The lead guitarist for Slayer has a new solo project out titled From Hell I Rise.
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Kerry King: From Hell I Rise Tour
When: Jan. 20, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Commodore Ballroom, 868 Granville St., Vancouver
Right from the opening instrumental Diablo, it’s clear that King, former Slayer drummer Paul Bostaph, Hellyeah bassist Kyle Sanders, former Machine Head guitarist Phil Demmel and Death Angel howler Mark Osegueda showed up for the sessions ready to record a new chapter in thrash metal’s continuing history.
The project has been on the back-burner for a lot longer than the Slayer farewell tour that wound down in 2019.
“Some of the material on the album goes back decades, with Residue probably the oldest,” said King. “I remember playing those riffs with Paul the last time he was in Slayer and it took awhile to get to the right parts. I knew I liked the song, but it was never complete enough to record with the band and now it’s an integral part of the new record with a great video.”
With its pounding tribal drum beat and scattershot guitar drive, Residue showcases everything that works with the new group. Everyone is playing to the top of their games, but there is no mistaking how Osegueda’s vocals are key to the success of the song. In fact, the singer’s performance throughout eclipses anything he’s recorded previously.
Initially, his involvement in the record was merely as a good friend tracking demos in the studio.
“Me and Mark worked together probably 10 months before he even had the gig, just hanging out making demos and having fun,” said King. “I told him that there was nothing wrong with Death Angel Mark, but he needed to become the Mark that nobody expected and didn’t see coming for this. We got it and recreated him to the point that, if you didn’t know it was him, you wouldn’t identify the voice.”
Everyone involved in the King band has a prior connection with the guitarist and he sings their praises. The prerequisite for the project was that everyone in the group could hang out and have a good time after the shows as well as bringing their A-plus games to From Hell I Rise.
“Phil is just so damn good that I knew he had to be there,” said King. “He filled in on some final Slayer dates in Europe in 2018 when Gary Holt had to go home for a family emergency and he came in and said, ‘I want to be a part of your future.’ It had never occurred to me but it was a total slam-dunk.”
With the pieces all in place, King freely admits that this isn’t Slayer. He jokes about being backstage at a festival show in Europe last summer in a non-headliner room announcing to his bandmates: “Welcome to starting over.”
A recent tour saw King’s group opening for Mastadon and Lamb of God, both of whom previously opened for Slayer. King says that it was nice to see the reciprocity from acts that had been given a leg up by his old group in the past.
“We’ve all had differing levels of success in our previous projects, but starting over is what it is,” he said. “Here we are with our first record, feeling it out and seeing what it takes to be at this level while gearing up for Album 2 and climbing the ranks. It’s on the horizon, but not tomorrow as these things do take a little time to get all the chips in line.”
At age 60, King doesn’t sound road-weary. The excitement around the new material and playing with the new band is pretty obvious in his voice, and he is particularly pumped about the coming Commodore Ballroom show.
“Vancouver was my home off-and-on for over three months recording God Hates Us All and I really got to know the town,” he said. “It was hockey season when I was there, which was totally killer. Football is my main thing, but hockey comes second.”
King says From Hell I Rise is a ‘big middle finger’ to the whole idea of growing up and being serious. The self-described metal kid is in no rush to become a metal man, preferring to stick to wearing camo and writing riffs that make his ears tingle.
With a long history of making angry music, the question of whether he wakes up mad at the world or not comes up. It turns out, that the same things that drive all of us around the bend bring him to the edge as well. But rather than rage at random, he channels it into songs like the hardcore punk homage Two Fists or searing Crucifixation.
“There is a line in Crucifixation that goes, ‘It’s a bottle neck of idiocy’ and I wrote that in an L.A. traffic jam,” he said. “So it has nothing to do with the topic or Christianity, but how I go about working those kind of daily observations into the topic you’re after is the thing. Honestly, it’s not hard to write angry music these days as there are limitless outside influences to draw upon.”
He says that even those fans who haven’t heard the new album are going to come away from the shows on this tour seeing a band “clicking on all cylinders” that can hold its own against greats past and present.