Slayer's Reign in Blood (33 1/3) (19 page)

After thrash, metal was no longer just for guys with hippie-length hair. Coheadlined by Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer, 1991’s Clash of the Titans tour filled Madison Square Garden. At the same time, Metallica were about to be deified as rock gods. More interesting, however, is thrash’s enduring influence on the smaller crowds.

In 1987, talking to
Metal Mania
, King summarized his group’s sound—and, inadvertently, demographic: “I think it’s like punk meets Priest: That’s Slayer.”
⁶⁶

That trilogy didn’t single-handedly demolish the walls between hardcore and metal, but Slayer were the MVPs from that shift’s wrecking crew. Metallica and Megadeth liked punk too, but Slayer actually played and hung out with bands like D.R.I. and Suicidal Tendencies, who had started as hardcore punk rock, then gradually gone metal, playing longer songs with guitar solos. Slayer’s acceptance in the hardcore world said more about the changing face of punk
than it did about Slayer’s appeal. After thrash, metal was the new hardcore. Or, hardcore was the new metal, stripped of its modernist get-the-shred-out solos and Led Sabbath dress code.

Once thrash broke, metal fans who had similar musical interests as Slayer (but less talent and practice) comprised the crossover movement—a fast, chunky metal-hardcore hybrid. Crossover didn’t appeal to most of the forward thinkers who constituted punk’s first two waves. By ’86, the punk-rock element of hardcore punk was gone, jettisoned by a new generation that just wanted something hard and fast. But some of the old guard recognized the changing tide.

“In Slayer and Metallica, I really did see the baton handed down,” said Mike Watt in Steven Blush’s
American Hardcore
book.
⁶⁷
“Those bands added a technical edge that might’ve made it even more powerful, even though they ended up just diluting it. Those bands wanted to build on the [Black] Flag vibe.”

From that point on, plenty of metal and punk kids were drinking water from the same well.

“Hardcore and metal are more similar today than they’ve ever been,” says Throwdown’s Dave Peters. “If you go back and listen to a hardcore record from 1986 and a metal record from 1986, you’re going to find that a hardcore band from today sounds more like the metal record. Hardcore bands now sing about doom and the apocalypse, and a handful of metal bands are more on the personal side.”

By the end of that three-album run, Slayer was big enough to headline amphitheaters and small arenas. Their sound was bigger, too. While writing the
Reign in Blood
demos, the hot-handed Hanneman had planted the seeds for Slayer’s
departure from pure speed. In addition to unused punk riffs, the
Reign
demos had clean bits that would turn up as the slow-death intros to “South of Heaven,” “Spill the Blood,” and “Seasons in the Abyss.”
Seasons
saw the band add a sludgy element that was slower and heavier than Black Sabbath. And then Slayer’s sound was set in stone.

“Their forte, for me, is when Jeff and Kerry are double-riffing on the slow, Satanic, heavy shit,” says Glenn Danzig. “That says so much more to me than the thrashy part.”

The thrashy part was important, though. The band’s collective performance on
Reign
set a standard for the nascent forms of extreme music.

“With
Reign in Blood
, they totally set the bar for all the death metal bands that came later,” says
Metal on Metal
host Bill Peters. “They put the death in death metal. There were bands that were playing what could be considered death metal at the time. But after that album, you had to play that fast, play that good, and sound that good.”

In the years since Slayer let loose
Reign in Blood
, a battalion of metal musicians have recorded albums that are faster and more technically impressive. For example, Behemoth’s
The Apostasy
—a thoroughly devastating 2007 album by the Polish death-metal warriors—sounds like a solid hour of
Reign
’s most exacting skill tricks. But for all of their instrumental precision, even the most carpal-tunnel-collapsing death and Swedish metal records lack
Reign in Blood
’s grab-you-by-the neck rock-and-roll groove. And no one conjures big-screen images like Hanneman and King did.

The difference between Slayer and the bands that followed is like the difference between
Terminator 2
and
Jurassic Park
: Building on the groundbreaking advances from
T2
,
Jurassic Park
is a superior technical achievement. But rampaging photorealistic dinosaurs can’t compare to the narrative power of two humanoid killing machines emptying clips into each other in a shopping mall’s narrow back hallway, then grappling through concrete walls, with the future of the human race on the line.

Terminator 2
and
Reign in Blood
are as sophisticated as they need to be. They represent a tipping point beyond which we find only diminishing returns, where the medium becomes the message. What came after might be slicker and flashier, but
T2
and
Reign
simply kick more ass.

Reign in Blood
’s rough predecessor,
Hell Awaits
, is the equivalent of the first
Terminator
. Unlike that violent film franchise, Slayer has never rebooted with an all-new lineup. And the band has never made an album comparable to
Terminator 3
—a wholly ignorable outing that fails to improve on a single facet of its forerunners. Therein lies Slayer’s greatness.

Unless otherwise noted, all quotes and attributions in this book are from original interviews conducted by the author between March 2007 and January 2008 (and appear in present tense). The author also conducted Kerry King interviews in January 2004 and January 2007. Jim Root’s and Trevor Phipps’s interviews are from July 2006. Philip Anselmo’s interview is from January 2004.

Some articles cited are from collectors’ personal archives, and were only preserved in partial form, without full publishing date, number, title, or author. All retrievable information follows.

1
: But I’m a thrash guy, so take that for what it’s worth; Iron Maiden’s great, too. And that’s not to say anything against
Darkness Descends
.

2
: Viewed online August 18, 2006 at editor Dave DiMartino’s blog:
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-SDSWyN41erCbQ5NZk26gOTPpZo_Tig--?cq=1&p=353
.

3
: Gross, Joe. “Essentials: Thrash Metal.”
Spin
, July 2007, p. 104.

4
: Sound Opinions no. 36, air date August 5, 2006. Available online at
http://www.soundopinions.org/audio.html
. Episode:
http://audio.soundopinions.org/podcasts/sooppodshow36.mp3
.

5
: Leighton, Anne. “West Coast Crunchers Go for the Throat With
Reign in Blood
.”
Hit Parader
, May 1987, p. 65.

6
: “Unholy Smoke.” June 14, 2006. Viewed online December 9, 2007 at
http://citybeat.com/2006-06-14/music.shtml
.

7
: Krgin, Borivoj. “Slayer: The Drummer Speaks.”
Metal Maniacs
, 1991, p. 13.

8
: Konow, David.
Bang Your Head: The Rise and Fall of Heavy Metal
. NY: Three Rivers Press, 2002, p. 231.

9
: Bennett, J. “Seasons in the Abyss: An Exclusive Oral History of Slayer.”
Decibel
, August 2006, p. 67.

10
: Walters, Barry. “The King of Rap.”
Village Voice
, November 4, 1986, pp. 22, 19.

11
: Hirschberg, Lynn. “The Music Man.”
The New York Times Magazine
. September 2, 2007. Viewed online September 2, 2007 at
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/magazine/02rubin.t.html
.

12
: Kot, Greg. “Behind the Scenes: Producer Rick Rubin Talks About Working with Johnny Cash, Beastie Boys, and Slayer, Among Others.” Chicago
Tribune
. July 4, 2004, p. 10.

13
: Walters, p. 25.

14
: Gueraseva, Stacy.
Def Jam, Inc.: Russell Simmons, Rick Rubin, and the Extraordinary Story of the World’s Most Influential Hip-Hop Label
. NY: One World/Ballantine/Random House Publishing Group, 2005, p. 28.

15
: Walters, p. 25.

16
: Walters, p. 22.

17
: Gueraseva, p. 34.

18
: Walters, p. 20.

19
: Binelli, Mark. “The Guru.”
Rolling Stone
, September 22, 2005, p. 82.

20
: Binelli, p. 76.

21
:
Mojo
’s May 2006 issue ranked Buckley’s
Grace
as the top Modern
Rock Classic of All Time. In the February 2006 issue of
Q
, readers voted it #13 album of all time.

22
: Gueraseva, pp. 56, 57, 10.

23
: That CMJ show featured Slayer, Megadeth, and Bad Brains. Conflicting accounts do and don’t have the Beastie Boys serving as emcees for the evening.

24
: Bowcott, Nick. “Survival of the Sickest.”
Guitar World
, 1994.

25
: Mastering anecdote from Nussbaum’s “Slayer’s Tom Araya: A Beat Boy From Hell?”
Metal Mania
, April 1987, p. 64. The article says the band finished the mastering in a single Sunday, but Wallace and Araya say a one-day finish sounds wrong.

26
: Lee, Cosmo. “Visions of the Beast: Metal’s Mythmakers.”
Stylus
. June 11, 2007. Viewed online August 9, 2007 at
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_article/visions-of-the-beast-metals-mythmakers.htm
. Expanded version online at
www.InvisibleOranges.com
.

27
: “In Nomine Slayer.”
Metal Hammer
, 1987.

28
: Nobody in the band recalls showing Carroll’s
Reign
cover to his mother, but there’s a lot they don’t remember about the period.

29
: Gueraseva, p. 65.

30
: Tipper Gore’s husband is Al Gore. Given Florida’s high concentration of metal fans and Bush’s 500-vote victory, it’s worth wondering whether lingering resentment toward the PMRC cost Gore the 2000 presidential election.

31
: Stim, Rich. “Slayer:
Reign in Blood
.”
Spin
, September 1986, p. 32.

32
: Gueraseva, p. 70.

33
: Yetnikoff, Walter. With David Ritz.
Howling at the Moon
. New York: Broadway, 2004, p. 9.

34
: Gueraseva, p. 84.

35
: Schindler’s client, Def Jam, now owed CBS another album. Slayer’s move off the Columbia-Def Jam roster made room for Public Enemy.

36
: Walters, p. 21.

37
: Walters, p. 24.

38
: Gueraseva, p. 85.

39
:
c.f.
Newcleus, “Jam on It.” Worst. Song. Ever.

40
: On other calls, Pete Nice would pretend to be Lombardo.

41
: Shocklee had worked at a metal-heavy Record World, where he was the sole black guy on an all-headbanger staff. Public Enemy’s elaborate production was influenced by classic-rock studio monsters Pink Floyd and Yes. The “Angel” loop wasn’t P.E.’s only debt to thrash. Their dissonant disestablishmentarianism was influenced by King’s former bandmate, Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine. Says Shocklee: “Public Enemy’s whole concept, to me, came from Megadeth. Megadeth made one record that fucked my entire head up:
Peace Sells … But Who’s Buyin’?
That shit is crazy.”

42
: Kaye, Don. “Slayer: Hell Was Never So Much Fun.”
Creem Close-Up: Thrash Metal
no. 1, November 1987, p. 9.

43
: Testa, Fabio. “… But I Like ’Em.”
Metal Mania
, December 1987, p. 34.

44
:
Kerrang!
October 2–15, 1986.

45
: Constable, Dave. “Let It Bleed.”
Metal Forces
no. 19, 1986.

46
: Doe, Bernard. “Let It Bleed.” 1987, King Diamond cover, pp. 28–29.

47
:
Rolling Stone
no. 489–490, December 18, 1986, p. 84.

48
: Kaye, Don. “Top 20 Thrash Metal Albums of All Time (So Far)”
Creem Close-Up: Thrash Metal
no. 1, November 1987, p. 65.

49
: “We Blame the Parents!” p. 28.

50
:
Spin
, July 2005, p. 88.

51
:
Enter into the realm of skatin’
: Gross nailed it. Before “thrash” was a much-abused musical adjective and a metal genre, it was a skate term, and so it remained. Recalls Earth Crisis/Freya/Path of Resistance frontman Karl Buechner: “I had
Reign in Blood
on a tape. I used to have a [boom] box that I’d put in my backpack and turn it up as loud as it would go, and I’d get on my skateboard and bomb hills. I had a huge half-pipe in my yard, so we were always looking for music that would amp us up. And there was nothing faster and harder than
Reign in Blood
,
South of Heaven
, and
Seasons in the Abyss
.”

52
: Mudrian, Albert. “Reign in Blah.”
Seattle Weekl
y, November 19, 2003. Viewed online December 9, 2007:
http://www.seattleweekly.com/2003-11-19/music/reign-in-blah.php
.

53
: Bennett, J. “Who’ll Stop the Reign?”
Decibel
, November 2004, p. 47.

54
: Binelli, p. 84.

55
: Ibid.

56
:
The Greatest: 40 Greatest Metal Songs
. Vh1. 2006.

57
: “Slayer Frontman Comments on Grammy Win.” Blabbermouth.net, February 11, 2008. Viewed February 23, 2008:
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=90488
.

58
: “Auschwitz.” The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,
www.ushmm.org
. Viewed October 6, 2007:
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?ModuleId=10005189
.

59
: Ibid.