Slayer guitarist Kerry King has once again detailed his somewhat estranged relationship with his bandmate in the aforementioned legendary thrash metal outfit, vocalist/bassist Tom Araya. When Slayer originally hung it up back in 2019, he and Araya essentially went their own ways, having already grown apart on a personal level, despite spending decades on the road and in the studio together.
However, in the final years of Slayer‘s active reign, there were notable points of tension that seemingly pushed both King and Araya further apart. One apparent issue appeared to be back in 2017, when Araya somewhat inadvertently dragged Slayer into conservative politics.
While King was cordial about the matter in a statement of his own downplaying the first in a series of incidents of that nature, in 2024 King told Rolling Stone that Araya‘s actions with those politically inclined posts angered him more than he publicly let on. He said of that:
“I was super pissed off at that — but not enough to fucking quit my band. I was like, ‘Dude, that’s what your personal social media is for. You’re the only one in this band that gives a shit about this idiot, and when you put it up there, we’re all backing him.’ And I am not [backing Trump], Gary’s not, Paul is not. That’s your opinion, not ours. I would never do that to you.”
King also explained in that interview with the aforementioned publication that he first began to hear about Araya‘s intentions to put an end to Slayer via the press, instead of a direct conversation. In May of last year, King told Metal Hammer of how his relationship with Araya evolved into them existing more as “business partners” than the brotherhood generally associated with a band:
“It’s not like I’m angry with him or anything. We’re very different people, and we evolved into business partners at the end of the day. He has very different interests from me, and very different outlooks. Does that make me hate him? No. But I don’t need to talk to him every day… We just don’t have much in common. When it comes time to rehearse, I’ll have no problem showing up. We’re professionals, and that’s what we do.”
Having since reunited and performed several shows together, with even more dates on the horizon, it would appear that measure of distance between the pair still remains in place, although it seems to have always been there to some degree.
In a recent interview with Cucamonga, King elaborated further on that lack of communication, explaining how the untimely 2011 passing of the band’s guitarist Jeff Hanneman also impacted Araya‘s desire to wind the band down sooner than King would have liked [via transcribed via Blabbermouth.net]:
“I think Jeff‘s passing weighed harder on Tom than it did me. And I don’t mean that from any kind of friendship perspective. It’s just my taking wasn’t as bad as Tom took it. Of course it was horrible, and no one ever wanted that to happen, but it really weighed on Tom. I think that’s what led to him wanting to retire earlier than me, because I think he felt the band was different. But then, out of nowhere, Tom decided he wanted to play some [Slayer] shows last year, and I went, ‘Well, I never wanted to stop playing shows. So, yeah, let’s try it out.'”
King further went on to offer:
“Just like it was in [the earlier years of] Slayer, [Tom and I] don’t talk on the phone. We rarely text each other. And that’s just because when you’re together for 40 years — he became a very different person. He’s not the guy I started the band with. Not personally — just him; he’s a different person. I basically stayed very similar to who I’ve been in my twenties. And I like Tom. We’re cool. We got together [last year to rehearse for the Slayer reunion concerts]. It wasn’t weird. We did those two shows [at Riot Fest in Chicago and Aftershock festival in Sacramento]. He was super happy.
We got together after the second one, had a shot after the show. He’ll drink tequila and I love tequila, so that’s what we had. And I think the first idea to play [with Slayer again] this year was for the [Louder Than Life festival] show we missed last year ’cause of the hurricane. So we rebooked that and [I] said, ‘If we never play another show, I wanna make that right with the promoter,’ because it wasn’t our fault. But he wanted us to play. So we’re playing there this year. And this year we get to play that Black Sabbath show. I can’t fucking wait.”
Slayer‘s 2025 live engagements include the below run of shows.
With Amon Amarth, Anthrax, Mastodon, Hatebreed and Neckbreakker:
07/03 Cardiff, UK – Blackweir Fields
07/06 London, UK – Finsbury Park
With Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, etc.:
07/05 Birmingham, UK – Villa Park
Slayer:
07/11 Quebec City, QC – Festival d’été de Québec (Feat. Mastodon, etc.)
09/18 Louisville, KY – Louder Than Life Festival
With Knocked Loose, Suicidal Tendencies, Power Trip, Cavalera (performing Sepultura‘s “Chaos A.D.“) & Exodus (performing “Bonded By Blood“):
09/20 Hershey, PA – Hersheypark Stadium
