Slayer: Between Kerry King and Tom Araya good relationships but not friends

Kerry Kingthe guitarist of Slayeradmits that he does not have a close relationship with the singer/bassist Tom Araya. During a new interview with the Brazilian YouTube channel Cucchanga, King – who co -founded the Slayer with Arya, the guitarist Jeff Hanneman and the drummer Dave Lombard In 1981 – he claims to be “in place” with Arya, but that the two have moved away over the years.

King says that Slayer’s singer/bassist is “a very different person” than when they founded the band in 1981. The guitarist adds instead of being “very similar to those who have been in my twenty years”.

However, he reveals that he and Araya had a pleasant personal meeting after playing a Slayer show at the Aftershock festival of Sacramento, in California, in October. “We gathered … we drank a glass after the show,” he recalls. “He drinks Tequila and I love tequila, so we drank that.”

During the interview King also spoke of the Slayer retreat in 2019 and their return last year. He says that their initial separation was partly due to the death of Hanneman from hepatic failure at 49 years old in 2013, who weighed a lot on Araya.

“I think Jeff’s disappearance has weighed more on Tom than on me,” he reflects. “And I don’t say it with a perspective of friendship. It’s just that I didn’t get it as bad as Tom took it.” Of course, it was horrible and nobody would have ever wanted it to happen, but weighed a lot on Tom. I think this led him to want to withdraw before me, because I think he felt that the band was different “.

The guitarist adds that the request to reactivate the band came from Araya “from nothing”: “Tom decided to want to play some concerts with the Slayers last year, and I said:” Well, I never wanted to stop playing. So yes, let’s try “”. After the announcement of the Slayer reunion in February 2024, the wife of Araya, Sandra, said she had “tormented” her husband for more than a year so that the band would return together.

Sandra wrote on social media: “Tom decided. I fell to it for over a year. He finally accepted. We shared the news with the fantastic Slayer managers and they did the rest! So yes, without Tom it wouldn’t have happened … without me that I haunted it would not have happened”.

Last year, King released a large interview with Rolling Stone USA and said that he and Aryya “have never been on the same wavelength”. “For example, if I want a chocolate smoothie, he wants a vanilla smoothie,” he explained. “Kerry, what color is the sky?” “Blue”. Tom, what color is the sky? “” White “. We are different people. The more we went on with the years, the more it became everything different”. He added that the two did not exchange even a message or an email since the Slayers closed their doors almost five years earlier.

Despite the differences between King and Araya, the Slayers have a very demanding year in front of them. They will play the farewell concert of the Black Sabbath in Birmingham on 5 July and will hold their first headliner concerts from 2019 to Cardiff on July 3 and London on July 6th. The band’s only headliner concert in North America will be held in Hershey, Pennsylvania on September 20. The same month will also play at the Louder Than life of Louisville, in Kentucky, after their performance last year had been canceled due to bad weather.