BW&BK;'s "Metal" Tim Henderson spoke in-depth to SLAYER frontman Tom Araya recently about a number of topics including the band's recent tour with MARILYN MANSON, rumours of his retirement, the worldwide state of heavy metal, the roots of Reign In Blood and the band's newly-released Unholy Alliance Tour DVD/CD. Part III of the chat is as follows:

BW&BK;: Heavy metal has become more of a world-wide phenomenon with bands such as IRON MAIDEN, JUDAS PRIEST, MEGADETH and the SCORPIONS playing distant lands. Has Slayer seen a big change in the markets they can play now?

Araya: "You know what it is - these bands were able to play markets that nobody would've been able to play at in the '80s. So now, markets are opening up in areas that would have never even thought of having music played or concerts period. Now the countries that are opening up, these are the kids that have never seen Judas Priest, but they've been fans for fuckin' ever. These are kids that have never seen Iron Maiden. So these areas that are opening up, are opening up because that;'s what the people know due to the black market or the underground. However that worked and whatever they were exposed to. SABBATH could go play these places - everybody knows Sabbath. So these new avenues are opening up and it's opening up to the more well-known bands. The bands that are more established. We're not as fortunate as most of these bands because of who we are. There's a good chance we won't get asked to play Singapore again, even though we did a show there. We were asked to censor our set-list once we got there. And when we were there, we found out that there were issues with our album (Christ Illusion). They brown-bagged the album in Singapore. And while we were there, we were told that the album was completed banned and pulled off the shelves in India. So these new avenues that are opening up, there's a good chance that we won't be able to play those regions (laughs). For religious reasons I guess. We did play Korea a few years back, which was amazing. We had about 4,000 kids show up - it was a major bill. It was us, MACHINE HEAD and five other bands. But it was only the second time they'd had a concert like that there and the promoter was jubilant, happier than shit that he had the attendance he had. Thrilled that the bands were there period, that we showed up. I guess they have a lot of no-shows!"

BW&BK;: So if things die in North America there are still other places for you to play!

Araya: "In all honesty, I don't think they will, because I know how kids are with their music. They share. And there's always that new kid going 'that's heavy' and another kid going 'you want to hear something really heavy? You think this is heavy? Listen to this.' And nine times out of ten they'll crank on Slayer! And the kid will go like 'whoooaaa.' Cuz that's exactly like I did. When the band go together and Kerry (King) was coming over. He gave me a list of songs to learn and I was going to try out, to see if the band was cool or not. And Kerry was the one to introduce me to Iron Maiden. I went to the record store, bought Iron Maiden - blew my mind. I went 'whoooaaa.' And I consider myself somebody who listens to heavy music. But I was into radio music. I was in Top 40 bands, so I was very aware of music that was o the radio. But I like the heavier music. At the time it had to be VAN HALEN - anything heavy like that. BLACK OAK ARKANSAS, SKYNYRD ... '70s stuff. Kerry introduced me to metal. I knew about Priest, Sabbath, ZEPPELIN. Maiden's type of metal was new to me. I didn't know that this music had even evolved. So when I heard that I went 'fuck, this is awesome.' So we started doing that stuff and started developing our own music, fast and furious. And coming across EXODUS and realizing 'god-damn, there's another band that plays fast!' We ran into them and they thought we were fast. Those bands that came up around that same time, tapped into that universal mind. We all tapped into that source of music and all of a sudden there were four or five bands doing this style of music that started around the same time. They didn't influence each other, they had some outer influence."

BW&BK;: You can really hear the Maiden-isms on Show No Mercy

Araya: "Yeah, you can also hear it on Hell Awaits. When Jeff showed up at rehearsal with the MERCYFUL FATE EP with the nun on the cover on the cross - it said Nuns Have No Fun. He said 'I went to the store and bought it thinking it was a punk album.' He used to buy EPs cuz of their covers, not because of the band. So e bought covers that were really cool looking and he put the disc on and heard Mercyful Fate. 'It blew my mind,' he said. He thought it was really cool, so he brought it over and said 'you guys have got to listen to this.' We're like, 'holy crap, where did you find this?' You'll hear that to, because of song-structure and the length of songs. When we did Hell Awaits, everybody was doing five or six song albums, really long songs. So we thought we'd do the same."

BW&BK;: How would you describe the musical jump between Show No Mercy and Reign In Blood?

Araya: "We did it within three years, because in 1986 we came out with Reign In Blood. In 1983 we came out with Show No Mercy. In those three years, we evolved to Reign In Blood. From there, everything revolved around that - with speed and heaviness."

BW&BK;: For most, Reign In Blood is that picture-perfect metal record of all time ... and you guys were all there!

Araya: "Yeah we were (laughs). I just knew that when I looked up and realized it was only 28 minutes and said 'is that all the songs'. And Rubin looked up and said, 'yup, that's all the songs.' We were recording the songs and never once did we even think to look at the times structured to those songs. Because they were complete songs. You don't give a thought about how long the song is. The only one we thought was short was 'Necrophobic'. That's the only one we knew - of course it's obvious that it's a short song. The other ones, we were singing them and playing them - 'arrggghhh, this is great.' We're getting down to the final vocals and doing the mixes - and we looked up and went 'shit, 28 minutes. Is that all the songs?" I look over at Andy (Wallace - Engineer) and with a confused look on his face he says 'there must be an error, that must be wrong. It's right, but that can't be right!' Then we talked to Rubin, and he said, 'well, you've given me ten songs.' It didn't state the length. He wasn't freakin' out - it was his label. Rubin is the boss - 'you've given me ten songs, nothing stipulates time.' He was happy - he thought it was great. He wasn't really concerned at all. They put the album on both sides of a cassette tape! If anything, that would be the one record that could've gone platinum (one million units in the US) because it was sold twice every time you bought a cassette. I thought - it was probably the only record we hit platinum with and we won't get credited for it.

BW&BK;: 28 minutes and absolutely no filler...

Araya: "Yeah ... but the filler ends up being the second album (laughs). I'm being serious. Rubin was working with SYSTEM OF A DOWN on one of their recent records, and he said they had over 30 songs. And out of those 30 songs they were going to pick out songs for the album. And I thought 'wow, that's great you have so many songs, but now you have to pick the better ones of the bunch?' And to us, when we're in that song-writing process and a song is being worked out; rather than working on something and not liking it, we go with what we know. We go with how it feels and whether we want to spend time working on it. It gets trashed immediately. If it's something that's not grooving, it gets trashed. But we save all the good bits! If we have a song that's going in the right direction, that's the one that gets worked out. And we all have to like it - we all give our opinions. We just tell the person 'this song sucks.' That's how this band is. If something sounds great and we all say 'this sounds awesome,' we collectively work on the song. You work on the ones you like and you enjoy and try to make those even better. The songs on the last album (Christ Illusion) had stood the test of time cuz they'd been around for four years. When I first got the stuff on disc from Jeff (Hanneman) and then Kerry, it sounded OK. Then they did a demo. I gave the music some time and I came back to town and we worked out the music even more. We demoed more songs. Dave (Lombardo) and Kerry recorded some more demos. Then they sent me the music and I'd listen to it to see what I like and what I didn't like. All the songs weren't bad - musically they were pretty cool songs. There were one or two that were weak. Then we ended up with the ten songs - actually 11. We had a total of 15 songs, but 11 were the ones we were focusing on. We knew the other ones weren't going anywhere. So we recorded those 11 for the label."

BW&BK;: How does Christ Illusion sit with you today?

Araya: "Yeah, yeah, I'm still happy ... the album came out great. Coming back a year later and doing the song I couldn't do - cuz we did ten songs, but we had 11 recorded. I was going to work on the last song ('Final Six') during the last week of recording, but I didn't get a chance to. Exactly a year later we were in the studio and I was finishing up the last song. Kerry and Jeff had to throw some solos in there too. Of course that song was put on the reissue of the album. In the course of four years, every time I listened to those songs I thought they sounded great. To me, that's the important thing about music - if it can stand the test of time, you've got something good there. I can listen to the record and enjoy it. Recording that new song and making that song a part of the album - the song was really exciting. It was a really energetic song. It really went well with the album - it wasn't a song that was written out of place."

Click here to read Part I and Part II.