Slayer’s guitarist Kerry King has been known for always speaking his mind, no matter how that comes out or who it would offend. At the same time, he’s also known for thinking very high of himself and his band no matter what the general opinion is, so when it comes to seeing himself next to other successful bands like Metallica or Iron Maiden, it’s no surprise he believes he’s better than them.
During a recent interview with RVAMag, King discussed many topics, including the impact of Jeff Hanneman’s death on the band’s future and how the effort it took to go back into writing new music before the release of their latest album Repentless and he made a reference to other bands with a long career history like Metallica and Iron Maiden but by saying they are “living on past success.”
“We’re living on our history for sure, but so is everyone else, yet we’re the ones trying to push ourselves forward. I would say Iron Maiden and Metallica, no offense, are living on past success. Metallica has toured forever on the ‘black’ record which a lot of people don’t like. I actually like it. It’s heavy as can be. Is it ‘Master Of Puppets’? Of course not, but it’s a great record. Iron Maiden, for me, is living off their first three records. Have they made good songs since then? Yeah, but they haven’t made great records. I like to think we’re still making great records and as much as people come out wanting to hear ‘Raining Blood’ and ‘Angel Of Death’, they also want to hear ‘Disciple’ or even ‘Implode’.”
Repentless was released last year and sold 49,000 copies on its release weekend and is the highest charting album of their career and did very well in many parts of the world like in Germany (No. 1), Holland (No. 2), Australia (No. 3), New Zealand (No. 8), the U.K. (No. 11) and on the Japanese International Chart (No. 1). It bowed at No. 3 in Finland, No. 4 in Belgium, and No. 5 in both Sweden and Greece. Additionally, the album debuted in the Top 10 in France (No. 7), Italy (No. 8), Hungary (No. 9), and Japan (No. 10).
