Kerry King has never seemed happy with the decision that his former band Slayer retired when they did. In a 2021 video celebrating Machine Head's 30th anniversary, King made some comments about Slayer's retirement saying "we quit too early" and "I hate fuckin' not playing." Now in an interview with Metal Hammer, King states in no uncertain terms that he wasn't the one that wanted Slayer to hang it up.
"[I felt] anger… what else? It was premature," said King. "The reason I say 'premature' is because my heroes from my childhood are still playing! I can still play, I still want to play, but that livelihood got taken away from me.
"But, anyway, on to the next chapter, I guess. We were on top of the world, and there's nothing wrong with going out on top of the world, it's a good way to go out. So, bravo for that. But do I miss playing? Yeah, absolutely."
King later noted that the band's final tour was a bummer, adding "We were going to all these places and all these cities where we have all this history. It's a bummer to think, 'I'm not gonna see my friends there again.'"
The good news is here that King does seem poised to return with a new band in 2023. King has confirmed his new, currently-unannounced band will feature ex-Slayer drummer Paul Bostaph and that material was written while Slayer was on their farewell tour.
When asked in an interview last year what the band sound like, King said it won't be a divergence form what you already know he can do.
"You know me, so you know what it's going to sound like. I played this new song for a buddy, and I said to him, 'If there's anything I've written in the last few years that sounds like Slayer, it's this.' And he said, 'That sounds like you could have pulled it off of any Slayer record.' I actually made that riff up backstage at a Slayer show. We were walking to the stage and I got my phone out and recorded it so I wouldn't forget it."
