SLAYER's PAUL BOSTAPH On Social Media: 'It's Kind Of A Necessary Evil'

From Hero To Zero recently conducted an interview with SLAYER drummer Paul Bostaph. You can now watch the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On how conditions for musicians have changed in the last three decades:

"Well, first of all, when I started touring in the '80s, there was no Internet at all. I mean, cell phones didn't exist, pagers didn't exist, so the world was a lot different back then. If you wanted to get a demo out to somebody, you actually had to send it to them through the mail or hand it to them personally, so things were on a more personal level back then. Touring was different for a lot of reasons. The first time I came to Europe… I remember when I played Paris first when I was with FORBIDDEN, nobody spoke English. I wasn't used to that. At least nobody we encountered spoke English. And it was very difficult to communicate with people, obviously. And then we played Germany for two weeks after that, and people weren't really speaking English that much back then. So, for me, one of the main things that have changed, especially over in Europe, is more people have adopted English as a second language. And it surprises me. And, you know, even back then, you couldn't send an e-mail to people at home, you couldn't send a text message. Now I can keep in contact with my loved ones at home. Back then, I had to send a postcard or a letter, or call from a payphone."

On being active on social media:

"I started up my web site and my Facebook page and my Instagram and YouTube and all that kind of stuff, because it's kind of a necessary evil, in a sense. On one sense, there are people out there who can be pretty cruel to people. When I grew up, if you say something bad to somebody, you usually say it to their face, and if it's not something they like, then you deal with the consequences. I think that a lot of people — not a lot of people; some people, anyway — treat it that way. Other people, it's very… It's interesting. Like I said, it's a necessary evil. It kind of gives back to the fans, in a way, 'cause you can give them stuff that they normally wouldn't get. And that's how I try to use it. I don't try to put content out just to put stuff out, so people have something to look at. If I don't feel it's special, then I don't put it out. And sometimes it takes me a while. Because I'll see the stuff, and I'm, like, 'Well, yeah, I could take that picture or take a picture of myself in front of this.' But I really wanna feel like, when I look at it, if I was a fan, I'd go, 'That's cool.'"

Bostaph, who was previously SLAYER's drummer from 1992 until 2001 and recorded four albums with the band, rejoined SLAYER in 2013 after the group's original drummer, Dave Lombardo, was effectively fired from the band due to a contract dispute with the other members of the veteran California-based thrash metal act.

SLAYER's latest album, "Repentless", debuted at No. 4 on The Billboard 200, having shifted 50,000 equivalent album units in the week ending September 17.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).

In terms of pure album sales, "Repentless" opened with 49,000 copies, marking SLAYER's highest-charting album yet.

"Repentless" was released on September 11 via Nuclear Blast.