In a new interview with Metal Insider, legendary Slayer guitarist, Kerry King, discusses his upcoming tour dates, his return to the stage, and much more. An excerpt from the chat follows...
Metal Insider: I love how you have such an extensive history, a legendary history. And your energy remains fresh, and that is something we need today as well.
Kerry King: "Well, that’s what keeps the music fresh, you know? If I were stagnant and old and not into society and what society offers or takes away, the music would be very different."
Metal Insider: It’s a fresh record, probably one of the strongest of the year.
King: "Since you said that, I usually put a record out, and within two weeks after it comes out, I never want to hear it again. In this one, I still work out to. So I still like it as much as the day it came out, which I don’t know if it’s because I wrote all of it. But Repentless, I wrote 90% of that. I like that record, but if I go to the gym, I’m putting on From Hell I Rise.'
Metal Insider: It’s a new energy that you can feel the vibe from it.
King: "Yeah, I agree. I can’t explain it, but I hear what you’re saying."
Metal Insider: And it’s like some performers who are ready to retire, including younger bands. It seems more bands have been calling it quits since the pandemic, or certain members have decided to leave because they’re exhausted. What have you? It’s tough. And your energy seems so rejuvenated, excited, and ready; we need that today.
King: "Yeah. You know, I’m not tooting my own horn, but when we were gone for five years, Slayer before I came back, I definitely felt a void in metal music. There was something I provided that wasn’t necessarily there. You can like Lamb Of God, I like Lamb Of God, fine, but they have a different heavy, you know? I can’t really describe it any differently than that. Their heavy is different than Slayer’s heavy. And what they do is great, but what we do was just gone. So when I came back, it seems like that void got filled up a little bit."
Metal Insider: I do agree, or I hope; I think I know what you’re saying, too, in a way, because everybody talks about what’s going to be the next Big Four bands and who’s going to fill up arenas in like 40 years from now or something like that. And we don’t know the answer to that.
King: "Yeah, I was going to say, 40 years from now ain’t going to be me. I’d love to be part of the second Big Four, but that’s a little too far in the future."
Metal Insider: But it’s like a lot of these like they don’t feel as strong as Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Kreator, and Testament. You guys had the era of the eras.
King: "Well, yeah, and, you know, the original Big Four, as well as Testament and Exodus, we all created a genre that didn’t exist that stemmed from our love of Priest, Sabbath, Maiden, punk, for us, obviously. And until something else breaks off and creates something new, I don’t think there’s really going to be anything like that.
"There’ll be popular bands that do their own thing, but unless a bunch of people get on the same thing that’s happening at the same time, like us, Metallica and Megadeth, we’re all West Coast, Anthrax was New York City or New York anyway, and we just all kind of came up with the same thing and ran with it.So I don’t know what that next one will be, but when that happens, that’s the next time you’ll get a chance to see anything like a future Big Four."
Read more at Metal Insider.
Kerry King and his solo band - drummer Paul Bostaph (Slayer), bassist Kyle Sanders (Hellyeah), guitarist Phil Demmel (Machine Head), and vocalist Mark Osegueda (Death Angel) - will hit the road for the twenty-eight date "North American Headline Tour 2025". With Municipal Waste as Special Guest and Alien Weaponry supporting, the tour is set to launch in San Francisco on January 15, and wrap at House of Blues in Las Vegas on February 22. Tickets can be purchased here. The complete itinerary is below.
“Getting back on the road for the first time in five years wasn’t exactly like riding a bike, that’s for sure,” King acknowledged. “I’ve never had that much time off, but the first tours with my new band – in the UK and Europe, and then in America with Lamb of God and Mastodon - were all total blasts. We’ll be headlining on this next tour, so we’re playing a longer set than we did with Lamb of God and Mastodon. We've got a little bit of a learning curve, so will start rehearsing the first week of November. And we might put an extra Slayer song into the set and learn a cover song or two.”
North American dates:
January
15 - The Regency Ballroom - San Francisco, CA
17 - Spokane Live Casino - Spokane, WA
18 - Showbox SoDo - Seattle, WA
19 - Roseland Theater - Portland, OR
20 - Commodore Ballroom - Vancouver, BC (Canada)
22 - The Palace Theatre - Calgary, AB (Canada)
23 - Midway Music Hall - Edmonton, AB (Canada)
25 - Burton Cummings Theatre - Winnipeg, MB (Canada)
26 - The Fillmore - Minneapolis, MN
28 - The Rave - Milwaukee, WI
30 - The Majestic Theater - Detroit, MI
31 - House of Blues - Cleveland, OH
February
1 - Danforth Music Hall - Toronto, ON (Canada)
2 - L'Olympia - Montreal, QC (Canada)
4 - Royale - Boston, MA
5 - Theatre of the Living Arts - Philadelphia, PA
7 - Irving Plaza - New York, NY
8 - Baltimore Soundstage - Baltimore, MD
10 - Buckhead Theatre - Atlanta, GA
11 - Jannus Live - St. Petersburg, FL
13 - House of Blues - Houston, TX
14 - Emo's - Austin, TX
15 - The Studio at the Factory - Dallas, TX
17 - Ogden Theatre - Denver, CO
18 - Sunshine Theater - Albuquerque, NM
19 - The Nile Theater - Phoenix, AZ
21 - House of Blues - Las Vegas, NV
22 - The Fonda Theatre - Los Angeles, CA
King and his band also announced their "European Tour 2025". The dates kick off on July 29 in Frankfurt, Germany, and are currently scheduled to wrap up on August 19 in Krakow, Poland.
European dates:
July
29 - Zoom Saal - Frankfurt, Germany *
30 - Simm City - Wien, Austria *
August
1 - Rockstadt Extreme - Transylvania, Romania *
4 - Komplex 457 - Zürich, Switzerland *
6-9 - Brutal Assault Festival - Jaromer, Czech Republic
7 - FZW - Dortmund, Germany *
8-10 - Alcatraz Festival - Kortrijk, Belgium
12 - Academy 2 - Manchester, UK *
13 - SWX - Bristol, UK *
14-17 - Motocultor Festival - Carhaix, France
17 - Dynamo Festival - Eindhoven, Netherlands
19 - Tauron Arena - Krakow, Poland *#
* Newly announced shows
# Supporting Gojira
