You were quoted a while ago as saying that after the next Slayer album you would have to discuss whether to continue as a band, but your guitarist Kerry King has downplayed this comment. What's the truth? Are you really going to talk about winding up the band?
Yeah. Let's put it this way, this is the final record of our commitment with Rick Rubin. When we first signed a deal with him back in 1986, we never sat down and said, 'How long do you guys want to keep this together?' We signed the deal and we've just been doing records since. Then, by the time we did Seasons In The Abyss (1990), our third record with Rubin, we had a manager [Rick Sales] who did a really good job of renegotiating an entire new deal for 10 records. We just continued making records, with no game plan other than 'We're gonna do a record and then tour', 'We're gonna do another record after the tour' and so on.

So if you've never said to each other, 'What are we going to do after our final album?', when will that conversation happen?
I don't know. We're working on new ideas now just so that people can have a taste of what's coming. Kerry and Jeff are putting together ideas, so what the end result of this next two and a half months is, I don't know. Once we've put together new material, we can get together and discuss our future plans.

Are you in a position financially where you could retire?
I don't know. I would think, to some extent, that I'm a little better off than most people, but as far as being secure? Maybe. But you know what, life will always be good. I don't fear it. I've been very grateful for everything that I've gotten.

Is it because of your age that you're thinking of hanging it up?
Seeing a 50-year-old man headbanging on stage would make me cringe. If I was watching that, I'd think, 'Dude, you're a little too old for that, aren't you? You're gonna fall off!'

Well, Godspeed... oh, wait.

Slayer: Reign Of Fear [Thrash Hits via antiMUSIC]

This is an extreme rarity. This is an annual/yearbook that features some of the earliest pictures from Slayer. This yearbook is from South Gate High School in South Gate California where Slayer got their first start and a slew of bands followed their path.

This yearbook came out in 1983, so the pictures were probably taken around 1982, making this the pre-Show No Mercy era.

There are a total of 6 pictures in this annual featuring Slayer. All the original and current members of Slayer are pictured here. Kerry King is using his Original BC Rich Mockingbird guitar before he put tar (or whatever it was) to decorate it. The fourth picture shows Jeff Hanneman with a buzz haircut (he was the punk influence in the band).

In this auction I will also include a set of flyers from the era where Slayer played around the South gate area, and features more pictures from the band at this time.

Bidding is already at $51, which makes the yearbook just a hair more expensive than it was when it was first issued. Sadly, all of the band's members seem to have skipped senior picture day—"I chalk it up to being rebelious metal heads that didn't want to be like the rest of the students," the seller says.

SLAYER High School Yearbook Ultimate Thrash Rarity [eBay via Blabbermouth]

And it's only made better by the fact that the "official" caption calls the assemblage above "Nominee for Best Metal Performance Slayer [and] his family."

[Photo: Getty Images]

Band: Slayer
Sub-genre(s): Thrash, speed metal
Best known for: Being the most metal band of all time
For people who like: Jagermeister, driving way over the speed limit, bar brawls
Most interesting member: Guitarist/primary lyricist Kerry King, for numerous reasons. Aside from his chest-length beard and the demonic horns tattooed on the sides of his shaven head, he's proven more than willing to openly talk smack about any band or musician he feels "isn't metal," whether it's Metallica ("sellouts") Megadeth's Dave Mustaine ("a hypocrite"), or Machine Head, who "fooled" King "into thinking they're metal." He also owns his own clothing line, KFK (Kerry Fucking King), specializing in shirts featuring such slogans as "God Slaves." He's also made numerous guest appearances with other bands, and he provided the guitar work on the Beastie Boys' songs "No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn," "Fight For Your Right (To Party)," and "She's Crafty."
Fun fact: King played lead guitar for Megadeth at that band's earliest live gigs.
Overview: Those not in the know—Chuck Klosterman, the kids at Hot Topic, my mom—often mistakenly refer to metal pioneers Slayer as "death metal," although with song titles such as "Necrophobic," "God Send Death," "Dead Skin Mask," "Mandatory Suicide," "Spill The Blood" and "Die By The Sword," the error is understandable. Slayer actually represent 25% of the "Big Four" of metal, a quartet of bands that all emerged in the early '80s and changed the game forever. (The other three: Anthrax; Megadeth; and, of course, Metallica.) And the metallic subgenre these bands belong to is the obviously named "speed metal," often known as "thrash."

In Fargo Rock City, Klosterman's likens this music to the sight of a bicycle wheel rotating so fast all its spokes seem to blend together, and that's actually pretty much right on the money. King and his co-guitarist Jeff Hanneman specialize in massive, super-fast, horror-flick riffs and dueling guitar solos that seek to prove these dudes are the fastest guitar players on earth, and the sound of drummer Dave Lombardo (who left the band following 1990's Seasons In The Abyss and returned for last year's Christ Illusion) is that of a locomotive perpetually about to fly off the rails. (Lombardo, also a member of Mike Patton's Fantomas who sits behind perhaps the biggest drum kit of all time, is considered by many to be the best drummer in metal.)

Like all good metal bands, they've also (deliberately and inadvertently) courted controversy, most famously for the song "Angel of Death," which is about Nazi "scientist" Dr. Josef Mengle. (The band has claimed the song is a documentary-like examination of evil and is in no way intended to endorse white supremacy, but that doesn't negate the fact that their fan club, the Slatanic Wehrmacht, is named for a division of the Nazi army, or that live performances of the song are often accompanied by footage of the Nazis at work.) And yet the band can also be curiously prescient in its socio-political observations about organized religion; the song "Disciple," for example, features bassist/vocalist Tom Araya shouting about "terrorists targeting the next mark" and "global chaos feeding on hysteria"; the song kicks off the album God Hates Us All, which was released, through some perverse divine intervention, on 9/11. In spite—or perhaps because—of these brushes with controversy, Slayer has been going strong for some 25 years, and last year's 20th anniversary (on 06/06/06, no less!) of their breakthrough album Reign in Blood was cause for celebration. (The band toured the album in its entirety, complete with sprinklers that rained "blood" during the grand finale of "Raining Blood.")

Whatever your feelings on Slayer, their influence is undeniable, with other metal acts stealing their riffs wholesale on a regular basis. The band's opening acts have a notoriously hard time getting through a set without being drowned out by Slayer's rabid fanbase and its cries for the almighty headliners. Their mosh pits are notoriously dangerous places (even by mosh pit standards), and like screaming "Free Bird!" at a classic rock concert, shouting (in your most demonic growl) "SSSSSLLLAAAAYYYEEERRRR!!!!" at any metal show is pretty much guaranteed to work everyone within earshot of you into a frenzy that requires them to echo your battle cry. That kind of devotion is down to the band not really changing much in nearly three decades; unlike many of their peers, they never made that grunge or industrial album. Their style has remained consistent, and except for the 15 years spent without Lombardo, they've never suffered a major lineup change. And ask any metalhead, and they'll tell you that only three things in life are certain: death, taxes, and Slayer.

Slayer - "Raining Blood" [YouTube]
Slayer [MySpace]

Mumbai-based EMI Virgin India Ltd said Friday (Oct. 6) it will recall all copies of the new Slayer album "Christ Illusion" following protests by a Christian group, Mumbai-based Catholic Secular Forum (CSF).

Early this week, Joseph Dias, general secretary of CSF, issued a statement taking "strong exception" to the album's cover artwork, which he said depicts "Christ with a missing eye and amputated arms." He added, "we also condemn the track, 'Skeleton Christ' as the lyrics are an insult to Christianity." The CSF also sent a memorandum to Mumbai's police commissioner, adding that the album "will affect the sensibilities of the Muslims on the track 'Jihad' and secular Indians who have respect for all faiths."

After scanning a few web-provided "Skeleton Christ" lyrics, we're not sure which lyrics were the most insulting. Any ideas?

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If it's Wednesday, it must mean it's time for our weekly album-sales recap, in which we find out just how quickly the music industry is sliding into complete and utter chaos. As expected, Rick Ross' Port of Miami was No. 1, scanning 187,000 copies, while Breaking Benjamin—a band we've never heard, but who are no doubt as terrible as we expect—came in at No. 2 with Phobia, which sold 125,000 copies. And despite not being sold at Wal-Mart, Slayer's Christ Illusion debuted at No. 5, thanks to 62,000 heathens.

Now for the bad news: Nickelback is on the chart not once, but twice, thanks to their appearance on Now 22 (No. 3) and their own All The Right Reasons album (No. 10). Maybe Slayer's right, and there is no god.

"Rick Ross' 'Hustle' Pays Off With No. 1 Debut" [Billboard]