SLAYER's TOM ARAYA On Possible Solo Album: 'It Wouldn't Be What People Would Expect'

Niclas Müller-Hansen of RockSverige.se recently conducted an interview with SLAYER bassist/vocalist Tom Araya. You can now watch the chat below.

Asked if he has ever felt like calling it quits in the last few years — which have seen the passing of the band's co-founding guitarist Jeff Hanneman and the departure of original drummer Dave Lombardo — Araya said: "There's [been] some times where I've felt like that. Those are usually the moments when I don't wanna be out here on the road and I wanna be home."

He continued: "I think the worst thing we could have done is to not have done anything and stopped. We started the whole process of writing an album, and we had to decide whether we wanted to continue and do the album and finish it. So me and Kerry [King, SLAYER guitarist], we had opportunities to talk. 'Cause we were working on the ideas of the songs, and then we toured, and then we had to have a conversation, just to figure out whether we wanted to continue or not, and whether we wanted to finish the album that we started. So I told [Kerry]. I go, 'Well, let's do that. Let's finish this and see where we go from here.' So we finished it, and now we're on a tour. We tour at the end of this year, and then we tour again… Probably the next two years we'll probably be touring, and we'll see where that takes us. But we figured we owe that much… Because everybody's expecting a record. They knew several years ago that we were gonna start working on our record. And then to kind of just stop and drop the ball, I think a lot of people would have been [disappointed]. But the social media being what it is, a lot of people were telling us that we should hang it up anyways. [Laughs] It amazes me how so-called SLAYER fans are pretty fucking brutal."

Araya also talked about the possibility of one day making a solo album. He said: "You never know. You never know. I'm not much of a music writer, but I do contribute to lyrics, and I try to make things lyrically better. So you never know. I have things that I've thought about, but it wouldn't be what people would expect. You know what I mean? They know me as SLAYER, so if I were to do a solo album, I would like to think that they would be open-minded and not expect something that they think it should be. A solo album is exactly that."

He continued: "My wife keeps telling me: 'You should do something. They're all asking if you're gonna do a solo album. You should do a solo album. You've got some great stuff.' I've got great lyrics. I've got ideas for lyrics. Whether they're great or not, I don't know. But I have ideas — all kinds of ideas for lyrics."

SLAYER's eleventh album, "Repentless", will be released on September 11 via Nuclear Blast. The highly anticipated follow-up to 2009's critically acclaimed, Grammy-nominated "World Painted Blood" was produced by Terry Date, who has previously worked with PANTERA, DEFTONES and SOUNDGARDEN.