Kerry King Wrote a Slayer Song About “Trump’s Nonsense”
If you recall, a few days after the inauguration of President Trump (it still hurts just to type that phrase) back in January, Slayer’s Tom Araya posted a photo of the band with Trump Photoshopped in, then blamed its later deletion on a conspiracy involving “snowflakes,” calling America “a nation of crybabies” while using other go-to catch-phrases of the right. Slayer as a whole unit issued a statement distancing themselves from Araya’s words, with Kerry King and Paul Bostaph later adding comments of their own indicating they do not agree with the political views of their frontman and bassist. Gary Holt is also on record as being in the anti-Trump camp, making Araya the lone right winger in the band.
King’s sentiments haven’t changed in the last six months (thank satan), as he just revealed in an interview with snowboardmag.com that he’s been working on a new Slayer song inspired by Trump’s “nonsense” and the Republican party as a whole:
Recently you had an interesting situation with the whole Trump photo fiasco, which raised the question, when do you use your channel for political leverage, and when do you just let music be music? Similarly, this past season snowboarding had its own brush with politics when many riders reacted to Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. In your mind, at what point is it appropriate to use your channel and influence to make a difference, and at what point do you stay out of it and let your role remain as an escape?
I think Trump is a more individual ideology, for sure. The band, you know, whenever I try and address political songs, which we do, I can’t say we don’t, but I will base it on the US Government because that’s the government I know, but I try to make it vague enough so that anyone in any country can relate to it. I hate my chancellor, or, I hate my prime minister, I hate my government, I try to make it so that anyone can get something out of it, because if it was pinpointed at America, only Americans would love that song – or hate that song depending on what I say in it. I have one on the next record that is basically about Trump’s nonsense, but it’s really going to be about the republicans just fucking things up.
Do you picture the political aspect of your music as more of an expression of emotion then, or as a call to action?
It could be both. I mean a call to action would be something like “Take Control” off of the last record. And that’s one of those unifying statements where I say, “We will take control.” That’s not just us, that’s everyone. I expect for the people that are in the crowds and sing the lyrics at us for that to be a big line.
On the one hand, it’s great to see King using his platform for good. On the other, how is he going to get this one past Araya, who will eventually have to sing the lyrics he’s writing? I suppose he answers that question himself: he’ll make the lyrics “vague enough so that anyone in any country can relate to it.” Which is kind of a disappointment… but better than nothing, I guess?
[via The PRP]
