In a recent interview with Consequence of Sound, ALTER BRIDGE guitarist Mark Tremonti talked about SLAYER and how they influenced him as a musician and the impact they made when he first heard them as a kid.
“[1986’s] Reign in Blood is another record that my older brother would have listened to all the time,” he said. “When I was growing up, that was the most dangerous record to listen to. That was, like, the kids in school, you know, the craziest kids listened to SLAYER.
“So I got into it, listened to it, fell in love with it. I was heavily influenced by SLAYER, the guitar riffs on the Reign in Blood record, I think that’s probably the best guitar-riff record, in my opinion, of all time.
Mark added: “I’d sit in my room and every time they’d play and I heard, like, ‘Praise, hail Satan!’, I’d have to turn it down… then turn it back up. [Laughs]”
SLAYER began The Final Campaign, the last leg of its Final World Tour on November 2, wrapping its touring career up with two shows at The Forum in Los Angeles on November 29 and 30. Tickets for remaining dates are available here.
Last year, LINKIN PARK‘s Mike Shinoda sat down with Noisey to listen Reign in Blood in full for the first time ever.
Upon listening to the opening track, “Angel of Death,” the musician said: “Have you ever seen an angry SLAYER fan? They’re crazy.”
Read the conversation below.
Noisey: Yeah, you’re very brave for putting yourself out there like this.
Shinoda: “So this is a short record. Are we going to gain some momentum and then lose that momentum?”
Not at all. This is a thrash record so it’s going to keep it going for the entire runtime.
I will admit that I’ve probably heard most of the record at some point in my life, but it’s been so long. I don’t even remember and I don’t know anything about it except for the stuff I looked up before this interview.
I brought the vinyl in case you like it.
“Oh wow, the lyrics are in here too. Reading this first one, man, what a way to start an album.”
The lyrics are bonkers. I have a feeling we’ll definitely be talking about them as this goes on.
“I like that I thought that opening scream was a guitar.”
The first time I heard it I thought it was a trumpet. It’s such a bonkers way to kick things off.
“Reading the lyrics here I got to bring something up. I read a couple things coming into this. I didn’t research it or whatever but I did peek at a couple of things just to know what we’re dealing with. And the thing that I read, which may or may not be true overall, but I saw a piece where they were talking about the N*zi content in the first song and it felt like they were really backing off from saying it’s about N*zism.”
I didn’t read that one but it’s 100 percent about Josef Mengele and the Holocaust.
“It was almost like a cop out. They were like, “well it’s not glorifying N*zism.” But I’m reading the lyrics and my first impression is like, yes it 100 percent is. I’m not a fan of that at all.”
