SLAYER's TOM ARAYA: 'We've Never Had To Rely On Having A Hit Record'

November 28, 2013

Michael Hamad of CTnow recently conducted an interview with SLAYER bassist/vocalist Tom Araya. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On the passing of SLAYER's founding guitarist Jeff Hanneman, who died of alcohol-related cirrhosis in May:

Tom: "I miss him dearly. I have to remind myself that I'm not going to see him. He's not going to be a part of this anymore... Him not being a part of the band for the past two years: it was temporary, and now it's permanent."

On having the commercial route dangled in front of SLAYER over the years:

Tom: "When we had just got done recording [1994's] 'Divine Intervention', they had a big meeting at the label, and one of the record reps brought that up: 'You have a really great album here, but we could use a radio-friendly song.' [Hanneman spoke up]: 'You just got through saying we had a great record. You figure out what song you want on the radio and put it out there.' After that, we never had any other meetings with A&R."

"We do what we do, and we really enjoy it as a band. We figured that people are just going to have to learn to like SLAYER. In 30 years of existence, we've written some great songs and put out great albums, and we've never had to rely on having a hit record. We all just got together and wrote some songs, and if one got on the radio, great. If not, that's fine too."

On Hanneman's contributions to the next SLAYER album:

Tom: "Jeff would show up now and then. When we started working on ideas for a new album, it allowed him to see his potential to play... What we [ultimately] put on the album is another story, but Jeff was a big part of that, though not as much as I would have liked him to be. It was really rough on him. But we always got together and rehearsed, to see where he stood."

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).