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00:00It's 93.3 WMMR in Philadelphia, and today we welcome a thrash metal pioneer, a founding member of Slayer, and today he's here to talk about a new project.
00:11It is an honor to welcome Kerry King to WMMR. Hi, Kerry.
00:15I would say good morning, but I guess it is afternoon now.
00:19Where are you at now?
00:21Where am I at? I'm in Milwaukee.
00:23Excellent. On a tour that is coming to Philadelphia on February 5th with Municipal Waste and Alien Weaponry, and I was doing some digging.
00:32You can correct me if I'm mistaken, but I don't think Slayer or you have ever played the TLA on South Street.
00:40You've played, oh my gosh, every other venue, the Tower, the Factory a ton of times, Camden, the shed that's right across the river, but have you played the TLA, Theater of the Living Arts?
00:51Maybe ages ago? I really don't remember. I don't think so.
00:56It's a cool room. It's a cozy room, and I did catch your solo set last year when you were touring with Mastodon and Lamb of God.
01:04It kicked ass. This is going to be a headlining set, so a little different, a little more time to play with, more stage to play with as well.
01:11So what can we expect when you come to town on February 5th, musically, production-wise, all that?
01:16Yeah, we're playing like an hour or 25 now. We play the entire album, but the whole album only takes 45 minutes. Live probably takes only 40 minutes. So we're playing a few more Slayer songs. We're playing a couple covers.
01:30Nice. I love that you're still playing Slayer songs and honoring your past, which really, I say your past, but it's been your whole life, while you're creating something new.
01:43Was there ever a question of whether or not you would play Slayer songs with this new project?
01:47The question for me was which ones, you know, because I didn't want, you know, people can complain about anything under the f***ing sun.
01:56And had I just went in and said, oh, I'm going to go play Angel of Death, they would, you know, people, you know, all the haters online would just say, oh, look, he's playing Jeff Hanneman songs.
02:05So the prerequisite for me was to play stuff that I either completely wrote or pro-wrote.
02:10Sure. You mentioned the new album, which is called From Hell I Rise.
02:15Less doom, more thrash compared to Slayer, at least from what I picked up, but no complaints there at all.
02:21And pretty cool that you're going to play the entire thing in this set.
02:25And you have been doing that on tour. How do you keep track of all of the riffs that you write?
02:30And then how do you rank them to figure out what's going to make it onto a record?
02:34You know, that's why I forget everything else, because I got so many riffs in my head.
02:40You know, I often wonder at the end of a show how many notes I actually play in a 90 minute set.
02:48One of these days, I'll either figure it out or hire somebody to figure it out.
02:51It's got to be some astronomical, ridiculous number.
02:54I'm sure there's plenty of metalheads who would be up to the challenge of counting that.
02:58Yeah, have at it.
02:59We're all about statistics.
03:01Yeah, that's going to be a big task to take on.
03:06But, you know, as far as stuff being made up, you know, sometimes riffs are further along.
03:13Like when we were rehearsing for this album, me and Paul, we were rehearsing probably like 18, 19 songs.
03:20And I said, dude, we got to weed some of these out because we're not putting 18, 19 on the album.
03:24Let's do the ones that are furthest along in lyric writing or just songs.
03:31I'm like, this one has to be on and we went from there.
03:35So that's what we'll be rehearsing at the end of this tour or whenever it wraps up all those ones we left behind.
03:41So you've already got album two in progress.
03:45It sounds like.
03:46Basically, I think it's musically it's probably 90 percent done.
03:50You know, we just got to go back and streamline all the stuff and get it to where, you know, we know I like the back of our hand again.
03:56And then we want to do that immediately when cycle one finishes up.
04:00So we take our tour chops into the studio and get it busted out pretty quick.
04:03Hell yeah. Full speed ahead.
04:05You mentioned Paul.
04:06For those who don't know, talk about who else is in your band.
04:08Phil Demmel from Machine Head, Kyle Sanders, who was most recently in Hell Yeah, and Marco Segueda from Death Angel.
04:16Love it.
04:16And the album's been out like nine months now, I think.
04:20So you started touring on it last summer with Festivals and all.
04:24And now you've started this headlining tour.
04:26Have you noticed any sort of shift now that fans have had time to spend with the album?
04:30You know, every time we go out, it's obviously known better.
04:33You know, people more people are singing it back at us and reacting to riff changes in the music.
04:42So every time we go out, the fans have adapted more to it.
04:47And the other day there was a girl right in front of Mark and she was screaming all the lyrics right at him.
04:52My stuff, Slayer stuff, everything.
04:54She was she was super fan.
04:55It was awesome.
04:56A diehard.
04:57Love it.
04:58And the album art.
04:59Is that the same tattoo that's on the back of your head?
05:01No, no, no, no, no.
05:02It's the same artist that did the Repentless cover.
05:05And I think he kind of told my record company that it was if I was a demon or a devil, what would I look like?
05:14And that's what he came up with.
05:16Hell yeah.
05:17Wow.
05:17What a prompt.
05:18We're speaking with Kerry King on 93.3 WMMR.
05:22I got to ask you, do people ever just walk up to you and scream Slayer to your face?
05:29Not at a show, but elsewhere.
05:32It's more often from afar.
05:35Like people, people still will come up and want a picture.
05:38I'm cool with that.
05:39And they need somebody to take it because they're shaking too much.
05:41They don't even think to say Slayer then.
05:43But give them 10 feet and they'll yell in.
05:47When they're out of the way of the wingspan, right?
05:49That's what it is.
05:51I think it's just so funny, though, that that is like the universal, like tribal metalhead call.
05:58I've had people scream it at me just because people here in the city know that I'm a fan.
06:02But it's like out of context.
06:03I'll be at like a Green Day show or something and someone screams Slayer from across the way.
06:07I'm like, this is not, this is a weird context.
06:10But that's just an interesting thing that I've noticed.
06:12Yeah, they scream it anywhere.
06:14It don't matter what show it is.
06:15It needs to be, someone needs to shout it to make it complete.
06:19It is the call.
06:20It is the call.
06:21So Slayer played what was billed as your final show in 2019.
06:27You've played a few festivals since then.
06:28But at that show, there, you know, everyone figured at that point it was the final show.
06:33So there's a standing ovation that's going on.
06:35And there was a moment where you took your chains off, had a chain drop instead of a mic drop.
06:42And then the camera panned to the chains on the floor and just held there for a moment.
06:48And people were, you know, losing their minds.
06:50It was a very impactful moment.
06:53Do you remember what that felt like?
06:56Yeah.
06:56You know, it was, I only thought about doing it like a day or two before that.
07:00And I only told like two people.
07:03So my tour manager, no.
07:04And my wife, no.
07:05And that was it.
07:06So everybody got the effect of it.
07:08And it was, you know, for me, we were done.
07:12You know, I didn't want to be done.
07:14But Tom wanted to be done.
07:15And you got to take a man for his word.
07:17I thought he was done.
07:18So I did the chain drop.
07:20And then when the talk of these new shows came up, I went, like, I don't wear chains.
07:25But I'd be a hypocrite if I wore those same chains.
07:27So I came back with black chains.
07:29So they're different.
07:30Yeah, totally different.
07:32Interesting.
07:32Do you think we'll ever see Slayer back in the Philadelphia area?
07:37You know, I wouldn't say, I would say, never say never.
07:45Slayer's not going to tour.
07:46We're making up that show we missed last year, that Louisville show.
07:50And I know there's going to be something else attached to that.
07:53But I don't think Slayer's ever going to do more than five, six shows a year.
07:56Gotcha.
07:57Well, in the meantime, you can still grab tickets for the February 5th show at the TLA.
08:01You can hear some Slayer music there, hear new music from your solo album there.
08:05We're speaking with Keri King on WMMR.
08:08And recently you added some riffs to the entrance theme for WWE superstar Damian Priest.
08:14And my sources tell me that you actually met Damian in Philadelphia a few years back at a Slayer show.
08:23I don't know if you remember that or not, but how did this collab with the WWE come about?
08:26I heard about it from my booking agent, because he's a big wrestling fan.
08:33I was like 20 years ago, but I hadn't been following it recently.
08:36But this came up and I got some friends that are into it today, like I was 20 years ago.
08:41And I said, hey, dude, does this make sense to marry Damian Priest?
08:45Is this something I should be doing?
08:47And he said, yeah, probably more so than anybody else in WWE.
08:50So that was all I needed to know.
08:53And then I got the music and I was in a situation where I didn't have a guitar with me.
08:58So I'm like, is there any video of this so I can wrap my head around it rather than waste anybody's time when I come in?
09:05And I got I got home like the day before.
09:07So I started learning it.
09:08And then when I went in to record it, I learned from the guy that wrote it that he did the original on keyboard.
09:13And that's why there was no existing video of it.
09:14And I went, oh, that makes sense now.
09:17But yeah, it was it was a nightmare for me just doing the logistical stuff before because it's so low tuned that the guitar I wanted to play it on.
09:28The string wouldn't even fit in the guitar saddle.
09:30So I had to go to one of mine that had been filed out for drop B tuning.
09:34And that's when I played it on.
09:37And I learned all the riffs.
09:38I just went in there and, you know, I played it exactly as it was because I didn't have time to.
09:45Embellish on it because I didn't really want to step on anybody's feet, but it's heavier with me playing the big low string guitar on it.
09:54It's cool.
09:55They came out like within 14 days after I did it.
09:58They were they were anxious to get it out.
10:01W.W. does not mess around with that stuff.
10:03No.
10:03That turnaround time is quick.
10:04So there's this trend of rock and metal musicians publishing memoirs.
10:10Alex Van Halen released a memoir in the past year.
10:13I just saw Gary Holt announced his and the guy's Lamb of God have books out.
10:18Is that something that ever appealed to you writing a memoir or a book?
10:22I don't think so.
10:23You know, and I know people are going to come knocking because, you know, I've been the voice of.
10:27This band and the voice of Slayer for the better part of 20, 30 years, just as it went on, more interviews started coming my way.
10:38You know, and I don't pull any punches.
10:39I say it like it is in interviews, radio, magazines, whatever.
10:43So, I mean, other than real dirt, there's nothing to write about.
10:47And, you know, I'm never going to throw my band under the bus.
10:49The new album from Hell I Rise is out now.
10:52Kerry King coming to the TLA on Wednesday, February 5th.
10:55Tickets are on sale.
10:56Kerry, thank you so much for spending time with WMMR today.
10:59You are absolutely welcome.
11:01See you at the gig.
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