SLAYER’S BAFFLING DECISION

Slayer have launched a “fan community” (read: online fan club), the Slatanic Wehrmacht. Joining is relatively cheap (25 bucks a year if you’re American, 30 bucks a year if you’re anything else) and offers all the usual fan club perks – pre-sales for tickets, contest, exclusive merch, etc. – but it does raise a question: why the hell would Slayer name their fan club after the Nazi army?

I’ve never been one of these people who has a problem with Slayer writing and performing a song about Nazi “scientist” Josef Mengele (“Angel of Death”), and I certainly understand having a fascination with the morbid and horrific (hell, my father is the biggest student of Nazi history I’ve ever met, and he’s Jewish – know thy enemy, I guess) – but I do have to question the logic of this decision. I want to make it clear: I’m not offended, I’m not accusing the band of being anti-semites or bigots, I’m not gonna stop listening to one of my favorite bands… this just strikes me as completely idiotic.

I guess it’s lucky, then, that there’s almost definitely a certain percentage of Slayer fans out there who will probably never even figure out what the wehrmacht was in the first place.

-AR