Slayer aims to inspire

In the interests of my ego and your entertainment, I'm working on repurposing some of the entertainment journalism I did in the 1990s. Most of these articles were originally published in the Oakland (Calif.) Tribune, and none are otherwise available in electronic form, as far as I know. Seems like fans might like a glance back at what their musical heroes were thinking back when.

This interview with Tom Araya, frontman for speed metal pioneers Slayer, originally ran in May 1991.

The first thing Mom and Dad will no­tice is the image, a mutant biker fan­tasy created from vast gobs of leather, stainless steel and hair. As a fashion statement, the Slayer look roughly translates to, "Caution -- keep away from small pets and children."

Next, the parent will be confronted with the music, great slabs of raging guitar chords played at breakneck speed and dan­gerous volume.

For the brave ones who get that far, the lyrics will be the clincher. Death is an over­whelming preoccuptation for Slayer, an obsession that reaches its apex with "Dead Skin Mask," a tribute to mutilation killer Ed Gein.

These four louts surely are the devil's spawn, Mom and Dad will conclude, psuedo-human freaks sent to lure young innocents into lives of evil and depravity. Allowing such music into one's home would be no more defensible than handing Junior a crack pipe and a few hundred dol­lars in small bills.

But such a hasty judgement would be a mistake, says Tom Araya, bassist and singer for Slayer, the band that along with Metallica gave birth to the burgeoning speed-metal movement. Slayer performs Sunday at the Cow Palace as part of the Clash of the Titans bill.

"I think if parents would try to talk to their kids and understand them instead of just saying, 'You can't listen to that,' they'd be sur­prised at what happens," says Araya.

"It would be nice if parents un­derstood what we were about, and along with that, what's happening in their kid's Iives."

Let's begin then with what Slayer isn' t about. The band does not worship Satan or encourage listeners to do so. Neither do band members suggest to fans that it would be a good idea to go out and kill people and commit other felo­nies.

The casual observer might get that impression from the band's gruesome lyrics and extreme image, but fans understand those are just symbols, says Araya. Those symbols help amplify the group's message that greed, government oppression and intolerance are rapidly turning the world into an apocalyptic cesspool where insanity is just good sense.

"It takes blood sometimes"

"We're trying to get the message across to these kids that it's not a joke -- the world is really (messed) up, and we've got to do something about it. All I'm saying is wise up; life's not a bowl of cherries. Noth­ing's just handed to you. If you want freedom and peace, it takes blood sometimes.

"By expressing my anger and frustration in a graphic way, maybe it'll open some people's eyes."

All but a few fans understand that the tough words and shocking images aren't meant to be taken lit­erally, Araya says.

"I think kids understand a lot more than adults give them credit for. We meet a lot of our fans and only a few of them have trouble un­derstanding the difference between fantasy and reality."

Slayer's extreme approach to heavy metal began in 1982, when Araya got together with Los Angeles neighbors Kerry King, Dave Lom­bardo and Jeff Hanneman to pound out Iron Maiden and Deep Purple covers.

The band members soon real­ized, however, that the conven­tional heavy metal approach only partly satisfied their need for speed and aggression. They began to push the envelope, playing louder, faster and nastier -- and in the process, they invented speed metal.

Metallica was the only other significant band playing speed metal (also known as "thrash") when Slayer re­leased its first independent records in the mid-1980s. The style quickly developed a devoted underground following among metalheads, though, and Slayer's 1985 album "Hell Awaits" sold more than 100,000 copies. The current "Seasons in the Abyss" (Def Jam) debuted at No. 57 on Billboard's album chart.

The band's popular success is astonishing considering the music receives virtually no airplay on commerical radio and none of the all-important video exposure on MTV.

"We've managed to do it on our own"

"We've managed to do it on our own, because we realized we'd never get anywhere with radio," Araya says. "You can't lump us together with Ratt and Warrant."

The current Clash of the Titans tour, which teams up Slayer with fellow thrashers Megadeth and Anthrax, is another step in the commerical onslaught of speed metal. By teaming up the genre's most popular acts into a bill remi­niscent of the package tours from the early days of rock 'n' roll, the bands are drawing arena-size crowds for the first time.

"With the Clash of the Titans, we're kind of hoping to prove to pro­moters that there's a market for this," Araya says. "They just haven't given us a chance."

As Slayer has built its following, it also has developed a reputation for mayhem and vandalism. Fren­zied fans haved ripped out chairs and torn holes in walls during con­certs. An infamous 1987 show at the Hollywood Palladium resulted in a full-scale riot when police tried to keep ticket-holding fans out of the hall.

Araya says much of the band's reputation as a troublemaker is undeserved, but he acknowledges that things sometimes get out of hand, particularly when slam dancers launch into their ritualized alized frenzy of movement and body contact.

"A lot of problems go back to the security people not being able to tell the difference bewteen slam dancing and fighting," Araya says.

In an effort to minimize mayhem, Slayer hired its own secu­rity consultant for its last tour and the current Titans run. Local secu­rity personnel at each venue are in­structed to work cooperatively with fans, and the bands use their Influ­ence to encourage safety and common sense.

"We tell the kids, 'you've got to watch out for each other, you've got to take care of each other,' " Araya says. " 'Have fun, just don't destroy anything.' "

It's an approach many parents could learn something from, he adds.

"After being told what to do and what not to do all the time, we're giving the kids responsibility, and they're handling it beautifully."