In a recent interview, Slayer guitarist Kerry King said frontman Tom Araya's future plans with the band remain "unclear."
When asked by EMP Rock Invasion about Tom Araya's recent hints that he may be ready to retire King responded:
"He's very unclear. That's just how he is. I don't know if he likes holding his cards in his pocket or what.
"I mean, I don't have an answer. I'm holding off a lot of things I wanna do at home, just 'cause I don't know if I'm gonna be working in two years. I'm gonna be working, hopefully in Slayer. Yeah, dude. What else am I gonna do? I came out of high school and fucking went on tour. [Laughs]"
This obviously led to the question of is there an end in sight for Slayer:
"Not for me. Not for me, man — especially on such a good record."
The interviewer then joked if another 35 years are in store for the band and King responded ""Well, I don't know about that. I'll take another record or two."
We already know Tom Araya is way over it, he hates touring, he just wants to be home with his family. In a Loudwire interview earlier this year, he was joking about retirement:
"At 35 years, it's time to collect my pension. [Laughs] This is a career move. I'm grateful that we've been around for 35 years; that's a really long time. So, yeah, to me, it is. Because when we started off, everything was great, because you're young and invincible. And then there came a time where I became a family man, and I had a tough time flying back and forth. And now, at this stage, at the level we're at now, I can do that; I can fly home when I want to, on days off, and spend some time with my family, which is something I wasn't able to do when [my kids] were growing up. Now they're both older and mature. So now I take advantage of that."
While many fans thought it was sacrilege to keep the band going after guitarist Jeff Hanneman passed away, I just can't imagine a Slayer without Tom leading the charge on vocals. Could you?
Then again, this could all just be posturing. When the tour proposals come in and Tom sees how much money he could make for his family, it might lead him to reconsider his retirement plans.
