(Credits: Jonas Rogowski)
Sun 27 April 2025 11:29, UK
In a new video interview with Luiz Cesar Pimentel, Slayer’s Kerry King opened up about his relationship with vocalist and bassist Tom Araya after the death of the band’s founding guitarist, Jeff Hanneman.
He reflected on both men’s grief: “I think Jeff’s passing weighed harder on Tom than it did me … I think that’s what led to him wanting to retire earlier than me, because I think he felt the band was different.”
King reflected on a natural distance that is maintained within their friendship. He likened the present to the early days of Slayer, in that “[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.”
Slayer will return for two shows this summer in July, one in London’s Finsbury Park and the other in Cardiff’s Black Weir Fields. King also revealed that the original desire for this came from Araya: “And I think the first idea to play this year was for the Louder Than Life festival show we missed last year ’cause of the hurricane.”
He continued: “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 [in early July in Birmingham, United Kingdom]. I can’t fucking wait.”
When asked why he believed Araya had decided to retire, King said: “I think just the wear and tear of the road. I think he wanted to be home. None of us are real spotlight seekers, but he’s certainly not. And when Jeff was around, he was like a hermit. He did not want fame. I tolerate fame. Somebody’s got to be that guy.”
Finally, he used anecdotes to gesture at the differences between the two, which would eventually contribute to the band’s demise: “Me and Tom have never been on the same page,” he said. “Like if I want a chocolate shake, he wants a vanilla shake. ‘Kerry, what color is the sky?’ Blue. ‘Tom, what color is the sky?’ White. We’re just different people. The further on in years we got, it just became more.”
In January 2011, Jeff Hanneman contracted necrotising fasciitis, also known as flesh-eating disease, from a spider in his garden, which led to intense periods of rehab that forced him into semi-retirement. Hanneman passed away in May 2013 from alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver.
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