Reporting on Austraila's Soundwave events, Sydney Morning Herald's Michael Dwyer spoke with ROB ZOMBIE and SLAYER's Tom Araya. The following is an excerpt:

Californian thrash-metal band Slayer are other Soundwave headliners whose past stoushes with moral custodians appear to have been eclipsed by darker days in the real world.

Their latest album, World Painted Blood begins with a typically dismembering onslaught. "Disease spreading death/Entire population dies/Dead before you're born/Massive suicide/Vicious game of fear/It's all extermination now/Poison in your veins/Global genocide/Slaughter governs law/The apocalypse begins" — all just drops in the bloodbath of modern global affairs, according to singer/bassist Tom Araya.

"Look around you, man," he chuckles. "There are so many things out there that we've done to ourselves for the sake of money. That's obvious.

"If this world was my science project, you know what I'd do? I'd take that Petri dish, rinse it out and start all over again. And from what I gather, that's happened before, right? The world says, 'I don't like what you're doing to me, get the f--- off'.

"Let's start again. I think it's time. I think it coincides with the [Mayan] 2012 calendar. The world as we know it will change, you know what I mean? No oil. That would be strange, living with no oil. No electricity. No communications. No money . . ."

It is hard to take issue with the Slayer songs that deal with apocalypse through the greed and neglect of humanity. More challenging are the torturers and serial killers whose horrible monologues form the substance of songs such as 'Playing with Dolls' and 'Beauty Through Order'.

Again, Araya says he merely takes his cues from CNN to come up with his flesh-slicing characters doing unspeakable things with heated iron bars. Well, mostly from CNN, anyway.

"You get a little help with your guitar players [Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King] chiming in every now and again," he cackles. "You've got brothers in arms coming in with stuff that they've written and you feel their pain. So you write about that."

There's one thing that stops Araya laughing. Asked if he'd care to share an item of fan mail more horrifying than his songs, he politely declines.

"Mmm. No. I cannot share that," he says quietly. "It's horrifying enough to know that people can find where you live and send you things.

"That's scary enough. The most terrible horror that I can tell is not one of my stories. That's how horrifying it's gotten. And that's sad."

Read the full report at this location.