Phil Demmel talked about working with Kerry King on his debut solo album, ‘From Hell I Rise,’ in a recent chat with the ‘That Metal Interview’ podcast.
The host asked if King was ‘this evil guy sitting on a throne on a mountain’ or ‘a down-to-earth guy,’ and Demmel explained:
“No, I don’t see Kerry as an evil guy at all. I see Kerry as maybe misunderstood. I mean, everybody’s got their thing. He’s not a perfect dude, but I think that he’s kind of misunderstood.”
He reflected on the album-making with the Slayer guitarist:
“I think he’s a caring person to his band. He’s looking out for us. Like, ‘Is this cool?’ He’s open to any ideas. He’s got a vision and he knows his songs and he knows how he wants his product to be represented, but he’s not in any way some super-controlling dude.”
King Says His Solo Album Is Better Than Slayer
‘From Hell I Rise’ came out in May 2024 and included Mark Osegueda, Kyle Sanders, and Paul Bostaph alongside Demmel. King described the new album’s sound as similar to Slayer’s but ‘better.’ He explained in a recent interview series:
“I’ve heard from not only friends, journalists, people I’m doing interviews with that they like this better as a whole than any single record I’ve done in my career. It’s hard for me to say that, because I’ve been a part of all that stuff. But good friends are really fired up about this record that wouldn’t blow sunshine up my a**.”
The guitarist also compared his debut solo to Slayer’s last record, ‘Repentless,’ by saying:
“And they’ve all heard the whole thing, of course, ’cause they’re doing interviews about it, so they have backup to their story. But I’ve heard people are really stoked about this record. I like this record a lot. I like [Slayer’s final album, 2015’s] ‘Repentless’ a lot. But I think the performance of everybody is better on this one.”
You can listen to King’s ‘From Hell I Rise’ below.