Kerry King was angry at Tom Araya for not letting other Slayer members know that he was done.
The guitarist recently sat down with Francisco Zamudio of KNAC.COM and mentioned that he hadn’t thought about doing a solo album until Araya decided to stop touring. When asked how the talk with Paul Bostaph went about joining his solo project, he replied:
“It was super easy. I knew that Tom was done probably four to six months before the other guys [Bostaph and guitarist Gary Holt] did. ‘Cause, for whatever reason, he just never told them. And we were getting ready to go do a photo session with the guys. And I said, ‘Listen…’ I told my manager, I said, ‘I’m not going unless Tom tells these poor guys what’s up, ’cause they deserve to know.’”
Then, King shared his offer to Bostaph:
“So he did. And the next day, we do the photos and I went right to Paul and said, ‘Dude, don’t worry for a second because I’m continuing. And I assume you wanna continue with me.’”
Araya’s Previous Statements Made King Upset
King actually wanted to make a new Slayer record, but he was upset by Araya’s comments at the time. In a May interview with Revolver, the musician further talked about how he began working on his first solo album:
“I had every intention of making another Slayer record until Tom [Araya] was doing an interview with some publication, and they asked him about the next Slayer album. He said something like, ‘I don’t know, I gotta talk to Kerry before we start working on the next record.’ And that’s what he wanted to talk to me about: He had no intention of doing another record.”
Kerry addressed his feelings after hearing what Tom said:
“And when I found that out, of course, I’m hurt, first and foremost. Second, I’m like, ‘I got a lot of work to do.’ Third, I’m like, ‘I’ve just gotta play my gig as best I can every night [on the final tour] and prepare to move on.’ And fourth, I was like, ‘OK, all these songs that I’d been writing for Slayer? Now they’re just mine.’”
Slayer will reunite for a few performances in the following months. In early May, King said that his personal differences with Araya won’t affect the upcoming Slayer reunion shows. He also revealed that he hadn’t spoken to the bassist since the news came out. He explained that there’s no bad blood between them, just differences.
You can listen to the rest of Kerry’s interview below.