Tom Araya

Whatever had been on the radio in the '60s I mean we were always listening to the radio.

We did like 12 shows, then we did the entire Ozzfest with the first half completely booked then we did the second half with a couple days off here and there.

Venom was a band that strongly influenced the image and the idea behind Slayer.

That was the reasoning behind learning to play bass, and then after that it was more like it was neat to play songs together - for me to play bass and for him to play guitar.

If it were bad songs, yeah, I'd speak up, but they're not bad songs.

I write, I write, I always write.

I try to incorporate melody. Even though I'm screaming, I still like to think I bring melody into screaming.

I just don't write musically, but lyrically, yeah I write.

I have a bunch of stuff written that we haven't used, but I haven't sat down and really focused on what to put toward the album.

I had to be at least 8 or 9 I was listening to everything on the radio. You name it, I heard every song.

I follow politics, but I don't like to discuss it.

Fortune is either with you or it's not.

We would just be learning to play Beatles songs and Rolling Stones songs of that time - of the '60s. That's kinda what inspired me to play.

Oh yeah, our first tour in Europe they wouldn't give me the time off from work.

We flew out to go as a family, and it wasn't bad. It was under a kind of dictatorship, I guess, but I didn't witness anything stupid going on.

No, I have to really focus, especially when I'm writing because I wanna be good at it.

Yeah, yeah I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions towards the band. The biggest one is that we're Satan worshippers, but next to that just the fact that we're normal.

Because of time, we've learned that there are some things that you really have to maintain, like a normal home life and that's a plus.

As long as it's good music, that's what's important.

Sometimes I'll sing the same verse through the entire song, because the other verses aren't clicking. And when they do come to me, I'm in the middle of that same verse

I would have to work on the song and figure out how they wanted the song done, because they're such high-intensity songs. We figure that out first, then I go back and listen to it and go over and rehearse stuff with it and try to get a feel for the words.

After that I didn't listen to music as much because '70s music just wasn't... I remember all the songs, but it wasn't because I was into them, you know what I mean

As far as thinking about death and murder and various ways of killing people and how people die... I probably have the most twisted mind in Slayer.

For the heavier crowd, you're definitely going to get your money's worth from this tour.

I read true crime books, and I read when people do case studies of stuff. I'm into books like that. Case studies or forensics or murder - all that good stuff.