardo in the songwriting process? And if he wrote core parts, how much would need to be changed for him to be kept off the songwriting credits? Could there be a major lawsuit on the horizon? We need a lawyer in the comments…
PATTON, LOMBARDO RESURRECT FANTÔMAS
Star-studded noise-mongers FANTÔMAS — who feature in their ranks FAITH NO MORE frotnman Mike Patton, MELVINS guitarist Buzz Osborne, MR. BUNGLE bassist Trevor Dunn, and ex-SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo — have been confirmed for the first-ever RockOut festival, set to take place December 6 at Espacio Broadway in Santiago, Chile. Also scheduled to appear on the bill are DEVO and PRIMUS, among others.
In a recent interview with Prog Sphere, Lombardo stated about FANTÔMAS: "It's one of the most amazing groups ever. I love that band. And I hope that Mike will say, 'Let's do this [again]!' My door is open. Mike and I, you know, we communicate. We have a great friendship."
Speaking to A.V. Club in 2008, Patton was asked if there was "still action with" FANTÔMAS. "It's slowed down a little bit because we've gotten distracted with other things, but I've started writing a new record," he said. "It's gonna be a bit of a stretch for us. I want to try to make an all-electronic record. I'm trying to figure out how to do that, the practicalities of doing that. So I don't think it will be out [for some time], but the band is still very much in my mind."
The brainchild of Patton, "Fantômas" is an anti-hero from a series of pre-WWI French crime novels, sometimes dubbed the "lord of terror."
FANTÔMAS' latest album, "Suspended Animation", came out in June 2005. The effort contained 30 tracks, each titled after a different day in the month of April.
FANTÔMAS' three previous releases regaled listeners with a sci-fi homage ("Fantômas", 1999), a celebration of the best in film composition ("Director’s Cut", 2001) and a one-song album ("Delirium Cordia", 2004).
FAITH NO MORE, which reunited in 2009 for a series of sold-out performances and international festivals, is currently recording its first full-length album since 1997's "Album Of The Year". An April 2015 release is expected.
SLAYER Returns To Studio To Record New Album
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).