SLAYER Guitarist KERRY KING: RICK RUBIN Will Probably Have His Hands Full With METALLICA

Peter Atkinson of KNAC.COM recently conducted an interview with SLAYER guitarist Kerry King. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

KNAC.COM: I read this morning that you'd just finished the actual recording?

King: "Pretty much. We're probably 70-75 percent done. Most of the basic recording's been finished, we just have to put the leads done, work out some of the lyrics and vocals and probably do a little fix-it work. We've done all the heavy lifting, I guess you could say."

KNAC.COM: How's it gone so far?

King: "Pretty good. We usually come in pretty well prepared, and we know what we wanna do, which is make a SLAYER album! So there's not a lot of sitting around trying to figure out what the fuck' going on. We usually go in and just hammer it out. By the time it's mixed, we'll probably be looking about a two months on the studio, which is pretty quick in this day and age."

KNAC.COM: As opposed to METALLICA, who's probably going to be taking up a lot of [producer and label head] Rick Rubin's time over the next year or two.

King: "That's just a waste of time, (laughs). I don't know why anybody does that. I don't know how much of that kinda shit Rubin will put up with, but guess we'll see."

KNAC.COM: If that psychiatrist enters the picture again...

King: "(Laughs) That's what rehearsals are for. You work out your shit there — at least that's what we do. You're already paying that monthly rent, why try to work it out in the studio when you're paying by the day. They probably don't have to worry about shit like that, as many albums as they sell, but we do. Rubin's worked with some pretty 'unique' personalities [Johnny Cash, BEASTIE BOYS, SLIPKNOT, Neil Diamond] over the years, so I'm sure he's up to the challenge, but he's probably gonna have his hands full with them."

KNAC.COM: That was my next question. As far as the SLAYER pantheon goes, would you say it's more like a "God Hates Us All"/"Seasons" kind of record or a "South Of Heaven"/"Diabulos" record?

King: "I think it's definitely got more 'God Hates' flavor to it. But I said before we even started recording what I thought it was going to sound like, which was a mix between 'God Hates' and 'Seasons', because this is the first time Dave's [Lombardo] recorded with us since 'Seasons'. And that's probably right about where it is."

KNAC.COM: What's the big difference between recording with Paul [Bostaph] on drums and recording with Dave?

King: "With Dave, he was the one who was there in the beginning, he created this with us. And now that he's back, it's really cool. He's still really into the music. It flows really good and when he goes into the recording you never know what he's gonna play. We'll hear it and we'll be like 'Well, goddamn! Dave's making shit up again.' (Laughs)"

KNAC.COM: The main songwriting duties seem to slingshot back and forth between you and Jeff [Hanneman]. Is this more of a Jeff album, or a Kerry album?

King: "I think I did most of 'Divine', Jeff did most of 'Diabulos', I did most of 'God Hates' and I think I did most of this one, too. But Tom and Jeff definitely wrote for this one too, just like with the others that I wrote the majority for."

KNAC.COM: How does that work, is it whoever comes up with the most stuff or the best stuff or is it just who is more inspired to write?

King: "That's probably it. It's not who comes up with the most or the best because we pretty much write for the record. There's no extra songs this time. I've got ideas I haven't finished and Jeff and Tom have some ideas they haven't finished, but when we get one we feel is done, we just present it and start learning it. If a riff don't fly it gets taken out before anyone gets too attached to it (laughs).

"Me and Jeff have been doing this for a long time and if he says that riff's not gonna be happening, nine times out of 10 we'll change it by the end of the week. Or if I think it's really gonna be cool, I'll like wait, wait, wait, I've got some lyrics that really go with it, just bear me out, and usually he comes around. That happened a lot on the last album. So there is a lot of back and forth no matter who's actually putting the songs together."

KNAC.COM: How many songs will be on the new album?

King: "As far as I know, there's gonna be 11, because that's how many we wrote. And that's worldwide. Usually we have a couple leftover for the foreign markets, but this time I don't think we're going to do anything extra, even cover songs, because we've already torn down the drums, we've changed studios, we're working on stitching everything together, so we'd be hard pressed to do anything else."

Read the entire interview at KNAC.COM.