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Our father who art in Hell >>
Slayer’s Tom Araya on Satanism, serial killers and his lovable
kids
Mirror: The new
record, God Hates Us All, is your heaviest yet. How were you able to
sound so brutal after almost 20 years? Tom Araya: We didn’t
want to take a step back, but wanted to return to aggressive vocals
and just an angry record. I think we definitely made the angriest record
yet. M: With a lot of
the members now having families, is it hard to tap into that anger? TA: It’s the
passion of the music and what music creates, that’s what drives
me to go crazy for an hour and a half. M: Are their two
sides to Tom Araya? The voice of evil in Slayer and the father of a
son and a daughter? TA: Well, yeah.
There’s two sides to everybody. It’s just that my two sides
are a lot more extreme. M: Have right-wing
Christian groups, due to your graphic imagery and lyrics, singled out
Slayer? TA: I really wouldn’t
know. Why worry about something that is somebody else’s problem?
If you have a problem with us don’t buy the record. M: Original drummer
Dave Lombardo is temporarily back in the band. What happened to his
replacement Paul Bostaph? He was amazing at the last show in Montreal. TA: Paul sat down
with us and felt he wasn’t able to give his 100 per cent for Slayer
in his live performance. He thought it would be a good idea for us to
find someone who could give 100 per cent every time. He is an awesome
drummer but even when we played Montreal last time we were aware of
the physical pain he was in just getting through the set. M: So how did Lombardo’s
name come up? TA: We just thought,
who else could do this, duh? M: Are the rehearsals
just like the old days? TA: Yeah, I don’t
think he has played music with this much intensity for a while, so he’s
getting back on the horse to ride. After one or two tries of a song,
though, it’s like old news. We are really concentrating on him
playing the new stuff that he is not as familiar with. It’s pretty
kick-ass. M: During metal’s
lean years, we saw a lot of your contemporaries turn into pop-metal
bands, whereas you guys always have stuck to your guns. TA: Well, we did sit back and watch those bands and wonder what the fuck they were doing.
Nazis, nihilists
and new country TA: Dude, I like
Paul Simon and the Police. I like to listen to anything that appeals
to me. M: Paul Simon? TA: (laughs) Yeah.
I guess a lot of people might be surprised that I also like the Judds,
Garth Brooks or Brooks & Dunn. My wife plays a lot of country around
the house and I really love it because I like well-written songs. M: You have spawned
a lot of the nü-metal going on now. When you hear blatant Slayer
rip-offs on the radio, do you get pissed? TA: I’m just
surprised we have influenced so many people. That, to me, is the big
surprise. M: Given your lyrical
flirtations with the dark side, how would you describe evil in the world? TA: There are some
serial killers that I think are really out there but to me, seeing what
happened at the World Trade Center and the mentality of fanaticism is
pure evil. Those were just innocent people. It was just fucking evil. M: We’ve seen
a lot of fanaticism from Slayer fans, like the fan from your Web site
whocarved
Slayer into his arm with a surgical tool. TA: The first time
we saw that videotape, we were just, like, “Fuck.” When the
label said they wanted to use it on the record art, we were just, like,
“Cool.” All of our fans aren’t like that. We get a lot
of letters from detention centres and I’ve met a lot of kids who
have gone through some problems and they all say that Slayer helped
them through some hard times. As ugly as the music is, it has helped
them be strong and helped them through a crisis in their life. When
you talk to our fans you realize that they are just like anyone else. M: Slayer has gotten
a rep for having a lot of violence at shows. Would you say this is accurate? TA: People thrash
out at our shows and some people see that as violence. To me, violence
is people literally beating the shit out of each other with an object
or someone coming at you with a knife or a gun—that’s violence.
Kids having fun in a mosh pit and dancing—that’s just going
crazy. That’s metal. M: Slayer has always
been plagued with a small, disenfranchised white-supremacist following.
The bulletin board on your Web site is littered with racism. Having
been born in Chile, is there a message you would like to send to these
people? TA: I’m not white, so I don’t think I need to send out a message. I’ve noticed it and met people that are into that. I have no problems with people’s beliefs and how they want to live their lives, but just don’t fuck with me. Paging Doctor Feelbad TA: Tolerance. M: Were you surprised
to find out that you are nominated for two Grammys this year? TA: When we first
heard we were nominated, we were just in shock. M: The mainstream has finally embraced aggressive music. Do you think it is now Slayer’s time to take over? TA: I don’t
know, I’m more concerned with the tour we have coming up and I
don’t really give it much thought. Slayer just takes everything
on a day-to-day basis. We don’t look at the far-off distance but
just concern ourselves with what’s happening now. M: You just played
Montreal a couple of months ago and you’re already coming back.
Is Montreal a special place for Slayer? TA: Yeah, man, Canada was the first foreign land that we toured in. We have a great following in Montreal
and Quebec. I’m surprised we haven’t played Montreal more
often than we have in the past. M: Other
than Dave Lombardo on drums, can we expect a different show this time
around? TA: We are
adding a bunch of new songs to the set and I think that having Dave
back with us is going to be pretty exciting. M: Lyrically,
you like to explore the morbid side of things. Does your fascination
with themacabre stem from your days of working in a hospital? TA: I don’t
know where my morbid curiosity comes from. When I worked in a hospital,
it wasn’t out of morbid curiosity but out of the need to help people.
I really thought I could better myself by working in a hospital. I really
felt I was helping people heal and that made me feel important. M: A lot
of bands that were influenced by you, like Burzum and Mayhem, have taken
black metal to new extremes, burning down churches and committing murder.
I always got the impression that Slayer weren’t really practicing
Satanists, despite a lot of the lyrics dealing with Satanism. Do you
want to set the record straight? TA: (laughs)
Okay, you got us. We’re not practicing Satanists. I guess that
the best way to describe our fascination with Satanism or serial killers
and the psychology of murder is to say that we are all on this planet
to learn and experience. Those are the things that I’m learning
in my lifetime. They really just spark my curiosity because all of these
things are really about the mind. When you write about stuff like that,
you have to be really creative and use words you wouldn’t think
of using, like “decorative.” You wouldn’t think to use
a word like that in a Slayer song, but if you make it “decorative
splatter,” it gives you a very visual image. I want people to read
it and just think, “Fuck.” M: Have
you gotten into trouble with the title of the record being God Hates
Us All, and the jacket depicting a charred Bible with nails pounded
into it? TA: We knew
it was a great title right away, but we all knew we would catch shit
for it. We had to put the white card in to hide the cover so we could
get racked in stores. We actually came up with another cover concept
that I can’t tell you about, but it was way more over the top.
It will be coming with the box set that we are releasing soon. M: Are you
anti-Christian? TA: I don’t
know if I am so much anti-Christian as anti-corporate-religion. I have
my beliefs and don’t force them on anybody. M: Do you
let your kids listen to Slayer? TA: Of course, dude. We put on Slayer, early Metallica, early Megadeth or Pantera and they start headbanging and running around in circles. It’s in the blood, dude. : With Hatebreed and Diecast at Metropolis on Sunday, Jan. 27, 8pm, $30
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Since
their 1983 debut Show No Mercy, Slayer have been the yardstick that
all things heavy are measured against. Landmark albums like Reign in
Blood and South of Heaven have become blueprints not just for metal
but for aggressive music across the board. On the cusp of their 20th
anniversary, Slayer have once again upped the ante with their most brutal
album yet. God Hates Us All is not just angry but is seething behind
clenched teeth, on the verge of tearing your throat out. The Mirror
talked to singer/bassist Tom Araya over the phone and found out that,
despite singing lines like “Clawing at the eyes of God” (“God
Sends Death”) or “Violence, I love it” (“Threshold”)
every night, he’s actually just a regular dude who doesn’t
mind the occasional Paul Simon song.