SLAYER Band Biography By D.X. FERRIS Now Available As Audiobook

The freshly updated metal tome "Slayer 66 2/3: A Metal Band Biography… Or, How F*kin' Slayer Kicked F*kin' @ss" is now available as an audiobook. For the 2025 holiday season, the audiobook is available exclusively at Bandcamp.com.

Award-winning journalist D.X. Ferris reads his book, which he updated, expanded, and revised after SLAYER's somewhat surprising reunion.

The audiobook's run time is 36.5 hours. It includes 12 bonus chapters that are not included in the paperback. The final three chapters cover the band's 2025 reunion season. SLAYER's year ended with a festival at Hersheypark, Pennsylvania. The Los Angeles thrash band headlined over EXODUS, CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, POWER TRIP, SUICIDAL TENDENCIES and KNOCKED LOOSE.

"The book is still current," explains Ferris. "Think of the bonus chapters as European B-sides."

Ferris's book first appeared in 2013, months after the shocking death of SLAYER co-founder, co-guitarist, and chief songwriter Jeff Hanneman. At the time, the title was "Slayer 66 2/3: The Jeff & Dave Years".

Released in 2023, the third edition ran 350 pages, with 33 images, a four-page index, and 450 endnotes and research citations.

Released in 2025, the fourth edition runs 639 pages, with 70 images, a 10-page index and 795 endnotes.

"I really put in the work on this version," says Ferris, who is an Ohio Society Of Professional Journalists "Best Reporter Of The Year". "Some days when I was working at home, I would put on a shirt and tie. I felt like I was documenting important history, some of it for the first time. It is a serious subject that deserves professionalism and respect."

The new edition of the band biography includes enhanced profiles of the band's members, including EXODUS guitarist Gary Holt, who has filled in for Hanneman since the guitarist took ill in 2011. Ferris interviews new witnesses, including Valley Stream, New York record store Slipped Disc owner Michael Schutzman, who hosted early East Coast in-store appearances. Emcee Mellow Man Ace describes the racially charged neighborhoods that spawned the seminal thrash band and CYPRESS HILL.

Fresh content includes exhaustive archival research, new statistics, original fan surveys, and a long, metrics-based contrast of the "Big Four" thrash metal bands' careers — METALLICA, MEGADETH and ANTHRAX. Version 4.1 of the fourth edition appeared in May 2025. Its latest sources had appeared just weeks earlier. A running feature called "The Rick Rubin Watch" charts key moments with the band's longtime label boss, producer, and executive producer, who has worked with around 10 percent of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame's performer inductees.

A Pittsburgh native, Ferris has written for Rolling Stone, Decibel, The AV Club, Cleveland Scene and Alternative Press. In 2008, Continuum (now Bloomsbury Academic) published his book "Slayer's Reign In Blood" as part of the prestigious 33 1/3 series.

"I am a fan," explains Ferris. "In previous editions, some fans took my opinions as personal insults. The version is more confrontational, but more conversational. I make it clear when a statement is just my opinion. And I conducted three fan surveys, so I can show what other people think on a larger scale. That said, [polarizing 1996 punk covers album] 'Undisputed Attitude' contains some high points of Western culture. That's just a fact. But the research indicates my take on that record is not a common one."

The popular, unauthorized band biography "Slayer 66 2/3…" is available in five formats: a 6x9" Uncut version, an Oversize coffee table 8.5x11" version, an abridged Long Story Short… and Cheaper version, a (mostly) color ebook, and now two versions of the expanded audio edition.

The book features photos by photographers including "Murder In The Front Row" co-author Harald Oimen, former Def Jam staffer Tom Tronckoe and Cameron Edney.

The audiobook began as part of Ferris's long-running podcast "Talkin' Slayer: A Metal Podcast And Half-@Assed Audiobook". Every episode, Ferris reads from his band biography, serves up an exclusive essay, answers fan questions, or updates news.

"When the show started, the band was broken up, and it looked like it would remain in the grave," says Ferris. "The audiobook was almost done. Then they announced the reunion. Things changed. And, as a former METALLICA roadie says in 'The Big Lebowski', 'New sh*t came to light.' It was the perfect opportunity to dig even deeper in SLAYER's long, controversial history."

SLAYER formed in Los Angeles in 1981. Late in its career, the band won two Grammy Awards. The group announced a "final world tour" in 2018. Los Angeles hosted a final concert November 30, 2019. Ferris meticulously parses the band's statements and retirement announcements.

Guitarist and team captain Kerry King announced his new band in a Rolling Stone interview in February 2024. He said he had no contact with SLAYER singer Tom Araya. King also strongly implied SLAYER would never play again. Two weeks later, SLAYER announced it would return for a limited number of festival appearances. The band returned to stages again in 2025. More concerts are scheduled for 2026.

At the July 5, 2025 "Back To The Beginning" sendoff concert for Ozzy Osbourne and BLACK SABBATH, SLAYER was the No. 5 headlining band on the star-studded bill, playing ahead of only SABBATH, Osbourne, METALLICA and GUNS N' ROSES.

For the fourth edition, Ferris rewrote, revised, rearranged, and remastered the entire book. The new version is longer, but easier to read. Most sentences and paragraphs are shorter.

"My old writing style was like jazz or ornate Yngwie Malmsteen hot licks," explains Ferris. "Looking back, that wasn't the most effective method of communication. Now I try to write short, simple sentences that are like S.O.D. riffs. Short sentences, short chapters… I believe books should be easy to use."

Writing for Record Collector magazine, fellow SLAYER biographer Joel McIver — author of "The Bloody Reign Of Slayer" — called Ferris's band biography "Probably the most metal book ever written... There is no better SLAYER book than this, and there never will be."

The audiobook is available in two versions. The full Uncut edition charts the history of American thrash metal itself, with SLAYER's place in American culture, and asides about the Big Four / Elite Eight thrash bands. The Long Story Short… and Cheaper version concentrates on SLAYER's chronological history.

"As the first pages of the book demonstrate, SLAYER is as relevant as ever," says Ferris. "It is SLAYER's world. Still. And we're living in it."