In a new interview with Metal Injection, Slayer’s Kerry King discussed starting over with the band.
The guitarist recalled Slayer’s five year anniversary of their last show before their reunion and admitted that he forgot to tell his bandmates about the new concert dates until someone in the band brought it up. King explained:
“The funny thing about this story is I didn’t tell anybody in my band. I’ve never been in that situation. The news dropped that we’re doing three shows and everybody blows me up and I’m like, ‘God damn it, right… It never occurred to me to tell you guys.’ Never f*cking occurred to me, it wasn’t a secret. They can keep secrets, I know that. I felt so bad. It never occurred to me. Poor Phil and Kyle and Mark, they all texted me, blew me up and I’m like, ‘I’m so sorry man, it never occurred to me. This is what’s up, this is what’s gonna happen.’”
He then explained how he assured his bandmates that something similar wouldn’t happen again:
“‘If it happens again, it’s gonna be the same thing, we’re never gonna make a f*cking record, we’re never gonna f*cking tour, this is my band.’ So it’s a clarity moment.”
The host mentioned it wasn’t ‘like a Mötley Crüe thing,’ where the band retired and later decided to ‘unretire’ when an opportunity of a stadium show appeared. In response, King went:
“No no no no no.”
Why Mötley Crüe Made A Comeback
Mötley Crüe signed a contract to stop touring on January 28, 2014, and played their last show at Staples Center in Los Angeles on December 31, 2015. In 2018, they recorded a few new songs for their 2019 movie ‘The Dirt’ and later that year tore up their touring contract. The band planned to start their reunion tour in 2020 with Def Leppard, Poison, and Joan Jett, but it later got set for 2021.
Drummer Tommy Lee explained in an interview that they were offered a stadium tour, something they had never done in their career and couldn’t say no to:
“Everybody just went and did their own thing. And here it is four years later, Live Nation asked us if we’d like to do a stadium tour, and all of us were, like, ‘Ehhh…’ And then we thought about it for a minute. We were, like, that is the one thing that this band has never done. Yeah, we played stadiums on festivals all over the place, but our own stadium tour? We were, like, ‘Hold on. Let us think about this. Okay.’”
Phil Demmel’s Reaction To Slayer’s Comeback
King’s guitarist Phil Demmel was caught off guard when he heard Slayer would perform again.
He said of the band’s comeback in another interview:
“Um, yeah, yeah… Yeah, it caught me off guard. I didn’t know anything about it. To have a Slayer gig announced before we’ve even played a show [with Kerry King’s solo band] was really weird to me.”
See the interview below.