A few months ago, Slayer frontman Tom Araya caused a bit of a stir when he posted a photoshopped photo of Slayer's classic lineup with Donald Trump. Another member of the band or their management initially deleted the photo, only for Tom to repost it with the caption "But I never would have guessed that there where so many snowflakes commenting their distaste for the new president. Like him or not, he is the president."
Slayer eventually distanced themselves from the comments, with a statement that read "We all have our personal opinions, some of which we have voiced in the past, but Slayer has never endorsed any political party or any candidate, and the band intends to keep it that way." In a new interview with Westword, Kerry King was asked about the drama surrounding the social media post:
"A band's social-media site is for things that a band agrees on to put up. I've never put anything up on our band site, ever. When that went up, it didn't strike a wonderful chord with me. It's nothing I'm going to waste my time worrying about. I don't have any personal social media, so I put up my thoughts on my wife's social media, just so people know not everybody thinks the same and that it's okay to be that way."
King noted he didn't have a chance to even speak to Araya about the incident, because it happened while they were on hiatus, and once they resumed touring, the incident blew over.
Although King said in an interview before the election that Hillary Clinton is the only "safe" choice for president, King describes himself as an independent. He also noted he watches CNN every day, for a very specific reason:
"I never used to wake up and watch CNN, but I do now — just to see what fucking idiocy this guy's said that day. It's not even weekly. It's fucking daily."
Perhaps he enjoyed the leaked transcripts today about Trump groveling to the Mexican president asking him to stop saying that Mexico won't pay for the wall, before revealing that it wasn't a big issue for his campaign.
Regardless, it seems like there might be a lack of communication between King and Araya. That's certainly only speculation on our part, but in a recent interview, Araya pushed back on the idea of a new Slayer album until he and King could resolve some business matters.
