Last week, we were very excited to learn that there are two unreleased Jeff Hanneman-penned tracks floating around in the Slayer camp for possible inclusion on the next album. Today, we have a little more insight into the process thanks to a new interview with frontman Tom Araya.
Loudwire, who published the original Hanneman bit, posted the rest of the interview with Araya where he discussed what the writing process will be like once the band gets off the road:
As far as Kerry [King, guitar] writing material, Kerry has been working on quite a few songs for the past year and a half. I guess almost two years now, he’s been working on ideas for a while now. Usually, Kerry does his own stuff. He was working with Dave [Lombardo, ex-drums], but after Paul [Bostaph, drums] hooked up with us, he went back and started re-working those ideas with Paul. But he doesn’t present any of his ideas to anybody, he just kind of… they’re his songs. So, as far as me being a part of that, I don’t know. That’s basically Kerry’s, at this point, call, as far as if he wants me to apply myself to any of the stuff, but Kerry’s been working on ideas and putting songs together. He actually completed two songs that I put vocals to, songs that are complete from the sessions they’ve been doing for the past year and a half or so.
Yeah, so there’s two songs complete. Whether we go back in the studio and re-work what we’ve done with those and try to re-vamp them or whatever, I don’t know. But there are two songs that are complete. He’s still working out ideas for other songs. Once this fall tour is over, I’m sure we’ll figure out where we stand as a band, as far as new music and a new album. I’ll know more once we start touring and me and Kerry can communicate what’s going on with everything.
As much as we joke about Slayer cashing in, Araya says he's feeling the pressure to deliver and is serious about making something awesome saying:
We have a big hole to fill. We’re up for a heavy-duty task. The question is, how much time and energy do we want to put into the effort of putting something out that’s extraordinary? That’s basically where we’re at. At least that’s where I’m at. I want to make sure if we are going to do something, it has to be beyond extraordinary. It has to be something that just f—ing… everyone goes, “F—! WOAH!” [Laughs]
We'll know soon enough, as the release is expected for some time in 2014. The whole interview is pretty great with Araya sharing some more thoughts on Hanneman's passing.
Dates for Slayer's upcoming tour with Gojira and 4arm can be found here.
I would be remissed if I wrote a story about Tom Araya and not mentioned the greatest website I've ever created, TomArayaScream.com.
