{"id":27752,"date":"2025-07-28T15:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T15:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/27752\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T15:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T15:20:10","slug":"people-thought-we-were-nazi-sympathisers-and-nothing-could-be-further-from-the-truth-the-highs-lows-controversies-and-epic-comebacks-of-slayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/27752\/","title":{"rendered":"“People thought we were Nazi sympathisers, and nothing could be further from the truth.” The highs, lows, controversies and epic comebacks of Slayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few bands have left more of a mark on any music scene than the indelible bloody handprint Slayer<\/a> have left on metal. Their blistering speed, controversial themes and uncompromising attitude have had a profound influence, not only on their thrash metal<\/a> peers, but on death metal<\/a>, black metal<\/a> and every other extreme subgenre to come.<\/p>\n

When asked to sum up his band\u2019s enduring impact on the metal scene, guitarist Kerry King<\/a> shrugs. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to answer, because that sounds like a question for fans. I think it\u2019s important, and I think you can see that just by how people react to us now, coming back and playing. Just the mention of Slayer sets off frenzies, because that\u2019s what Slayer fans do. They scream, \u2018Slayer!\u2019 everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, \u2018Slayer!\u2019 \u2013 more properly pronounced \u2018SLAYYYYYAAAARGHH!\u2019 – has become a rallying cry for metalheads worldwide. In some ways they\u2019ve transcended music to become a recognisable cultural touchstone. There\u2019s even an annual International Day Of Slayer every June 6, with the inaugural event having launched on 06\/06\/06.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s all a far cry from the band that struggled to get a gig in a local Los Angeles scene dominated by the likes of Ratt, Dokken and rising stars M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t fit in,\u201d vocalist and bassist Tom Araya recalls. \u201cWe didn\u2019t look like guys trying to look girls. And we were no different than our fans. Club owners would tell us we couldn\u2019t use or do things for our show, and we did them anyway and got banned from the clubs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slayer\u2019s first ever show took place at South Gate Park Auditorium, Los Angeles, on Halloween 1981, but as time went on they gravitated further and further from the neon strips of LA itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe LA scene predominantly was hair metal back then, M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce and all that followed. So we pretty much were an Orange County band, just because we did not want to be under that hair metal moniker, which was synonymous with Hollywood,\u201d Kerry explains. \u201cMetallica<\/a> was out there too, before they became a Bay Area band, so there was a lot of thrash going on in Orange County. We made it the home of what became thrash metal, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Tom insists that there was a sense of camaraderie between the new breed of bands with \u201cno competition\u201d as they grew up together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was a little bit of both, actually,\u201d considers Kerry. \u201cIn the early days we were all friends, but we were young men and there was definitely competition. I remember we would get our hands on a Metallica demo and say, \u2018Alright, this is where they are going, we have got to outdo that.\u2019 And I know for a fact that Kirk [Hammett] and probably James [Hetfield] as well would get our records and say, \u2018Oh, we have got to go beat that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kerry<\/p>\n

Kerry King on stage with Slayer at Dynamo Festival in May 1985.\u00a0 (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The first Slayer track to feature on record was Aggressive Perfector , which followed Metallica\u2019s Hit The Lights and Overkill\u2019s No Holds Barred onto Metal Blade\u2019s influential Metal Massacre series, appearing on 1983\u2019s Metal Massacre III.<\/p>\n

It was followed by full-length debut Show No Mercy on the same label later that year. Kerry recalls recording it on a graveyard shift from midnight until 6am each night, to get cheaper studio rates. While it\u2019s recognised as an influential release now, it was still very much a work in progress, and a primitive version of what Slayer would go on to become.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou gotta understand, when our first record came out, Jeff [Hanneman, guitar] and I were 19 years old. I think Dave [Lombardo, drums] was 18. We were just a bunch of dumb teenagers trying to carve out a space in the world for ourselves,\u201d Kerry says. \u201cHonestly, everybody hated it at first. It took a while for people to come around. I remember some of the early reviews of Show No Mercy, people just despised it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not everyone failed to get it, of course. \u201cSomeone got us a tape of Show No Mercy, and we were like, \u2018These guys are just like us, this is crazy!\u201d Exodus guitarist Gary Holt told Metal Hammer last year. \u201c\u2018We want to kill shit and hack things up with machetes with them!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

1984\u2019s Haunting The Chapel EP was a huge leap forward, but for most it was 1985 full-length follow-up Hell Awaits that really saw Slayer start to come into their own. Kerry still sees it as heavily derivative of Danish Satanic occult metal kingpins Mercyful Fate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe influence was all over that record,\u201d he says. \u201cWe were still figuring out who we were, so we were still emulating our heroes. To me, it was a step forward. Yeah, we did mature as songwriters and musicians, but that one was still us chasing our heroes,\u201d the guitarist says.<\/p>\n

If Hell Awaits wore its influences heavily, Slayer\u2019s third album was something else. Released in 1986 and produced by rising star Rick Rubin, Reign In Blood<\/a> stripped the comparatively convoluted approach of its predecessor down to the bloody bone. It was an instant classic of jugular-slicing thrash excellence, that still stands as one of metal\u2019s most perfectly formed and important releases nearly four decades on. Which isn\u2019t a bad achievement for a collection of songs weighing in at less than half an hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t realise how important it was at the time. But we knew we had something special when we noticed that the album was only 28 minutes,\u201d says Tom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe funny thing about that [is] when we were rehearsing it, it came in around 33 or 34 minutes. But then when we actually recorded it, and put it on vinyl or cassette or whatever back then, it came in at around 28 minutes,\u201d Kerry adds. \u201cFamiliarity sped it up and Dave was notorious for speeding things up, so it just became faster as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

The guitarist acknowledges that Reign In Blood was the blueprint for the classic Slayer sound that the metal world would come to know and love. \u201cIt was the maturing of Slayer, so to speak, and the beginning of the sound everybody knows Slayer as today,\u201d he says. \u201cI think not only was it a great recording with great songs, but it was also a change as to exactly what we sounded like and how we were going to sound for the next 40 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The album didn\u2019t have the same commercial success as Metallica\u2019s own 1986 milestone, Master Of Puppets<\/a>, but it peaked at No.94 in the US Billboard charts, which was impressive enough for such an extreme set of songs. The band also saw their live shows getting more frenzied and chaotic. New Jersey thrashers Overkill supported Slayer on the US Reign In Blood tour and frontman Bobby \u2018Blitz\u2019 Ellsworth recalls seeing someone plunging from the balcony of The Forum in Los Angeles during Slayer\u2019s set.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was purposeful, his way of showing his exhilaration,\u201d the singer told Hammer in 2021. \u201cSure, those gigs were violent. But it wasn\u2019t as if the violence escalated \u2013 it was as if someone just pushed a button. You didn\u2019t see the crowd get whipped into this frenzy \u2013 the frenzy was instantaneous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Slayer<\/p>\n

Slayer with Rick Rubin at the God Hates Us All release party: the album was a major return to form (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Along with the attention came an increased scrutiny of Slayer\u2019s lyrics, particularly the Hanneman-penned album opener, Angel Of Death, which was marked by its bowel-churning scream and a factual dissection of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele and his death camp experiments.<\/p>\n

Columbia Records refused to distribute the Def Jam-released album, leading to a delay in its release before Geffen came onboard. It also fuelled accusations in certain quarters that Slayer were glorifying their subject matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was written documentary style. It was not writing in praise of Nazi Germany. It was not writing in praise of Josef Mengele,\u201d Kerry states emphatically. \u201cSlayer never backed away from writing about controversial things, and Jeff was very much into World War II. That is where his writing interest was. A bunch of people took it the wrong way and thought we were Nazi sympathisers, and nothing could be further from the truth. It was a horrible time in world history, but it is a historic fact, and it is something that should be brought up so people do not forget.\u201d<\/p>\n

Controversy aside, Reign In Blood boosted Slayer\u2019s profile but they weren\u2019t exactly drowning in the trappings of success. Dave Lombardo \u2013 whose propulsive rhythms and furious blastbeats played a major part in Slayer\u2019s sound \u2013 left the band for the first time during a tour supporting W.A.S.P. He would later tell us that he was not making enough money to cover his bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Fuck this, man, I\u2019m not going to put all my fucking effort into this if we\u2019re signed to a major label and going out on these extravagant tours and I\u2019m coming home with no money\u2019,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

The band recruited Tony Scaglione from New York thrashers Whiplash to complete the tour, with Dave returning to the fold in 1987. Having made the ultimate thrash album with Reign In Blood, the band decided it was time to take a different tack when it came to 1988 follow-up South Of Heaven.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were like, \u2018Alright, we made this super-blistering fast record. We knew we did not want to do Reign In Blood part two,\u201d Kerry recalls. \u201cThe mindset was to go the heavier route. We still had speedy songs, but there is a lot more heavy stuff we did intentionally to offset the fast songs when you play it live.\u201d<\/p>\n

That experiment also set up the band to deliver a mix of tempos and styles on 1990\u2019s Seasons In The Abyss. Backed by money from Def American, the label Rick Rubin founded after leaving Def Jam, it also saw Slayer film music videos for War Ensemble and the title track \u2013 the latter a big-budget epic shot in Egypt, with a full complement of horse riders and the pyramids as a backdrop. Both received heavy rotation on MTV, and Kerry says it was \u201canother piece in the puzzle of world domination, getting into as much media as people could see and hear\u201d.<\/p>\n

The album broke the Top 40 in the US album charts and the Top 20 in the UK, making it their biggest-selling album. The rest of the 90s were not quite so kind, however. Dave departed again (to be replaced by former Forbidden drummer Paul Bostaph) and, like many other metal bands, they struggled with the changing musical landscape.<\/p>\n

The end of the decade saw them release 1998\u2019s divisive Diabolus In Musica, which saw Kerry step back from songwriting and the band dip into groove and nu metal<\/a> with mixed results. The new millennium saw them roar back to form with the blistering God Hates Us All in 2001.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realised I messed up by not being as focused,\u201d says Kerry. \u201cJeff realised the same thing, and I think that\u2019s what made that album particularly sound like it has teeth. That one was like, \u2018Hey, we messed up the entire thing in the 90s, but now we\u2019re back and pissed off.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/p>\n

Tom Araya back with Slayer in 2025: but don’t get used to it (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Dave would also return to the fold for the next couple of albums, before leaving once more following 2009\u2019s World Painted Blood. That would also be their last with Jeff Hanneman, who tragically died of liver failure in 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came in, he introduced the band to punk,\u201d says Kerry of his late writing and six-string partner. Good friend, and I loved him. It\u2019s hard to put into words but I often think, \u2018What would Jeff think of this album?\u2019, be it Repentless, be it [Kerry King solo album] From Hell I Rise. I\u2019m like, \u2018I think Jeff would like this record,\u2019 because Jeff was still a metalhead too.\u201d<\/p>\n

2015\u2019s Repentless would be the band\u2019s last studio album, and Slayer announced their farewell tour in 2018 \u2013 with their final show taking place at the LA Forum on November 30, 2019.<\/p>\n

Except, it turned out that it wasn\u2019t quite the last. They performed at a couple of US festivals last year and had two huge headlining shows lined up in Cardiff and London this summer, as well as Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s farewell Back To The Beginning<\/a> show in Birmingham.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to confuse this for fans. Slayer is not going to tour anymore. We come out, we do special occasion shows so people can come check it out,\u201d Kerry says. \u201cI\u2019m super-happy to be part of the last Black Sabbath show. That means more to me than I could ever convey.\u201d<\/p>\n

They helped see off some true icons at that show, but Slayer\u2019s own legendary status as one of the most explosive and influential metal bands of all time is already assured.<\/p>\n

Check out our range of Slayer merch over at the official Metal Hammer store<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Slayer<\/p>\n

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