Head-To-Head With SLAYER's Tom Araya -

Head-To-Head With SLAYER's Tom Araya - The BW&BK Interview Part II


BW&BK's "Metal" Tim Henderson spoke in-depth to SLAYER frontman Tom Araya recently about a number of topics including the band's recent tour with MARILYN MANSON, rumours of his retirement, the worldwide state of heavy metal, the roots of Reign In Blood and the band's newly-released Unholy Alliance Tour DVD/CD. Part II of the chat is as follows:

Worcester Magazine recently quoted you saying: "I can't really see myself doing this at a later age." That is certainly a worrying quote for your die-hard fan-base. So I presume you don't want to be caught on stage at Mick Jagger's age!

"No. But I don't think about my age. When somebody asks me about my age - if I haven't been talking about how how old I am, I have to sit there and do the math. It's not something that's on my mind. I live differently than that. I don't live by age, I live by how I feel and I feel young and great (laughs). Honestly, it has nothing to do with anything aside from physical ability. There's younger bands right now that can't do what we do. It's the physical ability to be able to play that fast, to be able to do what we do. And it comes to a point where if you can't play 100% - especially with what we do - it's not going to sound that great."

How is your voice holding out?
"I've been fortunate that my voice holds out. During the course of my 25-30 year career singing, I've lost my voice twice. Once in 1995 on Divine (Intervention) and I think it was a year ago in the middle of our European tour I lost my voice in the middle of the set. We finished the set with me not singing three or four songs. We tried to get somebody to sing a song and that didn't work either. And I just walked off the stage and sat with the paramedics and said 'do something.' They're looking at me going 'we can't' while the other guys are on stage playing. 'Make me talk'. 'We can't.' When I sing, I know how to maintain control as far as not getting carried away and really going balls-out all the time. I've learned to become more of a singer instead of a screamer. I've adapted and learned that along the way, so I sing with a little more confidence, a little more control."

Slayer fans are pretty much accustomed to a 90 minute show...
"In all honesty, do you think people could handle more than an hour and a half of Slayer? I'm being serious. That's one of the reasons why we don't play any longer than an hour and a half. We have played long sets, but we can tell when people get bored. People start losing interest, tiring. So we figured, whenever we do sets, we like to keep them short and tight and I don't like to say too much. Some people say, 'man, you guys didn't play long enough.' And we're like, 'yeah we did, it just went by real fast.' We know your tolerance level dude and it won't be any longer than an hour and a half. I'm being serious man. If we did play longer, it would have to be "an evening with the band Slayer" - a two-three hour special event. And if we going to do a tour like that, that's nuts. We would have to do two sets a night with an intermission in between. In all honesty, when you work your butt off for an hour and a half and you sit down for fifteen minutes, you don't want to get up again. I don't like intermissions. If I'm up there playing, I don't want to stop any longer than I have to, because if I do, I don't want to get up there and play anymore - I'm tired (laughs). If my ass is down for a short intermission, I'm down for good dude! Twenty years ago? Fifteen years ago? That might have been a different story. It just takes a little longer to recoup these days. Your body is a little slower. Dude, right now I'm up, I'm working. I'm busting ass. I'm pulling poles out of the ground bare-handed! I'm at a ranch, so I've been getting a lot of stuff done. I don't tire out. I'm the oldest one in the band, and I'm the least that walks and looks old (laughs). I'm four years older than Kerry and Jeff and five years older than Dave. I'm 46. I seriously just don't think about my age. I think about my life and the things I need to do. I think about now."

You can read Part I here.