Legendary SLAYER guitarist Kerry King has never been shy about expressing his harsh opinions of nü-metal music. His latest critique was made in an interview with Metal Hammer, where he took the opportunity to take shots at LIMP BIZKIT – a band leader within this genre.
The icons of thrash metal undeniably took a chance with their 1998 release Diabolus In Musica, which received much condemnation for its incorporation of nu-metal.
“I was really jaded for a while back in the late 90s. I couldn’t understand why LIMP BIZKIT was big. It affected me – I didn’t want to play music,” King said. “I thought, ‘If this is the way that music’s going, then f*ck this, I hate it’. That’s why Jeff Hanneman wrote so much of our 1998 album Diabolus In Musica, which is too funky for me.”
“That’s the one record that I really paid not enough attention to because I was really bitter about what kind of music was popular,” he continued. “I thought it was, was very frat boy stuff, and maybe that’s why it was popular, I don’t know.
“So Diabolus didn’t get as much attention from me because, you know, we didn’t stay in focus. Looking back we were just saying, ‘alright, how do we make Slayer fit into today’s society?’ But, that’s probably my least favorite record of our history. That’s our Turbo [JUDAS PRIEST‘s commercially friendly 1986 album of the same name.]”
In a recent interview with Metal Hammer magazine, Kerry King revealed some more details about his post-SLAYER project.
“You know me, so you know what it’s going to sound like,” Kerry said. “I played this new song for a buddy, and I said to him, ‘If there’s anything I’ve written in the last few years that sounds like SLAYER, it’s this.’ And he said, ‘That sounds like you could have pulled it off of any SLAYER record.’ I actually made that riff up backstage at a SLAYER show. We were walking to the stage and I got my phone out and recorded it so I wouldn’t forget it.”
He also confirmed that former SLAYER drummer Paul Bostaph is involved with the project.
“We just started rehearsing and the only person I can give away is Paul because I took him from SLAYER and we work very well together,” King said. “We didn’t start rehearsing until the end of March, and that was the first time since that last SLAYER show at the end of 2019 that me and Paul finally got into a room together.”
“Had it have been up to me then I’d have been out in 2020,” he continued. “But that thing called the pandemic f*cked everything up for everyone. You know, I waited on that, because it had to run its course. I didn’t want to be the guinea pig; I didn’t want to learn how to tour again. I already did my dues; I don’t want to have to prove myself again.
“Have I been dragging my feet? Yeah, because I wanted this [pandemic] sh*t to get sorted. I won’t be dragging my feet much longer.”
SLAYER played its final show of their farewell tour in November 2019 at the Forum in Los Angeles. One day later, Kerry King‘s wife, Ayesha King, said that there is “not a chance in hell” that the thrash metal icons will reunite for more shows.
Reeder, the visionary behind Metal Addicts, has transformed his lifelong passion for metal into a thriving online community for metal aficionados. As a fervent devotee of black metal, Reeder is captivated by its dark, atmospheric, and often unorthodox soundscapes.