SLAYER's KERRY KING: 'I'm Getting To That Age Where You Deal With More Deaths Than You Do Weddings'

SLAYER's eleventh studio album, "Repentless", will be released on September 11 via Nuclear Blast. The follow-up to 2009's critically acclaimed, Grammy-nominated "World Painted Blood" is the band's first CD to be produced by Terry Date, who has previously worked with PANTERA and SOUNDGARDEN, among others. It is also SLAYER's first album to be recorded after the passing of the band's co-founding guitarist Jeff Hanneman in 2013.

Asked what has been his biggest frustration throughout the process of making "Repentless", SLAYER guitarist Kerry King told the Phoenix New Times: "Probably the time it took to get a record deal done. And once that was done, the time it took to get into the studio. When you're ready, you're ready, and not being in is, is, basically wasting time to me. And I don't like to waste time, and I don't like people wasting my time. But the end result, I get it. Terry Date, you know, helped SLAYER, and SLAYER helped Terry Date. It seemed to me like he hadn't had a, a big record recently. He's had a ton of amazing records in the past, but it seemed to me like he needed a big record right now, just like we did."

He continued: "I knew [Terry's] name. I'm not a producer geek, I don't freak out on who produces albums and stuff, but I knew Terry's name because of the PANTERA boys. And I didn't know him back then. Once we started working and stuff he told me he did 'Louder Than Love' [1989] by SOUNDGARDEN, which is one of my favorite albums. And I'm, like, 'Jesus!' I had no idea. That just added more to his credibility in my book."

Asked if Jeff's death influenced the lyrics of songs like "Chasing Death", with its themes of alcoholism, King responded: "A lot of people don't know that a year before Jeff died, I lost my longtime guitar tech. He passed away too. More unexpected than Jeff was. Um, that was difficult for me. Facing death... Part of — I'm getting to that age where you deal with more deaths than you do weddings. 20, 30 years ago, it was more weddings than deaths. So feeling like you're dealing with death and always cheating it… At the end of the day, I was having conversations with Jeff about his spider bite and everything, and I told him that he has just been chasing death. I said that he needed to focus on getting better and get rolling again. So part of that song is about addiction… and part of it is about the finality of dealing with death. I don't know. I had to write it. I don't usually have to write songs, but I had to write that one."

Gary Holt of San Francisco Bay Area thrash icons EXODUS has been the touring guitarist for SLAYER since January 2011 when Hanneman contracted necrotizing fasciitis, also known as flesh-eating disease, from a spider bite in his backyard.

Hanneman eventually died 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".