Kerry King has been nothing but very outspoken lately, but the one guy from Slayer who perhaps is not as outspoken is frontman Tom Araya. Noisey just posted an excellent interview with one of the greatest screamers of all time and while it starts fun and cheerful, it certainly ends up getting a bit dark.
The crux of the darkness is Tom Araya is clearly feeling worn down and tired from nearly 30 years of constant touring:
After 33 years of traveling—actually more like 29 years of actual touring and traveling—after a while, it’s just tiring. And people are like “Oh it must be fun! You travel! You see blah blah blah!” I’m like,man, if you were in my shoes you would think differently. [..] It’s funny, recently we went to Europe to do press for the new album. We did three days in London, a day in Paris, a day in Norway, two days or three days in Germany. And people are like “Oh, that must be nice. Did you get to see much of Paris?” And I look at them, and say “See this room? Look around you.” And they’re looking around. “This is my Paris. It’s beautiful isn’t it?”[Laughs] That's what I say whenever anybody asks me that, because we’re always in the hotels doing interviews and everybody asks me that. “Did you get to see much of Stockholm?” I’ll look around and I’ll show them the room. “How do you like it? This is my Stockholm. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I like the drapes. Look at the couch. Wonderful.” And then you open the window and go “This is my painting, my picture. This is what I see."
Then he mentions how he feels like he sold his soul to the band:
I guess your resume just says "Slayer"— It’s not like you're going to go work at Staples when you retire.
Yeah, I’d like to think they’d give me a job at Burger King or something when I’m retired and I need to make extra cash because my Social Security check ain’t covered [laughs]Hopefully we have a few years till then, at least.
Well, we just did a record, so I’ve sold my soul for about a good four or five years.There are worse places you could sell it to, surely.
Yeah, that’s true, but I think it puts things into perspective when you tell someone that. They’re always talking about “You sold your soul!” and in life, you kinda do. It depends on what it is you’re doing in life, but there are some things that require you to sacrifice a good portion of your life. That to me is selling your soul. You have to give up a good portion of your life in order to do what it is you’re gonna do. When I agreed to this album, I knew that I would have to do a record, and then follow it up with at least a good three or four years of touring.
The feeling the interview gave me is Tom really loves his family and just wants to spend as much time with his kids as possible, whether they are all kicking ass with karate or just watching TV. He mentioned during the interview how for a while he brought his family on the road with him, and it was great for him but then he realized his family started to hate it. Definitely check out the entire interview for an interesting look inside the mind of one of metal's greatest frontmen.
