The first leg of Slayer’s North American tour is now in the history books. While we wait for the second leg of the tour to kick off on July 26 (followed by a slew of exciting shows in the UK and Europe starting in November), we thought we’d ask members of the four supporting acts on that first round of shows to recount the first time they ever saw Slayer perform.
This week we’ve heard from metal writer Chris Krovatin, Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe, Anthrax’s Scott Ian and Behemoth frontman Nergal. We're finishing off the week with Chuck Billy from Testament. Enjoy:
The first time I saw Slayer was in the Bay Area, at Ruthie’s Inn [in Berkeley], at Exodus shows -- that’s when they used to come up from LA. And we were like, ‘Who are those guys?’ Kerry’s got this spiked bracelet, and I’m like, ‘Holy shit, that dude’s serious!’ Hanneman’s got baseball gear on and I’m like ‘The hell is that? Is somebody attacking his shins with bats?’ So it was different; it was intimidating at first. You didn’t know what to think. But when they played it was like, ‘I get it!’
I think the first time we met Slayer was at [legendary Brooklyn club] L’Amour. We did two nights with them before our first record came out. [Our record label] Megaforce got us the show. And of course, at every Slayer show I’ve been to, fans don’t wanna see the opening act, which gets pummeled and booed. We knew, ‘Nobody knows who we are or what we sound like, they don’t know any of our music. Two nights of this is gonna be brutal.’ But we were up for it! And I just remember on the first night the crowd was brutal to us, but we only had that first record and I think we got the crowd by the third or fourth song.
The next night, the crowd was ready for us, and that’s when we met everybody in the band and became good friends. Me and Tom, more so than everybody else. Over the years, Tom would come up and stay at our house. We’d do things together, you know? We had a pretty good relationship.
Tom and I bonded over weed at the beginning. And I think we both had more of the same personality as each other. We just kind of mellowed, smoked weed, and hung. I think that was our connection. And we have a lot of history touring together.
One time, I cut my wrist over in Europe with Slayer, and I remember I poured it all over Hanneman at the bar. I think we were in Poland, and Tom’s like, ‘We’re gonna go to the hospital.’ Tom’s walking through the place barefoot, and he comes to the hospital with us. The doctor was so nervous; he was trying to stitch me up and he’s shaking, and Tom’s like, ‘Here, give me that! Let me do it!’ (Tom has some medical background from EMT work he did in his early days.) I’m like, ‘Man, look at us: here we are in some weird country, bleeding to death, we’re drunk, and you’re in your bare feet.’