Phillyist Interviews... Tom Araya of Slayer

You would think that the godfathers of thrash metal would be intimidating figures to talk to. When Phillyist had the opportunity to sit down with Slayer (MySpace) bassist/vocalist/co-founder Tom Araya, that's exactly what we thought. Boy, were we wrong. Sitting with Araya was sitting with a sage of heavy metal, a gentle spirit with a vast musical background who just happens to front the greatest thrash metal band the world has ever seen. It was pretty damn incredible.

For those of you who have been living your lives unaware of Slayer and their musical presence (yes, both of you), let's start with the fact that they formed in 1981. In music years, that's the equivalent to the length of the Ming Dynasty and something that only happens to the most special and fine-tuned of bands. They are two-time Grammy winners, have released over a dozen albums and boast one of the most loyal fan bases in all of metal—fans they've kept in the palms of their hands their entire career. They construct their music with delicacy, and deliver it with anything but. They are, in the simplest terms, amazing.

Slayer was one of the co-headliners of the Rockstar Mayhem Festival and brought the tour to the Susquehanna Bank Center. (A separate review of the festival itself is coming soon, so hold your horses!) Phillyist was fortunate enough to sit with many of the Mayhem bands, but Slayer was our absolute favorite interview of the day. With a laundry list of questions and only ten minutes to ask them all, we had to choose our path wisely. Lucky for us, Araya had a lot to say.

You've been so fortunate to have the opportunity to be part of Slayer for over two decades. What's your formula for staying together for so long?
You give each other space. You know what's expected of you, and you just do it. You compartmentalize yourself and everyone plays a specific role in the group. We are very aware of what those roles are. We're also all fans of Slayer. We're the biggest fans of Slayer, in fact. If we do something, and we all listen to it and say, "Nah, that's not Slayer," if we don't like it, then that's it.

How have you managed to stay relevant to your fans after all these years?
We're very critical of ourselves. We've all gone down the same path. We're alive and healthy where some might not be. We've stayed on the same path together, and we stay on the day to day. As a band, we don't think about what we want to do album-wise in five, ten, thirty years. What sounds good today? What do we want to do today? That's what gets us through. We give our fans 200% on stage, probably more than we're supposed to. But you have to give more. Always.

How do you think tours like Mayhem affect the metal scene?
I think it's great. It's brought a lot of people to the show. Whoever put the lineup together brought the metal crowd together, all phases and all ages. It's a really smart lineup. They brought in a lot of elements connected to metal: Metal Mulisha, skateboarding. They did a good thing there.

You mentioned that you and your bandmates are 'alive and healthy'. You've got quite an aggressive vocal job on stage. What's your key to keeping your voice healthy between shows?
I don't really have a vocal warmup that I do before shows or anything like that. My first song is my warmup. The rest of the songs come out stronger as the set progresses. Over the years I've learned to sing so that I don't strain my voice and if I feel that I'm pushing a little too hard then I guess I try and back off a little so I don't lose my voice completely. There's no regimented practice behind it, though.

Slayer's shows are known to be very aggressive and at rare times a little out of control. How do you deal with that?
Well, you go out there and you do a show. If something goes wrong, which you never hope it does, I'm not going to tell them to stop. If you do, they're going to be worse. You can't stop what you're doing and say, "No, don't do that," because the crowd will look at you like "Fuck you, you can't tell me no," and it'll be that much worse. You have to just let it go.

You've toured Philly many times over. Have you had the chance to eat a Philly cheesesteak?
Oh, absolutely. I don't know much about Philly. I know the Liberty Bell is here, right? And Independence Hall? But yeah, I've had a cheesesteak.

Well, since we're getting into all the hard-hitting metal questions, I've gotta know something. If you were forced to choose, and no one should have to, but if you were forced, would you choose puppies or kittens?
Wow...let me think about that for a minute. That's actually kind of tough. Hmm. I'm gonna go with puppies.

Any particular reason?
I guess I just like puppies better.

Awesome.

Photo by author.