Slayer 66 2/3: The Jeff & Dave Years. A Metal Band Biography.

by Ferris, D. X.

  King contributes solo lyrics on four songs.

  Hanneman didn’t compose any lyrics by himself, but wrote the music for five songs, and co-wrote music for another two with King.

  In the Slayer discography, Seasons is the Tom Araya album, the LP with the singer’s most writing credits. Araya contributed lyrics to six of the album’s ten songs: four solo compositions, plus two co-writes with Hanneman: “Hallowed Point” and the prescient, far superior “War Ensemble.”

  “I had a lot of ideas [previously],”Araya told me when the band was performing the album in its entirety. “This was the first time I took the initiative to try to write something.”24-6

  “Expendable Youth” tapped a timely topic, gangland warfare — something that Araya knew a little bit about, though it was all secondhand.

  “I grew up in a town called Maywood,” recalled Araya. “And I hung out with my brother quite a bit. He had some cholo friends. They were good friends to have,” he added with a dry laugh.

  The album has another unique credit: King provides backing vocals on the postapocalyptic postcard “Skeletons of Society.”

  With Araya penning lyrics, songs about serial-killer songs continued arriving. But now they were about real-life mass-murders. “Dead Skin Mask” trotted out the infamous Ed Gein, the inspiration for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Albert Hitchcock’s classic shocker Psycho. (The trend would continue on future releases, with “Gemini” [the Zodiac Killer], “Psychopathy Red” [Andrei Chikatilo], and “213” [Jeffrey Dahmer].) Araya and Hanneman liked to read about their pet morbid subjects; King preferred to watch movies and keep an eye on the world around him.

  [Click here for album's full songwriting credits in Appendix B]

  Other subject matter displayed an amazing element of timing: the United States military’s Operation Desert Shield, a campaign against Iraq, was in full swing when the album arrived. When that operation transitioned in Operation Desert Storm — and, thus, the first Gulf War — Slayer’s “War Ensemble” was in circulation as a perfect soundtrack for bombing runs.

  Seasons synthesizes the previous two albums’ disparate extremes. Like Reign, it starts at a full run, with “War Ensemble,” a full-throttle anthem with whiplash start-stop dynamics. With ten songs, it’s Slayer’s longest proper album, with a run time of 42:27 minutes. (Some expanded versions of other albums have bonus tracks and run longer; more on them later.) The album record closes with a 6.6-minute title track that represents the last new element of Slayer would ever incorporate into its congealing sound: deep sludge that flowed in a slow current.

  While it’s a brutal record, Seasons has an arid tone. A certain strain of audiophile might agree with Gene Hoglan’s previous criticism of the Slayer sound as captured by Rubin and Wallace: “That is some dry action. Here’s Metallica putting out Master of Puppets and even Exodus, the fantastic guitars on Bonded by Blood. [Reign doesn’t have] a lot of that really good crunch you’re looking for in a metal band. I don’t think Rick did them any favors.”24-7

  By that point, King wasn’t Rubin’s biggest fan, either. Talking to journalist Mark Day, King took exception to the record’s credits.

  “I think the credits are backwards,” King told Day. “It should read ‘Produced by Andy Wallace and Slayer, co-produced by Rick Rubin. He was never there… It seems to me that a good producer should be there the whole time. You shouldn’t have to go look for him. We’ve got finished product, but we’ve got to wait till Rick comes in to see if he likes it? Sittin’ there, strokin’ your dick for two hours.”24-8

  With this record, Slayer’s inadvertent incursion toward the mainstream continued: Entertainment Weekly took notice, rating it a B+ in an ambivalent review:

  “…Slayer is what you'd call a no-frills combo: no hummable choruses, no power ballads, no apparent sense of humor,” wrote EW’s David Browne. “Not much of anything, in fact, except jackhammer riffing and absurdly cartoonish antiauthoritarian lyrics about blood, corpses, and the Godless One…. It's like listening to a single speed-metal song — the world's longest. In other words, Seasons has all the elements of a laughable self-parody…. To Slayer's credit, though, the band pulls it off, thanks to its relentless musical drive.”24-9

  Seasons also spawned Slayer’s first videos. Over the years, the band would make relatively few promotional clips, and Seasons’ first videos would become their signature short-form visual records. The title track’s video is definitely Slayer’s most elaborate video. Despite later quality clips like “Bloodline” and “Eyes of the Insane,” “Seasons” remains the group’s most essential representation in a short film.

  Filmed before the album’s release, “Seasons in the Abyss” saw the band travel to Egypt. French director Gérard Di Puglia directed the video. The band stage some kind of quest, traveling downriver on a skiff, performing in ruins, and later playing in front of the pyramids at the Giza Necropolis — an archaeological site that translates to “city of the dead.”

  Mixed imagery swirls around the performance footage: a fallen cross, pentagrams, scrolls, fire, and pagan rites. In narrative footage, scimitar-wielding horseman chase each other across the desert. Faces hidden, a camelback caravan rounds out the ominous feeling of timeless, dark mysticism.

  MTV’s metal showcase, the Headbanger’s Ball, spun the clip regularly, as it did for “War Ensemble.” The video for Seasons’ opening cut was a tasteful, minimalist performance clip filmed in London’s Wembley Arena, days after the album’s release (October 14).

  Seasons was the band’s first release on Rubin’s solo label, for now named Def American. Released October 9, it would peak at no. 40 on Billboard’s album chart. It was certified gold April 9, 1993 24-10.

  This time, the band’s singer had a major say in the record’s direction.

  Click here to Google search “Slayer photos 1990”

  Chapter 25:

  Gazing Back Into the Abyss: The Tom Album

  Slayer played Seasons in the Abyss in its entirety as a special event tour in 2010. On the American Carnage tour, the band reteamed with two of the groups they had played with in 1991: Megadeth and Testament. Megadeth performed all of Rust in Peace. And Slayer performed all of Seasons, and possibly leaving South of Heaven on the table for a future tour.

  At the time, I interviewed Araya and asked him to break down the album that found him at his most prolific.

  “War Ensemble” (lyrics by Araya and Hanneman, music by Hanneman)

  “Jeff and I wrote it. I asked him to bring in a book to give me an idea what he was doing. And we finished the song. It was one of his books about World War II; I can’t recall the title. The [song’s] title was Jeff’s idea. I liked that: ‘ensemble,’ a group of people that get together to make war.”

  “Blood Red” (lyrics by Araya, music by Hanneman)

  “The papers and magazines, they were writing about Tiananmen Square and what was going on in China. And the picture of the guy standing in front of the tank is what got the idea for that song. And there were other things going on: They were killing people for voting in South America. I put those ideas together.”

  “Spirit in Black” (lyrics King, music by Hanneman)

  “That was like Kerry, to write about an evil spirit. I thought it sounded [odd] the way it was written. I switched them around, thinking we had a more visual image if we moved some words — the phrase ‘living halls’ and one of the verses. They didn’t paint the picture the way I was thinking, and Kerry didn’t seem to mind that.”

  “Expendable Youth” (lyrics by Araya, music by King)

  “I happened to be reading the L.A. Times. They talked about gang warfare. And it was an entire page. I read it and thought, ‘Wow, this is really cool.’ I grew up in a gang neighborhood, so I had an idea of the mentality.”

  “Dead Skin Mask” (lyrics by Araya, music by Hanneman)

  “It’s about Ed Gein, the Psycho [inspiration] guy. I read the book Deviant. It had some really [explicit] pictur
es that were omitted from the second pressing. They had a picture of the corpse hung upside-down in the barn, like they found. You pick it up, like, ‘Ugh!’ I saw the pictures, like, ‘I gotta read this!’”

  “Hallowed Point” (lyrics by Araya and Hanneman, music my Hanneman and King)

  “That’s a kind of bullet, hollow points. I came up with the title first and wrote the song to a title. It’s about a gun and what guns do to a body. It can turn flesh into confetti. It’s about the motivations to use a gun. People ask, ‘Is it an anti-gun song?’ No. ‘Is it a pro-gun song?’ No. Guns are dangerous. But I’m not an anti-gun [advocate]. I’m a gun owner.”

  “Skeletons of Society” (lyrics and music by King)

  “That was the last [album] that [Rubin] worked on, hands-on. We had an idea what Kerry wanted. But when I’d sing the chorus, I’d tell Rick Rubin, ‘I hear this here.’ [He’d say] ‘Me too!’ So the first chorus doesn’t have the two outer lines. And the next choruses were done the way Kerry wanted.”

  “Temptation” (lyrics and music by King)

  “Kerry wrote the song. He handed me the lyric, and I told him, ‘Let me do it, if you like it, you like it, if you don’t, you don’t.’ He said, ‘That sounds good, but I wanted you to start here.’ And then I said, ‘Let’s let Rick Rubin come in and see which one he likes.’ And he just turned it on, and both vocals came out. He listened to it, gave a nod, and goes, ‘Cool.’ We all agreed to keep it.”

  “Born of Fire” (lyrics by King, music by Hanneman and King)

  “I never asked Kerry what that one’s about, but it’s obvious: It’s about someone that was born on fire, born from hell.”

  “Seasons in the Abyss” (lyrics by Araya, music by Hanneman)

  “It started with music. I had ideas. I had read a Stephen King book, I can’t think of what it was. I started writing ideas. Jeff said, ‘I have some music.’ So it just came together. What I had written fit. I blew my mind, like I had written it for that. I think [the slow songs] represent Slayer very well.”

  Chapter 26:

  Clashes of the Titans

  Slayer’s Seasons campaign was, arguably, the best metal tour in history, to that point at least — if not ever.

  The band only played around 35 shows in 1990, all of them in the fall. America got a little taste of Slayer before the album came out. But the band spent the fall in Europe, as part of an all-star package. For a month, the Clash of the Titans tour raged from Belgium to London — just as their first Eurotrip had, but this time with Megadeth, Testament, and Suicidal Tendencies on the bill.

  Slayer and their tourmates would team up again over the years, and that’s a minor miracle. The tour was killer, camaraderie was lacking.

  On the European tour, Araya and Mustaine engaged in a sustained war of words. The singers took turns calling each other gay. With other groups, the verbal sparring almost went beyond fighting’ words to actual fighting.

  Slayer and their old buds from Suicidal Tendencies stalked the streets of Europe, drunk, having a blast. Suicidal opened the shows, but frontman Mike Muir wasn’t one to play the role of the humble low man on the totem pole. Mustaine rubbed him the wrong way — Mustaine rubs everybody the wrong way — and Muir wanted to meet him in a primal mixed-martial arts exchange at Wembley Stadium.

  “He's a kickboxer, I'm a street fighter, we'll throw on some gloves, that'll make it fair,” Muir told Sounds magazine in an account of the fractious affair. “We'll box it out right on the stage. There's a lot of people who'd like to see Dave Mustaine get his butt kicked, 'cause Lord knows Mike Muir ain't going' down. I'll fuck him up.... I'd dazzle him, left 'n right [punches the air]. I wanna see a little blood, y'know what I'm sayin'?"26-1

  Mustaine, a black belt with training in multiple martial arts disciplines, declined the challenge.

  “I'm not in this business to be a kick boxer,” Mustaine told Spin’s Dean Kuipers. “It doesn't matter. If he starts something, I might not win, but I won't lose. I hear Slayer called me a 'homo.’ That's because I told Tom I liked it when he was sucking my dick."26-2

  Mustaine also clashed with Slayer’s management. MegaDave made the Slayer camp sound like they had taken notes on tour protocol from W.A.S.P.

  "It's more like Clash of the Tightwads,” Mustaine told Spin. “We've been screwed over lights, staging, effects, even meals for our roadies. There's one guy involved with one of the bands, I can't say who, but we'd all like to take him outside, put a blanket over his head and beat the fuck out of him.... His name is in the word 'wholesales.’”26-3

  The tour ended without the frontmen fighting or fucking. Nobody’s feelings were hurt enough to pass up another payday down the road.

  Slayer took November off, played a handful of Japanese dates, then spent December off the road too — Hanneman didn’t like traveling, and he loved Christmas.

  In early 1991, the band ripped up theaters, with Testament in tow. Setlists typically included:

  1. “Raining Blood”

  2. “Black Magic”

  3. “War Ensemble”

  4. “Blood Red”

  5. ”Postmortem”

  6. ”Skeletons of Society”

  7. “Seasons in the Abyss”

  8. “Die by the Sword”

  9. “Dead Skin Mask”

  10. “Spirit in Black”

  11. “Expendable Youth”

  12. “Born of Fire “

  13. “Mandatory Suicide”

  14. “Captor of Sin “

  15. “Chemical Warfare”

  Encore:

  16. “South of Heaven”

  17. “Angel of Death”

  After a few years had gone by, California towns such as San Diego and L.A. eased their ban on Slayer concerts. And the group reminded them why their shows had been considered a public hazard.

  January 15, the group returned to L.A. for a set at the Sports Arena. Rowdy fans ripped up chairs to make room for a mosh pit. Security guards were powerless to stop them. As always, seated on a drum riser, Lombardo had a great perspective on the mayhem. Since the Country Club days, the circle pits had only grown.

  “It was the most amazing view that you could ever imagine,” he recalled in David Konow’s Bang Your Head. “It was like looking down on a blender. At the end of the show, you saw giant puddles of blood everywhere, and footprints where people stepped in them and continued walking out. That’s how intense it was.”26-4.

  When the weather broke, however, things got massive.

  Summer 1991 saw a bigger, badder version of Clash of the Titans occupy arenas and sheds across America. The Clash tour featured three of the Big Four bands: Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth. Metallica had participated in the initial talks, but the burgeoning band bowed out. Slayer manager Rick Sales and Megadeth manager Ron Lafitte collaborated to put the tour together, though Araya claimed credit for the initial idea, and Mustaine gave credit to his booking agency.

  The metal gods rotated headlining slots, but once again, Mustaine was bristling. He didn’t demand the headline spot, but he refused to go on after Slayer26-5.

  On some US dates, the opening slot was filled by a new, upcoming hard rock band that was finding some success on the radio: Alice in Chains.

  “Thank you, goodnight, we’re Mötley Crüe,” said Alice frontman Layne Staley at the end of the Pittsburgh show, mocking an underwhelmed audience who had no idea how true the addicted singer’s statement was.

  But compared to the European rivalries and threats, the mood was subdued.

  “After the show, I would hang with Tom,” recalled Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante. “And we would talk about the Beatles, or we would jam on a Beatles song on the acoustic [guitar] or piano, and just talk about how great the Beatles were.”

  Backstage was mellow, but onstage was harsh. Slayer used to drive around the country in a tour bus called the Silver Eagle. Now the band had a real gray eagle: They played sets in front of an austere backdrop of black & read banners and
a Teutonic bird of prey — a giant image conceived in a joint exercise between Hanneman and Rubin. Still a mainstay in Slayer’s iconography, the eagle-pentagram design is based on a common adaptation of the Reich Sadler, the Nazis’ national insignia.

  Titans sets were shorter, usually a dynamic list with some breathing room, like:

  1. “Hell Awaits”

  2. “The Antichrist”

  3. “War Ensemble”

  4. “South of Heaven”

  5. “Raining Blood”

  6. “Altar of Sacrifice”

  7. “Jesus Saves”

  8. “Dead Skin Mask”

  9. “Seasons in the Abyss”

  10. “Mandatory Suicide”

  11. “Angel of Death”

  After a year of touring, Slayer would give fans a souvenir. On October 22, 1991, the band released its second live album, the double-disc Decade of Aggression, an 85-minute best-of set recorded in California, Florida, and Japan.

  Compared to the band’s steamroller live sound, Decade fails to capture the crushing live experience from the era. Lucky diehards who can ignore sound quality like the record — but those are the same people who will swear Megadeth’s tinny debut, Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good! is worth listening to.