SLAYER guitarist Kerry King recently told Eddie Trunk — co-host of the VH1 Classic television program “That Metal Show” who has a long-running radio show, “Friday Night Rocks”, on New York’s Q104.3 FM — that their long-awaited new album will be out this year. It will be their first one since 2009’s “World Painted Blood”.
He states:
We got two songs completed last year that I thought were come out [as an EP] before [we embarked on the Rockstar Energy Drink] Mayhem [Festival last summer]. And since they didn’t, they’re just gonna be on the [full-length] record. They’ve just gotta get mixed. We have another one that just needs vocals and leads, and then me and Dave [Lombardo, drums] are working on eight complete other ones that we haven’t demoed. We’ve just gotta go in…
The whole hold-up now, as with every record we ever do, it seems like [head of Slayer’s longtime label American Recordings] Rick Rubin changes distributors. And we’re kind of, like, left in limbo until he lands somewhere. I mean, realistically, we’re without a deal [right now], but we plan on staying with Rick. But he’s working out his distribution. When that gets settled, we’ll be recording. So I am very comfortable saying it will be out this year.
King also says he hasn’t spoken to guitarist Jeff Hanneman, who contracted a flesh-eating virus from a spider bite in 2010, in a while, but according to their manager, he’s keen to recover and get back to play again. He was asked if Hanneman has participated in the songwriting process, in which he replied:
I have enough material to do it on my own, if need be. But I’m open; if Jeff comes to the party with some material, hell yeah, I’ve got extras.
