Slayer guitarist Kerry King has unveiled the third video in a series of interviews promoting his debut solo album, From Hell I Rise.
When asked about the reception to From Hell I Rise so far, Kerry said: “I’ve heard from not only friends, journalists, people I’m doing interviews with that they like this better as a whole than any single record I’ve done in my career. It’s hard for me to say that, because I’ve been a part of all that stuff. But good friends are really fired up about this record that wouldn’t blow sunshine up my ass. And journalists I’ve known for a long, long time, but we’re not just acquaintances; they’re friends of mine that I don’t get to see because of the pandemic.
“And now things are getting fired up,” he continued. “I’m gonna see all my journalist friends again. But people are talking this record up really big. And they’ve all heard the whole thing, of course, ’cause they’re doing interviews about it, so they have backup to their story. But I’ve heard people are really stoked about this record. I like this record a lot. I like [SLAYER‘s final album, 2015’s] Repentless a lot. But I think the performance of everybody is better on this one.”
Regarding his choice to name the band Kerry King, the guitarist said: “Well, first and foremost, it was never supposed to bear my name. [Laughs] It just kind of fell into place. We worked for months, we worked for years trying to come up with a f**king name that worked that wasn’t taken, wasn’t used by some other company that made a trademark, a conflict of interest.
“And it was time for some of our first shows to be announced and we had to roll with something. So we had this logo. Somebody said, just call it Kerry King. Everybody knows who you are, everybody knows what you’re about. That being said, the pressure didn’t really hit because everything was done and recorded before we ever got to Kerry King. It was an afterthought, and we had nowhere to go. And everybody loved the logo, so, you know — insert my name.”
In early May, the Kerry King band held its debut live performance at Reggies in Chicago. In the days that followed, the band transitioned from playing an intimate venue to performing at major U.S. festivals like Welcome To Rockville and Sonic Temple.
The Kerry King band kicked off a European tour on June 3 — King’s 60th birthday — in Tilburg, The Netherlands. The tour included headline shows in the U.K., The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Spain, along with appearances at various festivals such as Rock Am Ring, Hellfest, Tuska, Download, Sweden Rock Festival, and many more.
King released his debut solo album, From Hell I Rise, on May 17. The album features Death Angel vocalist Mark Osegueda, longtime Slayer drummer Paul Bostaph, former Hellyeah bassist Kyle Sanders, and ex–Machine Head and ex-Vio-Lence guitarist Phil Demmel.
