SLAYER Guitarist Talks About Peforming Entire 'Seasons' Album, Touring With METALLICA

Tom Trakas of the None But My Own blog recently conducted an interview with SLAYER guitarist Kerry King. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

None But My Own: The "World Painted Blood" era officially begins in the U.S. after several setbacks. The European shows you've done have also included some definite career highlights as well. How's it feel to have the ball finally rolling on the "new" album here at home? Bring us up to date on SLAYER.

Kerry King: (laughs) Yeah, we're finally out and we're playing the "Seasons in the Abyss" album and only two new songs. (laughs) We're only playing an hour and ten, us and MEGADETH both. So it doesn't leave you much time to hit the other twenty-six or whatever it's been years of your career! We come out with two new ones, go into "Seasons…" then four others and we're out. We jam sixteen songs into an hour and ten…

None But My Own: In doing the entire album live, is there ever a time where some of the truly "deep cuts" aren't so well received? A song like "Temptation" springs to mind.

Kerry King: People are stoked to see these songs, they're going over really well nobody's ever really seen some of the songs… "Temptation". There's some great riffs in that song and I've always thought about putting it in the set, but I didn't want to tackle the vocal thing with an answer track.

None But My Own: Is that what you're doing?

Kerry King: Tom's [Araya] singing the second of the tracks, the stronger one. If kids want to sing the first one, they can. This is the way the song was originally written; the way it was on the record was an accident.

None But My Own: How was your European run? I know you did a few months there. Sonisphere and the "Big Four" was obviously a huge thing.

Kerry King: We did Sonisphere and the "Big Four" Sonisphere, we did IRON MAIDEN. It was a lot of fun, we were out there a little too long, I mean, it was fun but the traveling gets to you. But yeah, I had way more fun on those "Big Four" shows that I ever thought I would.

None But My Own: Oh yeah?

Kerry King: Yeah, I did. I got to be pretty close with Lars [Ulrich, METALLICA drummer] where I'll text him now to bust his balls! [Laughs] So yeah, it's been fun. Hopefully we get to do it in the States; hopefully we get to do it in more western European countries. I think everybody's on the same page of wanting to do it; it's just the logistics of getting four bands who are headliners on their own, and just to get that all together is tough.

None But My Own: What's next for SLAYER? I know you begin the second leg of the "American Carnage" tour with ANTHRAX and how do you end the year?

Kerry King: We were supposed to go back to Europe after the ANTHRAX run but I believe that's been pushed back to next year [2011]. I mean, we were just there over the summer and spent a lot of time there. So instead of Europe we'll hit South America and Mexico late this year and get those markets out of the way. So maybe the first thing we'll do, after the Super Bowl; because I won't be in Europe for the playoffs… I'll quit. [Laughs]! I mean, I just won't do it! [Laughs] But we'll be doing Australia festivals, there are five festival shows and we're also going to India for the first time at the end of February. So finally after all that we'll do the Europe thing, if they're looking for us.

None But My Own: Media-wise, you recently re-issued your three DVDs. What are your feelings on metal media these days? There's the IRON MAIDEN movie, the ANVIL movie, some really killer documentaries have come out, books. They really seem to be thriving in an era when music is on the decline.

Kerry King: Two of the DVDs that came out are the exact same thing that was out before so I really don't see the reason for that other than maybe Sony wanting to put them out because they didn't put them out the first time? "Live Intrusion"? I get it! It should have been on DVD long ago, a long time ago, maybe like 10 years ago! It's a good show, I gotta go back and watch it.

Read the entire interview from the None But My Own blog.