Quotes from Tom Araya

Our album 'Show No Mercy' came out in late '83, and we did three or four shows in San Francisco after the release. That was our first experience with stage-divers, crowd-surfing, people walking on people across an entire crowd.

I am not an atheist; I believe in God. But my religion ends there. I have my own personal belief system that is so strong it allows me to do what I do. I don't have to worry about going to Hell because of Slayer, you know? Everyone has a personal belief system and believes in life somehow.

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

I was born and raised Catholic, so it's in my blood. I don't go to church... I was born and raised Catholic, which is about the extent of my religion. My parents made one request: that I have my first Holy Communion.

When you're in a club or a theater or even an arena, yeah, you want visuals, you want a good light show. But Slayer has always been about the sound. We have to sound good. It has to be tight.

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

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

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.

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

Slayer fans are unforgiving. Early on in the career, if something changes, it's accepted. But 30 years down the road, in my opinion, they would rather see us do a three-piece than even try to replace Jeff, in a sense.

When this genre of music started in America, Metallica was up north in California, we were in Southern California, Anthrax was on the East Coast. We each developed our own metal music, and after 30 years, we're still playing our metal music.

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.

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.

When I do interviews, I enter them with an open mind and try to answer the questions the best I can.

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

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

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 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.