Metal-Rules.com has issued a new interview, conducted with SLAYER bassist/vocalist Tom Araya by phone from his home in Texas. He talks about the band's North American tour, the loss of guitarist Jeff Hanneman (who died in May of alcohol-related liver failure), how the band has handled things in the aftermath and the new material that has been kicking around. He also noted that what the future holds for the band will be determined once he and Kerry King are able to “sit down and talk Slayer” after the upcoming tour is over. An excerpt from the interview follows:

Q: You’ll be getting back into more “intimate” places on this North American tour, are you looking forward to that?

Tom: "Yeah. We’re going to be doing theaters, between 2,000 and 5,000 seaters, so it’ll be good. It’s the first time we’re actually doing a Slayer tour, as opposed to being a part of a big tour, in a very long time. The last few tours we’ve done across the states have been with co-headlining acts or festivals. It’s never just been a Slayer tour with two special guests as opening acts. We figured we’d just keep it simple and hit theaters and small arenas. We’ll see how it is, we hope it’s successful, but we haven’t done it in a while."

Q: Are you interested in seeing people’s reactions here to the new Slayer, the new old Slayer, or whatever people think it is?

Tom: (laughs) "I don’t know. They’ve experienced Slayer with Gary, and everybody’s experienced Slayer with Paul because Paul was part of the band for quite a few years, so it’ll be time for everybody to get reacquainted with Paul and acclimated to this lineup. Gary has been playing with us for two years now, if you can believe that. People have seen the various pieces, just not all together.

Paul’s always been a friend. When he left it was on his terms and it was no bad feelings at all. Paul felt he needed to move on and it wasn’t on bad terms and to have him back and playing in the band is awesome. It’s like we’re taking up where we left off with Paul and he’s amazing. He’s full of energy, he’s excited to be back and he’s excited to be part of Slayer again. So it makes for very energetic shows and very exciting times.

This is gonna be good. Like I said, everybody is going to be reacquainted with Paul and everybody knows Gary has been filling in, now it’s just a whole different circumstance knowing that Jeff has passed. I’m sure everyone will enjoy it. Paul is very energetic and excited, which makes everybody else excited. It’ll be good and it will allow closure for everybody."

Read the full interview at this location.