Slayer guitarist Kerry King has long hinted at a future solo project, and earlier this week, he announced that his solo band’s first show is scheduled for next year at the Welcome To Rockville festival set for May 9-12 in Daytona Beach, Florida.
King’s band, simply named Kerry King, will also feature former Slayer drummer Paul Bostaph. In 2022, King talked about the project with Metal Hammer saying: “You know me, so you know what it’s going to sound like,” King said. “I played this new song for a buddy, and I said to him, ‘If there’s anything I’ve written in the last few years that sounds like Slayer, it’s this.’ And he said, ‘That sounds like you could have pulled it off of any Slayer record.’ I actually made that riff up backstage at a Slayer show. We were walking to the stage and I got my phone out and recorded it so I wouldn’t forget it.”
Now that King has announced his return, talk has naturally turned to the possibility of a Slayer reunion. The band called it quits in 2019, and has remained one of the only bands that has stayed retired after announcing their farewell.
Former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo, who is currently working on a new project called Empire State Bastard, was recently asked on the Mark And Me podcast if he would hypothetically be interested in a Slayer reunion. He politely declined to answer the question explaining: “I really don’t wanna answer anything like that because what ends up happening is that the focus right now would be Empire State Bastard and my future, and the future, which is… I think, a big part of my personal success is that I don’t look back. I’m always striving to better myself musically in every way possible, so answering a question like that sometimes takes away of what our focus is on right now. So, respectfully, I’m gonna have to decline to answer that question.”
Earlier this year he told Revolver: “I don’t even go down that path. I don’t see it ever happening. If they ever do decide to come back, they’re going to piss off a lot of fans because, man, they really hyped that farewell tour. They’re going to have to be very careful on how they approach that. But who cares? The fans will be happy regardless. So, I don’t even think about that.”
