Kerry King has opened up on Slayer and has said that the band “will never tour again”.
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King – the band’s guitarist – appeared as a guest in a new interview with Jonathan Clarke, the host of Out Of The Box on Q104.3, New York’s classic rock station. During the chat, King was asked about Slayer’s forthcoming reunion gigs and how they came about.
The band’s reunion tour comes five years after Slayer completed their last run of gigs which were billed as their farewell tour at the time. Now, the band will be headlining two festivals this September, namely Louder Than Life Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, and Riot Fest in Chicago.
The line-up will be the same as it was when the band ended, featuring co-founders King and Tom Araya, guitarist Gary Holt (also of Exodus) and drummer Paul Bostaph.
“I’ll put it in the perspective everybody can understand. We’ve been turning down offers since the beginning of 2020, pandemic and all. And then it started getting near the five-year anniversary of us stopping playing, so I’m, like, ‘You know what? This is a three-show package. I think it would be fun to do.’ It’s kind of a five-year anniversary of our last tour,” King told Clarke (transcribed by Blabbermouth.net).
He continued: “We’re never gonna tour again — it ain’t gonna happen. We’re never gonna record again; that’s not gonna happen either. But to do commemorative shows, I think that’s kind of fun. I don’t have to be married to it for a long time. Kids don’t have to worry about it coming around on tour because we said we wouldn’t. There’s not a whole lot of weird diabolical shit going on here. I think people have just gotta say, ‘Hey, it’s anniversary celebration shows.’ That’s gonna be the end of it.”
Previously speaking to Classic Rock History last month, King shared what the reunion shows would look like. “It’s not really much different at all. It’s the same heads, same cabs, same pedals, same guitars. You know, there will be a lot of fire when Slayer plays, and I think, yeah, those shows will just be fun. It’ll be fun to play with Gary Holt for a few gigs; I haven’t seen him in almost five years, so that will be cool. And it’ll be cool to get together with Tom Araya and spit some hate out at people, but don’t get used to this being a yearly event.”
King previously expressed regret over the end of Slayer, admitting in 2021 that he thinks they “quit too early” and he hated not playing music.
He echoed that sentiment in another interview last year, telling Metal Hammer that the split was “premature”.
“The reason I say ‘premature’ is because my heroes from my childhood are still playing! I can still play, I still want to play, but that livelihood got taken away from me,” he said.
In other news, King revealed that he “can’t be bothered” with Iron Maiden‘s more recent output.
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