There are tons of non-official Facebook fan pages, and Slayer probably have a bunch of them. However, frontman Tom Araya might have made one of them temporarily more popular than they ever were. It’s That Fuckin Slayer Gang appears to exist only to have fans make a gang signal that’s a Slayer “S,” and got some high profile people to make the sign, namely, Tom Araya and his wife Sandra.
All was good and fine until recently, when Tom left a message on the his wife’s Facebook page accusing the page of cyberbullying and being “distasteful, rude and disrespectful.” Here’s the text of what he said, as transcribed by Blabbermouth:
I hate to blame an entire group for the actions of a few.
There is a group on Facebook that associate themselves with my band, SLAYER, Claiming to be fans, they made up a sign that they use to represent themselves as SLAYER fans. They call themselves F–king Slayer Gang, [or] FSG. They came into existence about eight months ago and had approached my wife, Sandra, under the guise of a family asking for support and if she would ask me if I would also show support by throwing the SLAYER hand sign that they had come up with.
After a few months had passed, my wife did not like how this group was managing their Facebook page and decided it was best to leave their group and all other groups she was part of. The conduct that this group was showing, and has shown, is distasteful, rude and disrespectful to all SLAYER and metal fans.
Now, I [flashed] this sign [for a photo] in support for my wife, who later told me that it was not a good idea to associate with this group or sign, that they were cyberbullies and that they would attack anyone who questioned their motives, and have even gone as far as attacking my wife publicly on SLAYER fan pages and metal fan pages.
It has come to our attention that they have taken liberties with the photo of myself and my wife [throwing] the so-called ‘SLAYER sign’ by posting these pictures and claiming our support. Well, I’m here to say that it’s not true. We do not support this gang or such behavior.
The metal community is a growing community of loyal fans, not only to the bands that they support, but to each other.
Thank you.
The page responded with a statement, claiming they’re just trying to help spread the gospel of Slayer:
It’s sad to hear that the arayas have come out against fsg my only intentions were to honor my favorite metal band nothing more. The sign only means we love slayer but now I guess I’m being accused of being a cyberbully but I always try to stay away from the drama and keep it about the sign I don’t go around hating on people who throw horns or disagree with the sign or threaten people over it. That’s just stupid. My love for slayer has been tarnished by haters who work behind the scenes to discredit fsg. But I’m not here to clash with fans or slayer and if you look at my cover pic I’m throwing the horns at jeffs memorial it’s just a bunch of haters talking to sandra and turning her against fsg and it sucks.
At the end of the day, the fan page has gotten more attention in the past weekend than they ever would have gotten otherwise. And even after all that, they’ve only got 1,022 likes. It’d be interesting to know how many people knew about it before the Arayas distanced themselves from it. Slayer’s new album is expected out later this year.